Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan Ruth here. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hey Human podcast. This is episode 425, and my guest is Alrik Rocha. Alrik's film, Love, Blood, and Aztec Demons, the lost films of Juan Moctezuma the second has been a 10 year labor of love and quest to explore and restore the lost films of a legendary Mexican filmmaker whose complicated life and obsessions cost him everything. Ulrich is also an instructor at the Los Angeles Film School, where I recently saw a screening of the film. It is fantastic. I absolutely loved it. It's got love triangles, lucha libre matches, mayhem, love, obsession, betrayal. It's got everything. It's like no documentary I have ever seen, and that is for sure. I really enjoyed this conversation and learning more about Ulrich's project and where it's going. We're actually gonna be in a couple film festivals coming up, at the same film festivals together, so that's pretty exciting. It's always fun when friends do well. I think you're really gonna enjoy this episode. It's really interesting. General stuff, Hey, Human podcast is now on YouTube under official Susan Ruth. I'm on Patreon at susanruthism, helps keep the show ad free. Please become a Patreon person of the show. TikTok at susanruthism as long as TikTok survives. Check out heyhumanpodcast.com for links and to learn more about my guests and the show. Check out susanruth.com to learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors, and follow Susan Ruth ism on social media. You can find my music on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, wherever you get your music, and rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Alright. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being you and for spreading the word and all of that good news. Be well, be kind, be love. Here we go. Arik Rocha, welcome to Hey Human. Hello. Thanks for having me. It's lovely to see you. You too. And you're at this, LA Film School? That's correct. Yes. This is currently where I work. Yeah. Yeah. What do you teach there? I've taught directing classes, working with actors. I've taught production classes, writing classes. Currently, I teach an an intro class, which is a lot of fun because everything I tell the students about movies is sparkly and twinkly and, yeah, we're we always have a good time. None of the doom and gloom that Right. Yeah. Yeah. Social media tries to tell us. Yeah. Where were you from? Where is your family from? I know that's a big part of your story. So let's get into that. Yeah. I was born in Rockford, Illinois. So I grew up in the Midwest. My mother is white American woman, but my dad came well, he was born in Mac in, in the United States, but his parents came from San Luis Potosi in Mexico. And, yeah, so this this is significant for me because my grandparents came to the States, they came came to Chicago. I it's kinda cute. They met in Chicago, not in San Luis, and my my grandfather tells a story that he he went to Weebles, this department store, to ask for credit, and he was flirting with the the girl at the counter, but she said, you need to meet Lee in the back, and she brought in my grandmother and that's how they met. Like, until I look in the mirror, like, I think of myself as a a white boy from the Midwest, you know. You know, I grew up on a farmhouse and everything. We weren't farmers, but we lived on a farmhouse. And so my my grandparents didn't really bring Mexican culture to our family. They were very concerned about being targeted for racism. So, like, they didn't speak Spanish around my aunts and uncles or my dad. They didn't cook a lot of Mexican food. It was like all their Mexican heritage was kind of hidden. But there was one thing that my grandfather shared with me, and that was some of these Mexican Moctezuma movies. And that I know that's what we're gonna talk about, but that's how I, like, got into this. I was like, this was the one Mexican thing my grandparents shared with me, and so I've kind of spent a lot of my life trying to reconnect with my Mexican roots, and like, I don't know, even, for a long time I wasn't even comfortable saying I am Mexican, because I didn't feel like I didn't speak Spanish, like, you know, so I've spent a lot of my life trying to earn the right to to say that, and I'm hoping that's what I I've done with this project. It's interesting. Identity is such a huge part of being a human that for a kid in the Midwest, especially Illinois, I mean Right. Since Midwesty as you can get really Right. From Illinois is just kind of chill and there. And were you even aware of, I guess, the subversiveness of what your grandparents were doing, or just it wasn't even talked about whatsoever? Not at all, really. Like, again, like, besides the movie, like, there are a couple Mexican dishes. Like, my my vivid memory of my grandfather is his kitchen. Like, he was he was a cook. So even though he tried to hide some of his Mexican spices, the one thing he he always had, his homemade Tabasco sauce, he would keep in his soup jacket, which, again, it's kind of this thing, like, we