Ancient Egypt: Untold Stories and Preservation Debates

Have you ever wondered how fake news can spiral out of control and lead to real-world chaos? Join us on this gripping episode of "Discerning the Unknown," where we unravel the dangerous consequences of disinformation, starting with the recent riots in the UK sparked by false claims about a teenage murder suspect. We contrast today's harmful misinformation with the more benign urban legends of the past, investigating how the internet has amplified the reach and impact of fake news. Prepare to be enlightened as we explore these digital age dilemmas.

Embark on a journey through ancient Egypt as we welcome our esteemed guest, Curtis Ryan Woodside, an independent filmmaker and research Egyptologist. Curtis shares his captivating experiences and insights from his incredible work on 29 documentaries, including "Expedition Egypt" and "Cleopatra: Her Real Story." Discover the architectural marvels and historical intricacies of the Giza Plateau, meet lesser-known figures like Sobekneferu and Tuya, and understand the real stories behind these ancient icons. Curtis's detailed research and passion bring a nuanced perspective to the mysteries of ancient Egyptian history.

We also discuss the delicate issue of preserving Egyptian artifacts, focusing on the mishandling of Seti I's pillar in Florence and other preservation challenges in museums worldwide. From the controversial use of acrylic paint on sarcophagi to the ethical dilemmas of displaying mummies abroad, we cover it all. Finally, we shift gears with an emotional look at Celine Dion's battle with stiff person syndrome, sharing personal stories and reflecting on her resilience. Whether you're a history buff, a current events junkie, or a Celine Dion fan, this episode has something profound for you.

Chapters

• 0:20 Debunking Fake News and Urban Myths
• 10:21 Exploring Ancient Egyptian Secrets
• 27:55 Uncovering Ancient Egyptian Secrets
• 39:29 Revealing Ramses II's True Story
• 51:30 Neglected Egyptian Artifact in Florence
• 57:32 Preservation of Egyptian Artifacts
• 1:12:08 Celine Dion Documentary and Politics
• 1:24:01 YouTube Channel Growth With Sphinx Content

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:20

Okay, and I thought that video would play on my end. It didn't, but we're going to go anyway. We'll edit that in later, I guess. But I am Ryan Peterson. Thank you very much for joining me on this edition of Discerning the Unknown, and I'm going to talk today with Curtis Ryan Woodside, and if you're not familiar with Curtis Ryan Woodside, he is a filmmaker and you will be aware of him definitely coming up here. He's got a lot of great films that are out now that you can see and we'll tell you about a lot of them.

Speaker 1: 1:08

But for those of you who have been following, I want to get real quick to a quick story. Of course this show is about a lot of. It is debunking fake news and urban legends, urban myths, and so we aim to put a stop, at least slow down, fake news, and a story recently really piqued my interest and because fake news, as I've said before, is just plain dangerous, it's very dangerous, and it's because of the internet Things spread so fast now and you know I've said I'm a Gen Xer, so in the 80s I think the most egregious case of fake news was we thought that Mikey from Life Cereal died by combining Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks. That didn't happen. He's still alive, but it's getting worse and worse now. The spread of fake news, how it's dangerous and how fast it spreads.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Well, and I'm surprised this story isn't on the news more in recent days, but there are riots going on in the UK right now, currently witnessing its worst riots in over a decade. And it all started with disinformation regarding the identity of a teenage suspect in a murder case. It happened on July 29th. A teenage boy allegedly brutally murdered three young girls six, seven and nine using a kitchen knife and almost immediately fake news ran rampant and it was put out there that the suspect was a Muslim and riots began all over, and very violent riots targeting mosques and homes of people of color in and around Southport in the UK, about 200 miles from London. And within days those riots continued and there were reports of clashes and arson and vandalism and in major cities London, manchester, liverpool, leeds, bristol, everywhere around there. And finally, police released information that the attacker was not Muslim, but this didn't stop the riots. He was born in the UK, in fact, but he had a name, a last name, that could have sounded like he was possibly a Muslim, but that's assumption on people's part and it just wasn't true. Ultimately then a judge said that his identity could be released and it was.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Again, it did not stop the riots, but this is why I do this show. I mean, hopefully it's a little, it'll help a little bit in some way to slow down or at least raise awareness of fake news. Because you know back in the 80s like there's funny fake news, the Mikey from Life cereal. Last week I showed a picture of Serena Williams with two rackets and for some reason people were surprised, saying they never noticed she used two rackets in her matches before Crazy. Obviously it was Photoshopped, but this fake news is dangerous. This could kill people and it's destroying businesses. It's destroying lives and we can't be spreading fake news.

Speaker 2: 4:37

It's too strange to spread.

Speaker 1: 4:39

We believe it too much, curtis. I'm sorry, go ahead, curtis, I'm sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2: 4:42

What's strange with that whole Southport thing is I had seen they showed a picture of the suspect who's not the suspect that the riots were about. They showed a picture of him and then this was on Sky News. They showed a picture of him Clearly you could see he was very British and suddenly that picture disappeared and now we have this new suspect. So it doesn't make sense why we get released one picture and then the riots happen and now we can talk about who he is. Yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 1: 5:19

I know he turned 18 very recently, so I think that has something to do with it, with releasing the name. But yeah, and I'm really surprised, here in America we haven't heard a whole lot of news about this on the regular nightly news. You really got to look for it or know what's going on. So I'm not sure With this one, I'm not exactly sure what's going on, but with the Internet, things can spread and spread. Going on. But with the internet, you know, things can spread and spread.

