Few filmmakers are able to build their careers off having a distinct style, but Mars Roberge has created his own: Rocktopia. Roberge describes Rocktopia as, “The struggles of the protagonist against the ideals of utopian society, where the only form of escape is to rock out.” Learning filmmaking in the 90s, his work is still influenced by media of that time, especially MTV and indie filmmakers like Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino. During film school, he looked at the medium with a fresh set of eyes and kept an open mind to what it could be.
“I was never a big film buff. I liked movies like After Hours by Martin Scorsese, where the whole movie was just basically this guy trying to get home on the subway, but he didn’t have enough change. And it made me see you can look at one thing so many different ways and turn anything exciting for you… When I saw movies like that I knew, hey, I don’t think you need a ton of money to make a film with a bunch of people in a room. Spike Lee had just of come out with She’s Gotta Have It around the time I was going to film school, and they all played a little influence.”
That mentality of finding the most out of what you have, no matter how small, has come to define much of Roberge’s work; he gave a recent workshop on frugal filmmaking at NYU and at the 2023 Winter Film Awards. He’s a big proponent of guerrilla filmmaking, which describes filming in public spaces with a small crew and light footprint so you can easily leave if and when told you have to. For this to work, he credits having a good, dedicated team of people who believe in the projects.
He also credits a lot of that to his own versatility which is becoming more common in today’s age of independent artists. Even if the budget is low, he sees his time as an asset he can always use to invest in his work.
“Like a person that maybe falls in love with a 50s car that they’re going to build in the garage, and they’re going to spend two years of their time working on this car. If you had paid someone to do the work, it might cost you $200K for the same car, but this person got the car for $10,000 what they put in was two years of their time. I’m like that with film.”
The indie filmmaker life requires a lot of time and energy, but becomes worth it once you have a final film to show an audience. It’s not for everyone, but for Roberge, it’s worth it to be able to showcase a film that’s true to his vision. It was also a major step in his path as a filmmaker. Out of school, he immediately started picking up any jobs on set he could: production assistant, assistant director, art assistant just to name a few. However, filmmaking as purely a job killed his drive. It no longer became creatively fulfilling so he stepped away for years.
In that time, he continued his creative pursuit of music. He worked as a DJ, was part of a band called Rise NYC, and wrote songs for other artists. Like other disciplines, Roberge worked hard at songwriting and made managing his band his life when he had to. Eventually, he felt he was overworking himself doing that and found his way back to filmmaking.
“At one point, that became a burden for me after inadvertently pursuing it for about 15 years. And then one day, I just could not be creative in music anymore, so I moved back into film. And for whatever reason, I could come up with a million film ideas now. That was easy for me, and that’s kind of how it’s been.”
Roberge described filmmaking as a different kind of creative fulfillment from music. While the process of creating an album was less stressful than producing a film, the long hours led to greater joy when he was finally able to show a film to an audience. Additionally, he found the film festival circuit to be more of a break as opposed to doing concerts as a musician. It’s a cycle he’s been able to maintain, but his tendency to overwork that led to him leaving music is creeping into his filmmaking life.
“In theory, I can do everything, but physically, I had a panic attack and nervous breakdown. In the middle of it…I leaned to my wife and said, ‘There’s something wrong, I think I’m having a heart attack.’ I had to start letting go and inviting more people on board to take on some of these things. I’m 50 years old; I don’t know how many of these heart attack moments I can keep having.”
Thankfully, he was able to bring on a good crew for his latest film, Stars. Based on a play written by his friend, Doron Braunshtein, the film follows a group of homeless women finding their way in the world. He received a lot of the funding for the film through a pitch competition which he described as being similar to Shark Tank. He came in with a prepared presentation, but believes the key is making the personal connection which, for him, was his experience being homeless and relying on friends and 24-hour coffee shops for a place to stay for the night. It was actually through those days that he met Braunshtein and they managed to keep in touch throughout their careers.
If you’re interested in seeing some of Roberge’s work or learn more about his process, he has several upcoming events: He’s going to be the spotlight guest for We Make Movies LA – Virtual Writers Lab on Wednesday, June 14th at 6:30pm PDT (9:30 PM EDT). It’s a completely free lab open to everyone to attend and submit their script. Stars will have its West Coast Premiere at the Marina del Rey Film Festival in Los Angeles on June 11th. His film Mister Sister will have its international premiere at the Zanzibar International Film Festival in late June. His first Feature film The Little House that Could will have its 10th anniversary on June 28th since the original world premiere screening at Frameline .