would go out to a restaurant and he'd, like, look around and sneak it out like it was this, you know, some marijuana or something, and maybe it was. And he sprinkle he would sprinkle it on his food, and then tuck it back in his coat pocket so no one could see it, and then he would eat whatever we ate at the restaurant, you know, so he was hiding and and bringing out his own. So like, it was little things like that that I just thought were cool, but I didn't realize that he was doing all of that because he was afraid of being singled out or harmed or or anything like that. But as I grew older and talked with my father, and I actually did, thankfully, a few years before my grandfather passed, I was able to to do an interview with him, and I was able to kinda have more of an adult conversation with him about some of this stuff. So Oh, I love that you had that opportunity. Yeah. So important. Did you have an inkling of the desire to have a creative life when you were a kid? Did that manifest in in playtime or in school? Yeah. So my father is a, color pencil artist. So art was definitely part of our life. And my mother taught children, so education art education was important to her. And movies, again, like, I had to kind of dive into Mexican film on my own, but growing up, movies were a big part of of my my childhood with with my dad. And what I loved about it is is he would watch heavy movies like The Godfather and 2,001. Some movies that I was probably too young to watch, but he would watch them anyway, because he would he would draw. I just have these memories of him being very focused drawing, with his color sharp color pencils, and like just wanting to be near him. So we would watch the movie that he put on, whatever movie it was. And then eventually, we would start asking, you know, more questions about, like, you know, why is Michael doing that? Or why is, you know, why this, you know. So I kinda learned some basics of of film language just by watching those movies with my dad. But he also loved, like, really campy movies of, like, the fifties sixties, like Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, and a lot of the Godzilla Mothra movies. So we also got this wonderful balance of real campy movies of the era as well, and and he loved to talk during the movies and and make jokes and stuff like that, so it was always fun watching movies with my dad. Do you have siblings? Yes. I have I have one brother. Yeah. And he's also he's more into computer effects and CGI and stuff like that, but we would both again, we lived on this farmhouse, so, like, we would spend our days walking into the prairie, and and there we had, like, a a our own little forest, and so we would play we would play out scene from movies and stuff like that and pretend we were fighting a predator or playing Ghostbusters or, you know, something like that. So, yeah, we're definitely a very creative family. Let's get into, Mark Zuma. Tell me about the first time you saw one of his films, and you said it was a bonding experience with your grandfather and with your culture and history. Sure. Let's get into that a little bit because I know that that's pretty much the focus of your life right now. Right. Yeah. So it it was, it was on a VHS tape, like, I remember, and it was it was a copy. So, like, I don't remember, like, a poster image or anything. I just remember the the image of the, you know, the old VHS tape box and everything. And it and it was, again, it was kinda hidden. It was, like, at the end of another movie. I remember we would always squeeze we would do long plays, so you could squeeze 2 2 hour movies onto a VHS tape, but that degraded the quality. So there was always, like, this kind of but for me, that's, like, part of the the nostalgia. It was all in Spanish, so my grandfather would translate some of it for me. And the movie was the first one I restored with Moctezuma. It was called Una Mujer Simpresio, Priceless Woman, from 1961. And it's about this scientist who he's working with AI. He's trying to create, artificial intelligence in a robot, and his wife is killed in a car accident, so he builds a robot copy, of his wife. And the fun thing about the movie is that there's a luchador in it, so I don't know if we'll get into it, but, like, luch Lucha Libre is a big part of Mexican cinema, so this is what I've learned. Like, there's all these it's a whole genre of films, and they're the luchadores of Mexico were kind of like the Marvel superheroes for us today, but this was, like, in the fifties sixties. So El Santo, the Blue Demon were kind of the most famous, and there was this other wrestler in this movie named the Scorpion. And originally in the film, apparently, the the Scorpion the robot malfunctions, so the Scorpion, has to battle with her and and defeat her and everything. And the scientist kinda goes mad because, you know, it's his, you know, it's his wife, but no, it's a machine, you know, it's like so it's such a campy movie, they actually really dive into some interesting philosophical ideas of like, what does it mean to be alive? Like is artificial intelligence deserving