Filmmaking
It is an interesting world we live in now, heavily influenced by digital images and sounds cut together to give an illusion of something that is not at all related to reality. I am referring to media, which started in press, journalism, and is now very calculated in social media today. It studies human psychology in order to be captivating, in other words, algorithms. The general population does not realize the effect and complexity of media, and how it can be constructed to push ideologies. This can be used in a selfish way. However, it can also be used in a beautiful, open, interpretive, experimental way, such as film: a canvas provided for every individual audience member to implant their own personalized ideas and emotions into a story. I value art so highly because it takes place beyond all human intellectuality, ego, and literacy.
Subjectivity is honesty.
Soul 13 Films
Ethan's production company, Soul 13 Films, crafts films:
EGOPHOBIA (2025)
Selected for Big Apple Film Festival 2025
written & directed by Ethan Pann
cinematography by Javier Andres Lozano
starring Armani Gabriel | Sanath Saji | Nicolas Greca | Liam Sebastian
When four homies take psychedelic mushrooms in a park, their philosophical discussions about reality? and ego spiral into psychological oblivion, forcing them to confront the consequences of their unfiltered truths.
Director's Statement
One of the many beautiful privileges of film that really took me a while to understand inside and out is its ability to provoke an audience member’s inner/subconscious truth, the impulse before the filtration. If what is provoked contradicts that audience members conscious “truth”/morals/stable conclusions, this now creates inner conflict in just one audience member, which can occur differently among each other audience member. I love this because it amplifies the vastness and range of interpretations that each audience member paints on the canvas provided. An example, a husband has an affair, the wife finds out and murders him… Let’s take an example audience member that is immediately satisfied by this murder, since the husband had an affair first, “Yesss!” they think, “Wait what? I shouldn’t- wait no I shouldn’t think that. That’s bad.” There is now an inner conflict in their head. At this point, are any of the acknowledged types of conflicts necessary to captivate them? This is what I asked myself, repeatedly, over these past 9 months. The inability to answer it and where it got me was a piece that is an open source for an audience to meditate on or be conflicted by, or who knows what else. I am very grateful that I was able to let go of my script and let life take its form, questions posed but unanswered. You, the audience, decide your journey through this story.
I have found that as an artist, I enjoy creating specifically from experience and imagination rather than research, as there is far more memory and sensible relation between the artist and their source. If I make a film set in medieval times, I’m going to feel the need to touch those archer helmets inside those glass cases in museums, try it on, how heavy is it? I'm going to feel the need to learn the weapons that were used, how to maintain them, and so forth.
I was blessed with my actors, thank you guys. They delivered specific characters that created whatever pathways you want it to create. Common knowledge is when editors cut scenes, they look for moments of “neutral expression” (from before action is called) to use for reaction shots for when others have dialogue in order to let the audience decide what they are thinking… I didn’t have to, there were 4 unpredictable canvases (the actors) in this footage that drove my first baby beautifully. Being an actor, I saw that they had found their processes for this purpose, they somehow picked up on the subtext of what I had consciously and subconsciously engraved in the script. With respect to the actors’ process, I felt on set that I should not touch anything, give as little feedback as possible, just leave it and let it live. We molded a structure, prior to production, then threw everything out the window, which was a beautiful experience for me.
This closest thing this film has to an “intended impact” is that I hope you leave the theater, thinking. I encourage all to, rather than disregard queries that are brought about because they seem “stupid”, allow yourself to go those places and feel whatever it is you think "happened", rather than questioning intention. This preserves one of the beauties of art. Egophobia is not a word, by the way.
"untitled MASTER" - a forever going social experiment
Stills
