Dear Keanu,

I’ve admired your work since “River’s Edge” made me want to be a filmmaker. I was passing through London last year and went to your talk about The Book of Elsewhere. Hearing you delve into mortality inspired me to invite you to be a part of my radical film about death and love, featuring Alejandro Jodorowsky, which expands on my student-Oscar winning short film "Helicopter."

When I was twenty, my mother was killed in a helicopter crash with the world’s biggest rock music impresario, Bill Graham. After I made a short film about it, and had great success, I spiraled into a depression. Jodorowsky told me that in order to heal, I needed to fulfill an insane spiritual assignment: to dress as my mother, fly a helicopter through the towers that she hit, free a bird where she was trying to go - and make a film about it.

The feature version of "Helicopter" is nearly complete, and I hope to take it to the Venice Film Festival next year. The only scene left to shoot is at the climax, when I go back to the year 1980, to “direct” my parents, and attempt to change the future path of their lives. For this scene, I'd be honored for you to play my father Herbert Gold, the Beat-era novelist who died recently at age 99, and with whom I just published a book of poems.

I know you care about the potential of art to heal our world, our families, ourselves. This project will be transformational, I believe, and quite unlike any movie ever made. I hope you will consider being a part of it.

All the best --

Ari

PS The student-Oscar-winning short film can be viewed here.