Guru$$ now over 1M views!
https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm0664928
About Erik Passoja
2023
Recurring Guest Star on Network’s NCIS
Guest Starring on SWAT
and as Rolf von Klaussen on Amazon’s Hunters
The son of a female aeronautical engineer during the Space Age and a quantum physicist, Erik majored in theatre/psychology at Yale, doing a psychoanalytic profile of Richard III, then playing the role.
A fifth-degree black belt in Shotokan karate, Erik lived in Japan for a year and was brutally beaten by men far smaller than he. A member of the Actors Studio, Erik has worked extensively in film, TV, and theatre.
He speaks five languages. He jokes that he has played more serial killers than there have been serial killers, has been playing Nazis longer than WWII happened…and is Jewish.
A VO artist and former nationally touring standup comic, Erik performed on TV, clubs everywhere, and overseas for our troops.
GURU$$: ABOUT THE FILM
Guru$$, a short film that manifests as a music video created by a fictional character, is about a woman who tries to take a shortcut to enlightenment, gets caught up in the glitz, and ends up with nothing.
Yes, it is a comedy... .
..and it is also a cautionary tale.
Running Time: 3:59
CREDITS
WRITTEN AND
CREATED BY
Chris Johnson
Erik Passoja
Rita Kane
Chris Johnson
Erik Passoja
ASSOCIATE
PRODUCERS
Amy Scribner
Patty Cornell
Carl Burnett
Erik Passoja
COSTUMES/
PRODUCTION
DESIGN
Rikke Rosbaek
Alexa Morovati
Kelly Thorpe
Ava Laurel
Chelsea Hillman
Chris Gravland
Tyler Gregory
CAST
(in order of appearance)
Susan Rudick
Erik Passoja
Monica Kay
Katy Mikelle
Kelly Connolly
May-Har Li
Valerie Long
Leo Moctezuma
Raquel Horsford
Shannon Beach
Havord Trusty J
Jonathan Grey
Shae Lozano
GALLERY
WATCH THE VIDEO AGAIN!
PRESS
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
The great filmmaker Jim Jarmusch once said, “Cheap, Fast, and Good…pick two."
We chose Cheap and Good. This was a six-year process.
Guru$$ started out as a joke. So many folks in Kundalini yoga had been given a name by Yogi Bhajan..."Gurmukh", "Sopurkh", "Sada Sat Kaur".
People asked my name. I said, "My name is Sada Sat BING" and got a laugh.
It became, "My name is Sada Sat BING, yoga's my thing."
And then I saw what was happening in the yoga community. People think they will get the answers from one person and so they give away their power. Eventually, people, especially women, were exploited.
So I wrote a comedy.
My little rhyme became a rap song about exploitation and ego, with a guru spitting old-school hip-hop. So many musical inspirations, from Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh to Disable Planets.
Two years and three musicians later, Carl Burnett nailed it on the first pass.
We shot in 2017, again in 2018, and a little bit at the end in 2021 until we were satisfied that the story was clear. It was a lot of work but profoundly fulfilling.
Guru$$ is about a woman who tries to take a shortcut to enlightenment, gets caught up in the glitz, and ends up with nothing.
So yes, it is a comedy...
...and it is also a cautionary tale.
Since we started shooting, documentaries have been released about Bikram and Osho on Netflix, there an entire series on Vice about Yogi Bhajan and other yoga leaders who have exploited others, and last month, there was a Rolling Stone article about another one, Bentinho.
I hope you enjoy our labor of love…and maybe get the chorus stuck in your head.