of, you know, being treated like a human being? But what happened was is the Scorpion fell in love with the actress who was playing the the robot. And Moctezuma was also in love with this woman. So the scorpion was cut out of most of the movie because Moctezuma got jealous. So and I didn't learn any of this until, you know, much later in my life when I started doing the research. So the version I saw was, like, there's just one scene with a a luchador discussing, you know, the ethics of making artificial intelligence, and that's it. So it's, you know, as a kid, you're like, why is this guy standing in a mask with no shirt talking to these people in suits about And those are the kind of questions I would ask my grandfather. He was like, he's a luchador. And I'm like, okay. Cool. Well, yeah. So that was that was the start for me. That would that movie was kind of the the start of my research and, like, figuring out all those stories and stuff like that. And how many films are known or attributed to him? 5 as of right now. So the The Price of the Woman was the second one, and the last one he did was called 1,000 Paths of Death in 1977. So first one was in 1959, and then the last one was 1977. So not a lot of films, but, and that that's part of, you know, what my documentary is about is how and why he was only able to make 5 movies. Because there was this rivalry between the Scorpion and and Moctezuma. So as Moctezuma kept trying to make movies, Scorpion was trying to suppress him. So he it was an uphill battle his whole life making movies. It's a movie within a movie within a movie? Exactly. Yeah. What was something surprising to you about Moctezuma as you were working through his body of work? I mean, it's he's a controversial person, like, there there is the filmmaker and the artist in me that really admires what he's, accomplished and is kind of frustrated and sad, like, he didn't get to make more. And a lot of the the movies that we have left of his, they've been butchered, like, there's not a lot of them left, again, for various reasons. But at the same time, like, there are stories that he wasn't the nicest guy, you know. I mean, there's a lot of stories of, like, the tortured artist and everything. But, you know, it's it's always a question of, like, well, what's acceptable? What's what's okay? And because he really pursued this woman, Lisa, this actor. She he was she was his childhood sweetheart. And, really all the movies he made in his life were an attempt to woo her back to him because she she ended up marrying the Scorpion. And so then it becomes a question of, it's like, was it okay? Was it inappropriate of him to just, like, continue to pursue her? That's part of the reason the Scorpion was trying to suppress his filmmaking because, you know, he's I mean, he's making movies for his wife. It's like, dude, like, it's one thing, you know, if a guy, like, you know, flirts with your girl, but, like, he made a whole movie to try to woo her back. And what we'll see, this kinda culminated in this this Lucha Libre match, that had a really serious accident for Lisa. It's hard to admire Moctezuma knowing that he kind of, I don't know. If if he was alive today, I think he would have been me too, I guess, is is what I'm trying to say. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. He he pushed it too far. The scorpion married the the man who is the scorpion married the actress who performed in the movies. Did she too have a a fate or spend death? Did she in other words, was her life torn between them as well, or was she loyal to Scorpion, but a working actress, so she still wanted to have the work? Right. She was a working actress. She she did other films besides the ones with with Moctezuma. And, yeah, that's where it's interesting too. It's, like, we we don't know, like, did she actually did she love you know, it's it's very much the story from Casablanca, where we don't know if if she loved Humphrey Bogart or the other guy. I would argue she loved him, that's why she got on the plane. But that's Right, exactly. Yeah. Well, and that's so by that logic then, I would say Lisa loved her husband, the scorpion, because she stayed with him, she stood by him, and they they remained married until their death. And you can love more than one person Exactly. Yes. Your whole life. Yeah. Right. And and that's the other thing that because Lisa, Moctezuma did coax her enough to be in one other movie called Demonoid, which they filmed kind of up in the mountains. I've I've been there. It's in this place called Las Pozas in in the mountains of Huasteca in in Mexico. It's a beautiful place. It's actually in the state of San Luis, where my grandparents were from. And so the stories I've heard is that when they were making this movie, Moctezuma wasn't really focused on the movie. He was just, like, happy to be with this woman again, and, there are rumors that, you know, they they were hooking up and stuff like that, so, yeah. Again, I don't hold judgment, I'm it kinda makes me happy that he got that connection, but I do think then that's what kind of started him down this path of, like, obsessively trying to to make more movies for her. Yeah. Movie sets are like Vegas. Right? Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do we know very much about Moctezuma's childhood or how he grew up, his influence? So he and Lisa came from this town in the state of Michoacan, a town called Huenizio, and I've been there as well. So I I lived in Mexico for about a year. After I graduated. I taught at Tecte Monterrey University there, so I got to do a lot of research for this, when I was there. So I went to Anizio, and it's this very cinematic, very beautiful, it's a town that's on an island in a lake. And they are known to have, like, the most beautiful, extravagant Day of the Dead celebration. So I got to go there for Day of the Dead and it was really amazing. You know, the marigolds are everywhere and everything. And you, as the sun's setting, you know, you take this boat out to the island, and then it's it's basically a giant hill on this island, you know. So as you're walking up up the hill, there's all these little shops and stuff, and people are selling things. There's little kids running around with, you know, jack o'-lanterns asking you for pesos and stuff like that. So I I imagine, like, this very much influenced Moctezuma and his his interest in horror movies and stuff like that. And so from what I understand, he, first saw movies. You know, little villages like that back in the day didn't have movie theaters, so they would have traveling projectionists travel the country and come to these little towns and and set up a projector and and show some movies. So the story is is that's how he got introduced to movies, and he and Lisa really enjoyed Dracula. The original Dracula. Not the Bela Lugosi one actually, but the, I don't know if you know, but when they made the Bela Lugosi Dracula on the same sets but with a Spanish speaking cast, they shot a Spanish language version of the movie. And I love it because they apparently, they shot the Belagosi version during the day, and then at night, the Spanish speaking crew would come in and shoot. And I'm like, it's better already because they had to shoot it at night, like, so this is better Yeah. Yeah. So they they fell in love with Dracula, and, you know, the story is, you know, they would cling to each other and stuff like that, so watching the movie. So I think that was like the impetus for Moctezuma's interest in horror movies, his falling in love with Lisa, like he just, his whole life he just wanted to have that again, where they're watching scare. By your description, I would imagine in his mind then, every movie was really a love letter to Lisa. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Mhmm. And what happened to him, and why are these lost films? Would Scorpion does he have that much power that he was able to be able to silence Moctezuma? Or how did what happened there? So a lot of it was kind of Scorpion executing his his influence, never directly. There was also during this time, you know, we're we're talking like late sixties, early seventies in Mexico, Machtazuma's movies called the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968. So there was this this massacre that happened. Students were gathering to protest the government and their oppression and, I don't know. There's there's a lot going on, but but basically, at the time, the the head count was 300, but officially now we know years later that it was more like 3,000 people were just children, teachers, parents were were shot and killed in in this space. And it it's Yeah. It's it's a real tragic event. So so Montezuma made a movie about that, and what is, I think, especially tragic about this thing is the the government at the time, like, didn't want the world to know that this was happening because they were hosting the Olympics. So any kind of talk about this, any evidence of this was quickly suppressed. So when they got word that Moctezuma made this movie, that, you know, it was a monster movie inspired by what happened, But any, you know, anything remotely close to it, they just, like, shut down. So that was the one movie that was the hardest to restore because they're, you know, they're just bits and pieces kind of scattered all over the world, really. The full movie's gone, like, it's mostly destroyed, so we just kinda had, like, this short little version of it. So that was, you know, one thing. And then he just made a lot of enemies. There's other stories that, like, he he funded one of his movies, by laundering money for a cartel, But then when he stopped doing that, you know, then he couldn't that movie got he was screwed up. There's also stories that, like, he he would bring movies to the he tried to make bring a movie to the States to to sell here to get, you know, some kind of international recognition. But in a lot of times, what happened is that companies distribution companies would bring in foreign films, and they would redub them. They would add scenes. They would change things to make it more marketable to American audiences. So then his movies kinda got, you know, mauled because of that kinda thing as well. So there's each movie has its own different story as to how and why it was kind of suppressed or destroyed or whatever. They all do kinda link back to Scorpion in some way. It's interesting too because as you mentioned, the first time you experienced one of his films with your grandfather, that it was at the end Right. Of a copy of a copy. There's already this idea of secrecy around it. Mhmm. Sneaking it into behind other films. