FATE - It is what it is!

Fate-it is what it is! Is loosely based on a true story. And a story I felt I needed to develop further and tell in the way of a film.
I was sitting in Belgrade Serbia, Winter 2012, when I revisited this script which is 'Part 1' of a trilogy;
-Fate-it is what it is!
-Love-it's all around!
-Disconnected- stay connected!

It was cold and snowing and just the place to re-edit this trilogy. I was questioning whether I should make these films, with my mantra running through my head - over and over again- "Don't wait- create!" And so I did.
All of 2013 was spent making Fate (Mar 2013), Love (May/June 2013) and Disconnected (Dec 2013).

Fate is an interesting piece in that we see the yin and yang of the twins, Tony and Lewis.
We see how dependent they are to each other and how the dysfunction of these four characters actually is their "normal."
I wanted to show how dysfunction between a household of symbiotic beings can be normal. In bioscience symbiotic refers to any diverse organisms that live together, but in this case, the relationship is not necessarily beneficial to both. Parasites, for example, have a symbiotic relationship with their hosts, but only the parasite benefits.
Relating this to disease (after all I am a Doctor of Chinese medicine and pathology and aetiology was my favourite subjects in bioscience)
I chose to play Tony with cancer. Actually, as the disease "cancer" itself, and I chose to play Lewis with a veil of sadness and depression.

The trilogy was written to create impact at the end of each part, with the loss of one of the characters.
In FATE, Lewis chooses the fate of his twin, and Tony dies. Thankfully Tony is set free of his failed suicide attempt.

These characters are all troubled but loved in some way by each other and the audience.
Even Tony is loved. By all of them. I wanted to show how his abusive and torturing ways were a shout out for help - but he could never ask for help!

The interesting thing that binds these characters is dysfunction - but above all, love.
Lots of underlying love, shown in peculiar ways. But it works for them or at least has so til now.
Part 2 is called LOVE-its all around!

The process from scripting, to editing, to workshopping, to rehearsing, to filming, was to keep it real - and think outside the normal lives and stereotypical relationships.
Dysfunction in life is what some are used to (or all that they know) and relationships and households exist around the world in all types of unions.
This union was partially expected - with the twins who could not live apart from each other. Tony needed Lewis to release his pent up frustrations and Lewis needed to be tortured and abused to ease his guilt of making his parents get on the train that killed them.
This union is partially unexpected as Anna and Paul choose this hostile and dysfunctional existence.

The main underlying messages in the writing process of this film is that we all choose our own fate, but sometimes people can choose it for us, and in some instances, no one chooses it- it just is what it is!

I enjoyed investigating the psychology, beings and souls of these characters.
One to make sense of the true events that occurred, two to seek a better understanding of human beings in these dysfunctional situations, three to write something real about an unreal situation and four to put to rest particular demons.
I worked through a process of remaining detached of my own personal abuse and delving deep into the psychology and souls of these four characters.
When it came to auditioning twins, it was tough as there were not many identical twins around. Also the problem was that not both twins were actors or one twin was keen and the other didn't want to do it!
So to make things easy I chose to play them myself.
At this time I drew on my own organic memories to come into play to bring out the true essence of these multi dimensional characters and not act the role, but be the role - and above all be "real!" And I would hope unreal! As these four characters truly are/were, fantastically unreal!

My plans are to rewrite these films and four symbiotic, amazing, individual, characters, Tony, Lewis, Anna and Paul, to a 90 minute feature film called "Fatal Love."
Rob Lobosco. 2015