Why did you do this film?

When not directing this film, I run a tuition free postgraduate university in Amsterdam and London in the basement of nightclubs. There my colleagues and I, teach students how to use a plurality of disciplines and thoughts (ie; film, music, design, politics, theatre and linguistics) to reveal and shift power structures in institutions. This university was founded in 2017 as a charity with a set of partners in crime including activists and scholars Noam Chomsky, Arjun Appadurai or Nadya of Pussy Riot who feature in the documentary. My students are part of the reason why I started the film, as I felt that I needed to build a federation of partners around our educative structure, to demonstrate to them the importance of the act of thinking and the need for plurality of thoughts and transnational education. When we created the University of the Underground, we also received critique around the model we proposed to fund higher education. As a response, I decided to make a film that will advocate on behalf of critical thinking, action and plurality- some of my students also feature in the movie. 

What was your approach directing this film?

For the past 10 years, I have developed my practice as a ‘designer of experiences’ using events and actions to modify existing systems in institutions, I have worked with the United Nations, with federal agencies like NASA and governments to prove the need and impact of such creative and plural approaches in the institutions and the workforce. Alongside this, I have produced and directed two feature length documentaries prior to I am (not) a monster. So when I created this specific film- that revolves around education and the means by which knowledge exists, I approached it from my original background. Indeed, I was trained in textile design and kimono making in Japan, and than went on to study design and then finally political philosophy and human geography.
I reached out to all of the film contributors on the basis of their experiences or knowledge in one specific area of research around thinking, activism or making; performing identities (i.e.: Bunraku and Noh Theatre). All of the contributors are introduced as partners in crime, but also recognised as ‘oracles’, bringing us each time closer to the ‘origins of knowledge’, its mechanics and power structures. 

What were are the core ideas introduced in this film? Why is it ‘most urgent’?

The film introduces some of my core beliefs in thinking through experiences, experimental actions and independent education; namely for me: 1)-education should be free and we should make our own economic systems to maintain it ; 2)- education should exist beyond nation states as a transnational entity- independent from governmental politics; 3)- schools have to maintain plurality both in their approach but also in leadership. 

It is a most urgent film as it is advocating for transnationalism (no more nation states) and plurality in education and beyond in the reminiscence of totalitarianism temptations and ideological policies with Trump, Le Pen and now Bolsonaro in Brazil. It is introducing these complex and urgent notions with humour and reenactments. In this context, it is important to address plurality in thinking, now more than ever, since the temptation for ideological regimes are making a fierce revival in society. Hannah Arendt and her writing in this context is therefore incredibly relevant as she reminds us what happened with authoritarian regimes during the Second World War but also our capacity to banalize the evil and to forget the importance of thinking in our modern bureaucracy, educative and political systems. I stand- more than ever- behind this film. It is my third feature, and as a woman filmmaker brought up in a family of immigrants (my dad is born in Algeria and my mum in from Armenian descent); it also expresses my strongest belief that nation states have to be questioned as a format and that to consider a transnational form of education is now more than ever urgent and necessary.

What are you trying to achieve with this film? And what are the other means and platforms by which one can experience the ideas introduced in the film?

As part of the film, I met the directors of other schools in an attempt to create a federation of transnational schools over the globe following the release of the film.
I hope to actively build this network of schools, organised communities and individuals with the film release, by introducing debate and active discussions with the films’ contributors and members of the audience, but also students and parents. We are also developing multi-platform events (ie: live performance, installation, debate, dinner, workshops, concert and DJ sets) with the University of the Underground’s collaborators, universities and nightclubs as a part of the films release.  Music is also central to the film. I worked with Matt Werth, who leads an independent Brooklyn based electro label called RVNG International, with an international roster of electro musicians from Japan, Colombia, USA and more. We are also working on a record in collaboration with our friends at the Vinyl Factory in the UK, which will host a set of ‘dangerous thoughts’ recorded whilst creating the film with the contributors of the film. And there were many- we interviewed more than 54 individuals and thinkers for this film. All of these assets will be exhibited in collaboration with our partners in Holland, at art institute MU, and in Belgium at Z33, house for contemporary arts, but also many other places- all of this will be announced and released on this website! So keep watching this space!