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Mhmm. What have you learned about yourself through this experience of documenting this larger than life character? That's a good question. I mean, again, like, I I feel like Moctezuma is kind of a controversial person, but I still really respect and admire, his work. When I think about my own work and and the art that I like to make, it it is it does take priority, like, you know, if in in my life. So it's like if if I had to make a choice of, like, am I gonna make this movie? Am I gonna, you know, put my money into this? Or, I don't I don't have a savings at all because I've been putting, you know, I don't get to go on vacation very much because I always put the money, into to making the movie. Yeah. Sleip of a creative. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So so in some ways, like, I look at Moctezuma and I'm like, if if this is exactly what Moctezuma would have done, so I'm I'm in good company. Yeah. Yeah. Was it scary to dig in? It sounds, again, like, maybe some people don't want him talked about. Was it scary for you at all to uncover some of the rocks and look underneath them? Yeah. Because like I said, for for a long time, he was my hero. And and I again, like, I would say he still is, but then, like, as I started to uncover some of this stuff, it's like, oh, but he did do some some shady things, and I don't know if I agree with, you know, the reasoning behind you know, again, going to back, like, what sacrifices would you make for your art? Like, he definitely made some, you know, in intense sacrifices that I don't I don't know if I would go that far the way the way that he did. Yeah. Is he appreciated now in Mexico, or is he still subversive? And do we know where he's buried or anything like that? Technically, we don't know where he's buried or if he's possibly even still alive. Yeah. I mean, he would be I think he was born in the late thirties, so he'd be pretty old by now, so unlikely. I would guess that if he is he's somewhere in back in Juanizio, where he came from. So yeah. So even though he's kinda controversial, there are many filmmakers I've spoken to that have said he's definitely influenced their work. And many people, like, I've I've been really trying really hard with this project to, like, talk to some big names like John Carpenter or Sam Raimi or Guillermo del Toro, because I see machtazuma isms in their films. And I've talked to other filmmakers, they're like, it looks so much like that, you know, like, for the the best example is in in Evil Dead, in all the versions of Evil Dead, there's the the tree roots that come alive, you know, and grab people and drag them into the forest. So that happens in one of Moctezuma's movies, Demonoid, where these leaves come out and drag people and they drag It's also in the Wizard of Oz. In the woods, that's true, yeah. So, so yeah, so there's all these, you know, examples of things that he's done, like little horror bits here and there. Or another one is, an alien. The first time we see the alien creature in the tubes, like, it kinda reaches out at you and grabs you, and that is also in Demonoid. Like, there's this moment where this demon reaches out and it looks just like an alien, and it's one of those things where it's like, you know, Ridley Scott could've done the same shot and, you know, it was just a coincidence, but there's so many coincidences, again, from John Carpenter, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi, Guillermo del Toro. So my hope is that they'll get wind of this project and allow me to at least talk to them and at least maybe in secret tell me if if they've been influenced by Moctezuma or not. And the name of the film, Love, Blood and Aztec Demons, the last films of 1 f, Moctezuma the second. My gosh. That is a very long title. Yes. Yeah. The Aztec Demons must have been really fun to research. Yes. I mean, it has been something that's interested me as a filmmaker, like, wanting to make movies more about different because, like, a lot of, horror movies, movies about demons or possession and stuff like that, they're usually grounded in the Catholic church. Right? Or at least, you know, those Catholicism and stuff like that. So it's like, I've been really interested in seeking out, like, you know, horror movies based on an Indian curse or a Jewish curse. I'm grateful I just, met a filmmaker who made this movie called Satanic Hispanics, which is all about, you know, Aztec demons or Mayan demons and and stuff like that. So I do, you know, talking about, like, diversification, like, I feel like it's we need to see more horror story. We need to see monster stories from different cultures instead of being saturated by you know, as much as I like The Exorcist. Right? You know, there's there's a lot of other horror stories out there from different cultures. Yeah. Sure. The djinn are very scary. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Have you grounded more in sense of self in the lineage of your family tree? Yes. Absolutely. Like I said, it's I I do feel more comfortable and confident introducing myself as a Mexican now, so I think that was, you know, kinda the goal. I'm still practicing my Spanish, I think that will will help a lot too. But having all the the knowledge of the Aztec lore and, you know, having lived in Mexico and and knowing the the places there, you know, specifically to, like, Moctezuma, yes. I I think I feel more connected to my roots and and to my grandparents as well. Yeah. Did you try and track down Scorpion or Lisa? Yeah. So they passed away in the eighties, but, we were able to interview for our project the son of the Scorpion who is also a Lucha Libre wrestler. So And it's interesting, you know, talking about, like, different perspectives. It was interesting to get his perspective because a lot of people I interviewed were fans of Moctezuma, but Scorpion's son is not. You know, he has some unhappy memories about Moctezuma. So Well, yeah. There's a lot of family dynamic going on there. Exactly. Yeah. And I don't know if anyone listening is aware of some of the brilliant soap operas from that region, but they could get pretty convoluted. Yes. Well and that's what Lisa did end up becoming a telenovela producer. So you might have seen some of her stuff, for sure. Yeah. What's the plan to get this movie out and get people excited and interested in this? So we're doing, a screen so at the Los Angeles Film School where I teach, I've been and when I've completed restoring the Moctezuma films, they're they're all short versions. So I've been entering those into film festival to try to get them, around the world. So the screening that we're having is kind of lining up all of the Moctezuma movies chronologically, and kinda putting it all in one piece. And that should be available on a streaming service soon. We did get a distributor for that, so I'm very excited. And as soon as I know where, I will let you know. But then the next big step for me is making this documentary, like, putting the whole documentary together where we will, you know, talk to the Scorpion Sun, talk to a Moctezuma cinematographer, some of his producers, some of the actors that have worked with him to try to give you a full picture of of who he is. I watched the trailer, which I don't generally do because I don't like going into movies with any knowledge of the movie I'm about to see. I love going in blind. But since we were going to be talking today, I figured if it was a good idea to watch it. But I'm very much looking forward to seeing the film and moderating the the panel. Thank you. And it's a heck of an undertaking. Certainly, to 5 films, that's a wild ride considering how much it takes just to put one movie together. I know the time it takes to put together a documentary, which is just for just a reference for people listening. It could be a a 1000 hours. I mean, it's there's so much to then edit down and navigate to tell a story within a story. So hats off for that as well. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Tell people how they can find you and and information about the film. Sure. So the the website for Moctezuma, is where is Juan movie dot com. Where is Juan movie? And Juan is spelled, j u a n. Correct. Yeah. My personal work, it's, bluebasoon.net. I I miss the dotcom. So, yeah, bluebas00n.net. Do you play the bassoon? I do not. The the story behind that is the the first movie I ever made was based on a dream I had, and in the dream, there was a blue bassoon. So I just thought it sounded good. I love it. That's great. How many films have you made? I've I've mostly made shorts throughout my career so far. So this this anthology and the documentary will be my my first features, and I'm hoping that will lead to the next thing I wanna make, which is gonna be kind of re ready to make a departure from Moctezuma. So the next thing I'm gonna do is it's still horror. It's Bambi taking revenge on the hunters who killed his mother. So it's gonna be a horror comedy is my goal. Animated? No. I'm gonna do the the the animals with puppets. Oh, fabulous. Yes. So think like gremlins or, I always think of the the rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail that Yeah. Jumps yeah. That kind of thing. It's got fangs. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. For some reason, cute things doing violent things are makes me laugh. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I'm excited to Thank you. See what happens next and where it will all go. And, I will keep my listeners updated as you have updates for me. Yeah. Thank you so much. Appreciate you listening. Thank you for listening, everybody. Bye. Bye bye. Rate, review, and subscribe to Hey Human Podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks. Bye.