the short films of paul iorio.
Spilling Secrets (2024)
"Spilling Secrets" features exclusive one-on-one interviews with Kate Bush, Roman Polanski, Ted Nugent, Anne Heche (and how I came be the first reporter to link her to Ellen DeGeneres in the press), Richard Pryor (in what may well be the last recorded interview with him that has been publicly released), with a brief bit from his son Richard Pryor Jr., Nigerian pop star Fela Kuti (weeks after his release from prison in 1986), Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Dick Gregory, Carroll O'Connor, Alan Bean, Abbie Hoffman, Heath Ledger, Joey Ramone, Robert Goulet, Ray Davies, Woody Harrelson, Trey Anastasio (the first-ever recorded interview with him), Woody Allen, David Fincher, Pedro Almodovar, M. Night Shyamalan, Barry Sonnenfeld, Luc Besson, Woo, Richard Sylbert and others.
As I say in the film: "I am probably the only person on the planet who has conducted one on one interviews with the following four icons: Kate Bush, Roman Polanski, Fela Kuti and Richard Pryor."
And when you think that over, it's likely true:
"Spilling Secrets" is part celebrity tell-all, part personal memoir presented in the spirit of "My Dinner With Andre" and Samuel Beckett's "Krapp's Last Tape." Hope you enjoy it!
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What Roman Told Me About Charlie (2019)
I actually spoke one-on-one with Roman Polanski and his friends about the impact that the Manson murders had on him and on his later work -- and I've included their remarks in this mini-documentary I made called "What Roman Told Me About Charlie."
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Cyclotron Hill (2023)
The scenario is this: I'm hiking the hills when I get a phone call on my flip phone from a friend who alerts me that Kim Jon-un is threatening to set off a nuke off the coast of San Francisco within the hour. At first, I think he's joking, but then the air raid siren blasts and I know it's for real. I'm already in the middle of hiking the hills, thirty miles inland, in Berkeley, California, near the (how convenient!) laboratory where the first nuclear bomb was developed in the 1940s: the Lawrence Laboratory in Berkeley. So, I decide to continue walking east from Cyclotron Road.
And then there's a plot twist at the end that very few will see coming.
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The Last Recordings of Richard Pryor (2021)
The doc is built around paul iorio's own recordings of both Richard Pryor's very last concert, unheard until now, and of what may be his last recorded interview, also unheard until now.
It also includes a recording of Pryor's own biological son, Richard Pryor Jr., explicitly and credibly accusing his father of molesting him when he was five-years old, and of arranging his molestation at age 12 and 16.
Pryor's last full-length concert took place on July 24, 1996, between 10:50 and 11:20 PM, on stage at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood, California.
I spoke directly (and on tape) to Pryor himself on July 31, 1996. There is no other recorded interview with him after that date that has been publicly released. This documentary was produced, directed, scripted, edited and filmed by paul iorio.
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The Lost Ferlinghetti Tapes (2018)
Exhibited in London in 2019 at the Southbank Centre in London by the U.K.'s National Poetry Library, and platformed by the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2018, "The Lost Ferlinghetti Tapes" presents excerpts of of a particularly vivid exclusive interview I conducted with Ferlinghetti in 2000 -- inter-spliced with segments that explain biographical, historical and cultural information about Ferlinghetti and the Beat movement.
The film was produced, directed, written, filmed, narrated and edited by paul iorio in 2018.
All interview excerpts are from a landmark one-on-one interview with Ferlinghetti that I conducted on August 29, 2000, which has continued to resonate in publishing and academic circles until this day
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My Afternoon with Kate Bush (2022)
The documentary is called "My Afternoon With Kate Bush" and is about just that: a Friday afternoon in late 1985 that I was lucky enough to have spent in a private New York City hotel room with Bush, who grants very few interviews and makes almost no public appearances. It's largely a presentation of audio excerpts from a one-on-one interview I conducted with her then, parts of which have never been heard by anyone but me and never been transcribed for publication anywhere.
The doc also has segments with fresh info about Bush, including the only known audio or video footage of her interacting with her boyfriend of 15 years, Del Palmer (recorded by me and never released before); as well as a sequence in which she talks about her favorite movies, among other topics.
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John Mulaney, Live in Concert (2022)
The only publicly-released extensive excerpts from John Mulaney's 2022 tour (aside from Mulaney's own "Baby J."). This is a recording of Mulaney at Berkeley's Greek Theater on April 28, 2022, filmed by paul iorio from the hills above the venue, and you will not find this material anywhere else.
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The Hypochondriac (2020)
A short film (with a futuristic plot twist at the end) about a Covid-era hypochondriac. The 2020 flick ends with a walk through the landscape of 2024 where I stumble on...something scary. Part documentary, part psychological portrait, with a few funny bits, too. Produced, directed, written, edited, narrated by paul iorio.
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Inside Berniemania (2020)
Years in the making, this doc examines, from inside the storm, the passionate support for the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders in the ultrablue San Francisco area from his early appearances in 2016 to his most recent rally in 2020.
All the photos and video were shot solely by Paul Iorio. Produced, directed, scripted, narrated and edited by Paul Iorio, 2020.
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Tips for Taking Over the Russian Consulate (2022)
"Tips for Taking Over the Russian Consulate"
Note to content moderators: the following original film is satire and does not actually advocate the taking over of the vacant Russian consulate in San Francisco.
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"The Graduate" Tour of Berkeley (2017)
The very first short film I ever made, way back in 2016 when I had only a Canon Powershot 130 at my disposal! That said, it is a useful, if crudely made, doc about Berkeley locations in Mike Nichols' movie "The Graduate."
