Janek Ambros - Assembly Line Entertainment

Welcome to another Charles Cormier podcast. We have Janek Ambrose with us. Janek is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter in LA. He's the founder of Assembly Line Entertainment, an American film production company. He's widely known from directing an award-winning documentary film like Imminent Threat, Mondo Hollywoodland, and Ukrainians in exile. So I don't often interview producers or screenwriters, but Janeck, welcome to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you've built.

Yeah, man, thanks so much for having me on, man. Uh, Charles, I really appreciate it. Um, uh, yeah, no, uh, you know, uh, writer, director, producer. I, I do that under, under all, uh, of the umbrella of Assembly Line Entertainment. which I founded when I was, uh, you know, back when I was 22 in, uh, in 2012. And, um, since then, just continuing to make movies— small, big, avant-garde, uh, commercial, documentary, um, farcical, and comedy. So it really— any, anything, anything goes. That's movies. I, I predominantly stick to movies. I don't do TV, but movies, movies, movies. That's kind of— that's like the one, uh, that's the one kind of, uh, main focus at my company, right?

Um, when you were 22, what were your expectations with your career, and have you accomplished most of what you wanted to accomplish back then?

Uh, I would say my expectations were, um, Were to make movies. I know that sounds kind of, you know, almost kind of like redundant at this point, because— but like, no, it really was to just make movies. And I, and I, my expectations were just to make movies that I, I cared about telling. I cared about, you know, telling stories about. Um, I tried to always kind of have a funny, weird expectation thing where I'm like, well, don't expect too much, but don't expect too little. You should hide have high goals for yourself. But ultimately, it was just to make feature-length movies. And, you know, and I did that. So, so after a while, that, that felt good, right? But it's always like, you know, trying to make them bigger, but also trying to manage the expectation of if you make them bigger, then you can't really tell the stories you might want to tell, which are very politically charged, or more satirical. You know, big movies that influenced me were, um, thankfully a lot of the people who I get advice from now, who are my heroes and, and, and, uh, and so on, but are like Goodfellas and Apocalypse Now and, uh, and, and movies that might not be so obviously mainstream, like, like a, like a superhero movie or a Christopher Nolan movie when he made Batman. Of course, now he's doing stuff that's so cool that like shouldn't be, uh, commercially viable, but it is because he's so amazing. So, uh, yeah, I hope that answers your question. Sorry, I know it's a vague— it's a, it's a, it's a perfectly, uh, perfectly asked question, but in, in vague in the best way possible.

So, right, right. Um, Hollywood, is it a mafia? Uh, what does it take to get to the top, and is that one of your objectives? Like, let's say Steven Spielberg level, right? Like, I'm having his co-founder in like 2, 3 days on the podcast. How'd you get there?

I hope you don't mind if I vape. Is that okay?

Yeah, sure.

Okay.

All right.

Sorry about that. Yeah, no, Steven Spielberg. It's funny you mentioned him because he's one of my heroes. I actually have, if you don't mind, I know there was some sound stuff going on, but that's me and him. And then I have the Jurassic Park above that. So he's always a reminder that, you know, you can make— he made— in the same year he had Jurassic Park and Schindler's List come out. So I mean, the range of that is astronomically brilliant, you know, in my opinion, and I think anybody's opinion. So, you know, it's, it's, it's really about that. It's really about kind of trying to be able to be commercially viable But at the same time artistically viable. And I think that 1993 year that Spielberg came out of the movie with perfectly encapsulates that. It's like, can you be— movies are the— movies are the combination of art and commerce. And I think that's why it's so exciting, because I, I love entrepreneurial— entrepreneurship, but I love art. And I think movies are the perfect combination of those 2 things. And so for, for someone like me, Spielberg in 1993 perfectly grabs that. Um, so I, I'm sorry, I know that might not be an answer to your question, but, um, but, but yeah.

Have you watched his latest movie, uh, Disclosure Day?

I actually haven't. I actually haven't. Utterly bad.

I'm not sure what happened there.

Yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, uh, you know, Steven Spielberg's made a lot of movies, right? So you're not gonna all hit. The only person I think that might have a— have a— have one of the fewest perfect records are Paul Thomas Anderson and, and maybe Stanley Kubrick. But, but to me, that's not what movies is. It's— movies aren't a, a, a, you know, let's try to get as many perfect movies as possible. I, I believe it's about You know, throwing what you want out into the world and seeing what sticks. I do believe in that. And I do believe that not everything should be perfectly— you know, you should try to make everything perfect. Like, I'm a big believer in like the 1960s culture of like making movies for the sake of you trying to explore yourself as an artist. And then if it lands in the audience, great. But you shouldn't— I don't, I don't believe in the idea of trying to make a perfect filmography. And, and, you know, even Tarantino is kind of, I want to make 10 movies and that's it, and, and not kind of be one of those directors that gets older and maybe doesn't make great movies when they're older. But it's like, hey, if you're older and you're trying to express something, what's wrong with that? You know, maybe it's not perfect, but I still think that's a— if the whole point of movies is to explore stuff you're experiencing, And maybe somebody connects with that. I think that's what movies are about. I don't think it's about creating a perfect filmography. I mean, if that was the case, then it would just be like sports or something, you know, which is— I love sports, but I just think it's antithetical to art.

Right. It's interesting. Have you studied though, like, artists in their prime and what makes them in their prime and past their primes?

Yeah, I mean, a little bit. I mean, I, I don't really— I don't, I don't I guess in theory, in theory, an artist in their prime would be something we read now, and we look at them as in their prime. But that changes over decades. Right? So like, I don't know if we'll see, you know, I mean, when Apocalypse Now came out, people said, well, this is kind of— this is Coppola kind of going off the rails a little bit. But now we see that as his prime. So it always changes, you know. Um, now I don't know if we'll say that about Megalopolis, you know. I think we'll safely say that maybe— but who knows? I don't know, maybe in 100 years that was, uh, people look at it differently. The point is though, is I don't think art can be in a prime. And it— I don't see filmographies as sports, you know, because ultimately when you're— when an athlete's in their prime, they're what? You know, in, in hockey it's, uh, 24 to 28, right? Or 22 to 26. But I mean, it's just not— as an artist, your, your brain's always evolving. It's, it's not sports. So I don't know what a prime is. Look at F for Fake by Orson Welles, right? So when, when Orson Welles was making, uh, Citizen Kane know, it was arguably the greatest movie of all time. But then he made F for Fake when he was in his 70s, and now people can look at that and say, well, maybe he was ahead of his time. He was doing stuff that people are starting to catch up to in terms of like the advent of social media and kind of, uh, voyeurism and kind of describing what one might think of as being art or forgery. Um, and so you just— I just don't know. I don't think there's enough time in the history of cinema to really know what prime is because cinema has only been around for 140, 150 years, you know. And before then, of course, it was magic lanterns. But magic lanterns were around for 600 years, and that was more because of the people trying to, uh, spread religion. And so there wasn't as much storytelling and authorship in that. So I just think it's too early for cinema, you know. I think for books we have an idea of what's prime, when people have their kind of best stuff, but I think for movies we're just way too early. Too early.

Right. Um, you said that this is an art, this is a way to discover yourself. Why did you get into documentary, and how documentaries and nonfiction is different, uh, tool to discover yourself rather than fiction?

That's a great question. I ultimately think that documentary filmmaking for me was a more direct line to tell people how I felt. Where fiction was a more subterranean, tertiary, kind of maybe more of a pathos way of kind of explaining how I or rather, maybe not explaining, but, but conveying how I maybe felt in the subconscious, where documentary filmmaking is a much more one-to-one thing about saying, hey, this is how I feel about a certain issue, which I don't find as interesting, frankly. I enjoy doing it. I think there's a sense of duty, I think, to do it, like, especially with the Ukrainians in exile, I felt very compelled to help a cause. But frankly, I'm less interested in that. I think that that's a noble effort. But for me, it was more of a— it was more of a necessity rather than something I like doing. I like to be more abstract in the way I view things and, and a little bit more ambiguous in the way I like to view things, where with documentary filmmaking, it's very much Hey, this is what I think. This is what I think you should do. So I like to be very— some people like making documentary filmmaking or documentary films and say, well, I don't want you to know exactly what I think. Where frankly, when I make nonfiction films, I don't want you to know what I really think politically. But when I make a documentary, I'm fine with telling you how I feel. I don't see what the point of mincing around that, frankly. Um, so yeah, they're very different, but I tend to actually like non— uh, to like narrative filmmaking much more.

