Spanning decades of movie outtakes, behind-the-scenes chaos, and intimate personal history, THE WAY THINGS SEEM TO BE is the definitive portrait of maverick filmmaker, poet, and painter Rob Nilsson. Nilsson is the first American to win both the Camera d’Or at Cannes (NORTHERN LIGHTS, 1979) and the Grand Prize at Sundance (HEAT AND SUNLIGHT, 1988), and has directed 45 feature films. Directed by Zhan Petrov, the documentary serves as a masterclass on Nilsson’s Direct Action Cinema—an improvisational, jazz-like method of filmmaking where players mine their own experiences in exercises combining Wilhelm Reich, Stanislavski and Uechi Ryu Karate.

Nilsson’s first feature film was shot in Nigeria, his first painting studio set up in Equatorial Guinea. We go to his birthplace in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, to music halls in Moscow, England and Wales where John Cale and Brian Eno make a record. He visits Leon Trotsky’s home village in Ukraine, the site of a 1942 Nazi pogrom, then goes to Israel to interview the last survivor. Young people in Jordan, Japan, South Africa and Italy make Direct Action films with him. He reads his poetry on East Bay railroad tracks. Petrov anchors the film with insights from a roster of luminaries, including Stacy Keach, Mstyslav Chernov, Al Nelson, Bobby Roth, Mark Fishkin, Nancy Hayes, Dan Zastrow, and many more. The film traces Nilsson’s uncompromising journey, revealing what it looks like when a visionary gives his entire life to art.