HELICOPTER

+ JoDOROWSKY’S PSYCHOMAGIC

“Helicopter,” the upcoming feature-length version of Ari’s groundbreaking short film, recently won the Grand Jury Prize for Works in Progress at FEST New Directors New Films, and was selected for Film London’s PFM in October 2024.

The original short, about the crash which killed Ari’s mother along with rock music promoter Bill Graham, has influenced a generation of filmmakers, is taught in film schools around the world, and won the Student Oscar and other prizes worldwide, playing Sundance, SXSW, and 100+ festivals.

In the feature version, visionary director Alejandro Jodorowsky guides Ari into a psychomagic assignment: to dress as his mother and re-enact the helicopter crash that killed her, in order to heal the traumatic memory. It will be a hybrid-documentary film like no other. This film will be completed in 2025; meanwhile, the short film is viewable here: 

ABOUT THE ORIGINAL SHORT FILM:

"Writer-director Ari Gold's HELICOPTER recounts in impressionistic detail the aftermath of his mother's death in the helicopter crash that also killed her boyfriend, rock promoter Bill Graham. The film has been making an uncommon stir at festivals everywhere, and with good reason--it's an effulgent burst of heartbreak. Employing a narrative pastiche that includes acted vignettes, a black-and-white animated re-creation of the crash itself, poignant answering-machine voice-over and personal photos, Gold deftly conveys the fractured nature of loss: how memory, despair, indignation and even elation surge and recede in the mourning mind."
- LA Weekly Pick of the Week

"Hypnotic, beautiful, totally brave. The year's best short film."
- Film Threat 

GOLD MEDAL WINNER — Student Academy Awards
GRAND PRIX — Aix-en-Provence Short Film Festival
BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT — Belo Horizonte
BEST SHORT FILM — South-by-Southwest Film Fest
BEST SHORT (EXPERIMENTAL) — USA Film Festival
BEST FILM, BEST DIRECTOR & NEW YORK MAGAZINE AUDIENCE AWARD — First Run Film Festival
2nd PRIZE — "Best Of" Festival (a competition between 65 worldwide Grand Prize winners)
BEST SHORT — Woodstock Film Festival
JURY AWARD — Reykjavik Short Film Festival
SPECIAL JURY AWARD — New Orleans Film Festival
SPECIAL JURY AWARD — Moab Film Festival
BEST SHORT — Valley Film Festival
& many other prizes