Did you get heat from, uh, Imminent Threat?

Yeah, actually. I mean, not heat, but like, you know, because it was a, it was a pretty low-budget movie. Um, it was— I did make that in a time where You know, it was an anti— it was an anti-Obama Doctrine foreign policy movie. But that was very unusual at the time. Because everybody in, you know, broader Hollywood, or, you know, were frankly on board with the Obama Doctrine. And so people would thought I was making a right-wing movie, which was very funny. Because I was like, what? Because I was basically making a movie about how, you know, maybe blowing up, you know, parts of Somalia wasn't exactly an anti-war view. And so, but people were confused by that, especially in Hollywood. I mean, they didn't really understand what that was like, you know, publicists or distributors. But no, there definitely was a cohort of people in the, in the, in the broader In the— in the— I should say, when I made this movie in 2015, there was a subset of leftists, predominantly Jeremy Scahill, Michael Hastings, who this documentary was dedicated to, Sam Seder, who is a— who is more of a pundit. You know, I think I mentioned Jeremy Scahill, Glenn Greenwald. But he now he's a little bit, you know, I think different politically. But still, you know, it was— so there was a, there was a very small subset of the left that was on board, for lack of a better way of putting it, with this type of politics. Um, so it was, it was a different time, though. I mean, now this wouldn't be that controversial at all. I mean, And now it's like on Marawaki that we killed him, that we had a very kind of sloppy drone program. And so it is very funny to see the difference between now and 2015, where now this is almost just obvious. I mean, there's a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum that would be very against our kind of unfettered you know, drone war that just basically is like a blind drone war that just basically goes off the, the, the, the 2002 AUMF to go after anybody we consider a terrorist. So, so yeah, so that it was a much different political landscape when I made this in 2015. And I was very young. And so I was, you know, I was probably— I was 24 when I made this movie. So I, I, it was a little bit, uh, it was frustrating with a lot of the documentary film, uh, film festivals because they did see this as some sort of like knock on, uh, uh, Barack Obama, you know, God forbid, you know. Uh, but it was, frankly, it was, it was a knock on his foreign policy. And you, do you feel civil liberties have diminished as well since COVID Dude, civil liberties, uh, in this country, uh, since not just COVID, uh, I don't even think COVID really had— I mean, yeah, I mean, admittedly, I'm not an expert on how civil liberties affected, uh, or COVID, uh, impacted civil liberties. I, I really don't mean that as a cop-out. I just, I just don't know. I don't— as a filmmaker, you jump around to different topics and stuff like that. But I'll tell you this, since I made this movie, civil liberties, I mean, it's a complete joke now. I mean, it's like, you know, the way that the internet, the AI internet, I mean, I shouldn't just say AI, but I just— the, the, the, the, the, the rise, the advent of technology, and, and all these things. It's just, yeah, I mean, we just, I mean, the idea of anybody even thinking about the Fourth Amendment or anything these days. It's, you know, it's a joke now. So, so it is a very surreal way to look at it. I think, I think there's some hope. I think there's some still people who care about at least the, you know, first, the First Amendment laws in this country are better than a lot in Europe. I don't want to pretend to be an expert in, you know, in some of the European, the EU laws with, with, with with free speech. But I still think there's, you know, America still has some decent, you know, laws protecting free speech. So there's— that's civil liberties, right? But, but no, I mean, people have really stopped caring about civil liberties as technology kind of continues to rise. At least that's from my— and like I said, I'm not an expert in this. These are documentaries I made 10 years ago. So I don't want to pretend that I'm keeping up with everything. But yeah, I hope that answers your question.

Sorry, I don't think you kept up with the Russia versus Ukraine war though, right? Like, is that about to end? I think there's been news as of late that Russian rubble and the economy is in shambles right now. Is that good? Yeah, I mean, so, and the exile crisis.

Yeah, no, so I'd love to, you know, just touch upon that briefly because for me that was much more of a I want to help Ukrainian refugees. If there wasn't as big of a political— capital P political— um, you know, uh, like there wasn't big of— there wasn't as much of a big capital P, this is what I'm trying to say with this movie, this is what I want done. For me personally This was a movie about— and I had 20 hours of footage. And I decided to make it a 6-minute film. And the 6-minute film was strictly just to help people take out their pocketbooks and help give money to Ukrainian refugees. And I'm not saying that as a cop-out to say I don't know about the war. You know, I have my own views on that. And, you know, they're not that shocking. I'm against— I'm against Putin.

