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Audrea's Epoch
By Carla Robinson
Epoch of Lotus is a short film that defies categorization in favor of
enlightenment. On one hand, it’s a martial arts movie. On the other, it’s a
surrealistic story about the triumph of truth, beauty, and the survival of mankind. Put
this together with its flirtation with reincarnation and the result is a haunting epic of
dazzling proportions. In a word, it’s a genre-defying doozy and that’s just the
way its producer, Audrea Topps-Harjo, likes it.
On the surface, Topps-Harjo appears an unlikely person to have produced a Chinese martial
arts film. She’s an African-American woman who started college with plans to major in
psychology. She still remembers the day she told her parents she was going to major in
theater instead. “They were very understanding,” but she had to make one deal
with her mother - that she “would not ‘wait tables’ with her
[mother’s] fifty-thousand-dollar degree.” And, “so far, I’ve been able
to keep up my end of the bargain.” She went on to earn a Master’s in film from
Howard University, where she wrote, directed, and produced two shorts, one of which was
nominated for a Student Academy Award.
In Los Angeles, she became a visual effects producer for Sony Entertainment, but she
longed to produce martial arts pictures. “But I wanted them to be different,”
she said. After repeatedly watching Jet Li flicks, Topps-Harjo was struck by the belief
that she could produce such films. “It was just that simple. I knew that it
didn’t matter if they were in another part of the world and speaking another
language.” She joked that it was either “clarity of focus or insanity” that
lead her to invite Li to a Sony screening. Afterward, she met Li’s intern staff
writer, David Tzeng, who asked if she’d be interested in producing Epoch, a
screenplay of his. Vincent Lee, an experienced action choreographer, was set to direct.
Jet Li would become an invaluable advisor.
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Courtesy Audrea Topps-Harjo
Vincent Lee, Topps-Harjo and David
Tzeng
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When she read the script, “I knew it
was special…. I knew that project was what I had been looking for. So I left Sony,
started my own production company … and the journey had begun.” It was a journey
that lead Topps-Harjo, Tzeng, and Lee to develop the feature version of Epoch, which will
be a trilogy. Topps-Harjo would like to shoot the films back-to-back, “like Lord of
the Rings.” While the short screens at events like the Shero Film Festival (where it
played this past spring), the ambitious producer is raising money to shoot the feature in
China.
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Ultimately, Topps-Harjo wants to bring novelist Octavia
Butler’s work to film audiences. She admires Butler not only because the writer is a
trailblazer, but also for her ability to tell sci-fi stories with “her own
sensibilities and gifts.” And for Topps-Harjo, the story is the thing. “I always
thought that if you told the right story, then that story could be a reflection of a life
and in that reflection you would learn something about yourself that you didn’t see
before.”
M
July 2001
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