I'm—

I, uh, I, I, I, I do generally think that, uh, you know, we, we should be helping, uh, you know, Ukraine, uh, against Russia. Um, you know, do I have specific, you know, contingencies about, about, you know, whether or not it should be, uh, um, you know, uh, you know, uh, no-fly zones? I mean, that gets a little bit more specific. Yeah. But no, ultimately, I'm a huge supporter of Ukraine. And my documentary is mostly to just convince people to convince to to encourage people to help refugees. That's and and and specifically put money into Blue Check Ukraine, which was founded by Leo Schreiber and Jason Cohen and all a lot of these great people. So for that, it's— I don't see too much of a connection between those 2 things, between kind of the civil liberties and Russia and Ukraine. To me, I don't— I haven't really made that connection, frankly, especially because it's just foreign policy and the other one is domestic, you know, Fourth Amendment and First Amendment rights. Now, of course, I mean, have there been issues with First Amendment rights about speaking out against our foreign policy with Russia? Maybe, but I don't think there's been any espionage acts or anything like that. And maybe I might be wrong. I don't think so, though.

How did it feel to be on the ground there? Did— what visceral insights did you have from seeing all this madness? Acting up in front of your very eyes?

Um, yeah, I don't, you know, want to be dramatic. I don't want to be dramatic about it. I was, you know, I was in NATO. I was in Poland. So I didn't really, you know, there was moments, I guess, I think everybody felt in the world. I don't think it was just being in Poland. I think everybody in the Western world felt a little bit uneasy at that time.

Right?

I think if you were in London, or if you were in Hamburg, or, you know, and really, you know, if you were really anywhere, it just was uneasy those first 2 weeks. So I wouldn't want to pretend that there was any kind of special, you know, yeah, I mean, obviously, of course, it was strange being in Przemyśl. And there was, there was, you know, it was more sad just seeing a lot of Ukrainians flee. It was— it wasn't so much about, you know, my safety or anything like that. Like I said, I was in a NATO country. But yeah, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was disturbing, frankly. I think it connected me a lot back to being— hearing stories about my grandparents in World War II, who were thrown into, you know, Russian labor camps and stuff like that. So I felt compelled to fly there and to help. I felt very helpless. I wanted to help. I have, I have a lot of just deep connection to Eastern Europe. I have Ukrainian friends that I care deeply about. I want, I, you know, I want to, I want to try to be a good citizen of the world, right? And that sounds kind of lame or whatever. But, but so, so I wanted to help. So it wasn't really about making a movie. I kind of first just went there to help, you know, help with refugees. And then I brought a camera, of course, you know, I didn't record anything. I didn't, I didn't record audio because I didn't want to bother anybody. And I kind of, as time went on, cobbled together a little movie, and then use that as a way to help people to donate to Leo Schreiber's charity. And yeah, so that was it. I just felt compelled, I think, because of my upbringing with, you know, in my family history with World War II, that I really wanted to do something. So I can say, okay, well, when I— at least I tried to do something to help, you know, when that unspeakable thing happened with that, you know, stupid— completely pointless, psychotic, you know, sloppy— not, not to diminish it down to any kind of military terms, because either way it's disgusting. And even if it was effective, that wouldn't make it right. But just sloppy and stupid, uh, invasion of Ukraine. I mean, yes, it was just very, just very stupid. Like, I mean, and like I said, I don't want to make it sound like, oh, if it was smart or effective, that would make it any better. if anything, maybe make it worse. But it was just— and it just speaks to, uh, you know, Russians' foreign policy, and they're just— it's like, it's like, it's like a 1940s land grab.

I mean, it's like, yeah, it's very chaotic, um, especially if you study their backend. Yannick, thanks for being on the podcast. Where can people find out more about you?

Yeah, and so I'm sorry, I talk a lot, so sorry if I didn't— we didn't get to have more of a conversation. I feel bad actually now. So, uh, no, it's, uh, Assembly Line Entertainment is the best way to find me on Instagram and the stuff we make. But, um, but yeah, thank you so much for having me on. Like I said, I'm a chatterbox, so I hope it's okay that I just kind of blah, blah, blah.

That's okay. Uh, that's the goal of