Speaker 1: 5:50

So, curtis, the man you see next to me folks, is Curtis Ryan Woodside. He is an independent filmmaker. He directed the short film entitled Fear of Hugh in 2013. It was narrated by Daniel Radcliffe. He's been interested, like I have been in ancient Egypt since he was very young, but he's taken it many steps further than I ever did. He's now hosted 26 Egyptology documentaries probably more by this time now 29, 29. 29, excellent, excellent, published. Is it still? Two photography books, two photography books. One, two, two photography books, two photography books. He's a research Egyptologist.

Speaker 1: 6:28

Films include. It's a lot of those that you just see the title and you think, yeah, yeah, I want to watch that. Expedition Egypt also a film about King Tut's great-grandparents, which I just watched the other day, the day before yesterday, entitled Tuya and Yuya Fascinating. We'll talk about that today too. He's got Alexander the Great Pharaoh, cleopatra Her Real Story, which was released a year ago, and Egyptian Secrets of Pompeii. I also want to get to that. It asks the question did the Egyptians live in Pompeii? So, curtis Ryan Woodside, thank you very much.

Speaker 2: 7:05

I know you're a busy guy so I really appreciate you being with me today. Thank you so much, Ryan. I'm not that busy at the moment. I have my mom visiting here, so I'm having a little break before I get back to the productions. Excellent.

Speaker 1: 7:19

Okay, tell me how did you get started. I think I sent an email to you. Tell me how did you get started. Like I think I sent an email to you. I think a lot of us have a fascination with ancient Egypt and it maybe stops there, but you really took it and ran. You've made a career out of that. Now Tell me your story.

Speaker 2: 7:36

Well, I fell in love with ancient Egypt from you know, the 1999 the Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser Sure and Rachel Weisz. So I was on a bus with my mom going to visit my grandmother in Zimbabwe and they were showing this movie on the screens and we arrived before the movie finished and I remember I was like five or six years old and I was so angry that I didn't get to see the end, because the whole beauty of ancient Egypt that they were portraying. I just fell in love with that and now I've seen that movie about 600 times. But from there I just went on to read Egyptology books and then I would watch documentaries all the time when History Channel was still history and you know, I was always growing up watching people like Zahi Hawass, salima Ikram, cara Cooney, just to name some of these people that I used to watch as a kid.

Speaker 2: 8:47

Some of these people that I used to watch as a kid and who knew that 20 years later, I would know these people be working with these people, and I just continued it and it was always there. And then I went to Egypt for the first time in 2017 and I produced a documentary which was meant to be more of a travel documentary. Obviously, to go there, I did a lot of research that really got into it. And then when I came back from Egypt I was like this is it now?

Speaker 1: 9:19

You brought up Zahi Hawass and I talked with him just a few days ago and always been a big fan of his and you know, even though my research you know my own research was just a little bit of reading and studying into ancient Egypt was kind of limited, I knew of Zahi Hawass and got some of his books everybody knows Zahi Hawass unlike Egyptology.

Speaker 2: 9:43

But I asked him, of course, because this show we and got some of his books. Everybody knows who Zaheer was, I think, so he's an unlikely pathology.

Speaker 1: 9:47

But I asked him, of course, because this show, like I said, we try to debunk those myths. And I asked him is it insulting to you? And I want to ask this of you too, because now you've been right next to the pyramids. I asked if it's insulting to him that people still say the aliens built the pyramids. I asked if it's insulting to him that people still say the aliens built the pyramids. He surprised me actually. He said no, it's not insulting because of the grand scale. It's so impressive that, yeah, you could think maybe humans didn't do this. I think logical people know humans did it. But what's your thoughts when you're standing right there looking at the Sphinx, looking at the Great Pyramid? What's the feeling like?

Speaker 2: 10:30

You know, for me I was never, even on my first visit to Egypt. I never felt that magic that people have, that they say they feel when they see the pyramids, the Sphinx. I love the pyramids, the Great Pyramid of Giza, menkora and Ghafra. It never really did anything for me. Yeah, I didn't feel anything for it. There's a lot more interesting places in Egypt than just the pyramids and everyone just thinks pyramids.

Speaker 2: 11:02

But I did a documentary with zahi and we called it secrets of giza and the whole idea was to explore giza and show people the truth and show them. You keep hearing, even in national geographic documentaries and things like that, that each block is cut exactly the same and it's so perfect and it's this and it's that. So we went and we showed that the blocks on the pyramid are all a mishmash of different sizes. You can see the chisel marks. Some of them are like not even square, they're rounded, it's all squished in. So it's not this perfect structure. So you can see the hands that did it. And from making that documentary, that made me appreciate the Giza Plateau a lot more. So for me it was never this oh wow, the pyramids kind of thing it's. It's become more now since actually doing the research for that documentary.

Speaker 1: 12:06

Where did you start with research and how did you get the first idea for one of your films?

Speaker 2: 12:15

It usually comes from. If I see a piece or I hear a little story about somebody that a lot of people don't really know about, then I will try and find as much information as I can. I go out of my way and try and look for ancient sources. It's quite a process putting everything together to write one of these documentaries. People just see their finished product but they don't know. Like I did a documentary about Sobek Neferu, the crocodile princess, and she is the first confirmed female pharaoh that we have, before Hatshepsut actually, and we know very, very little about her. And from researching and putting together all the links between her family and everything, I was able to create a life story for her. That hadn't been done before, but this whole production took three years to put together. So that shows you and you travel to different countries and different places and see different pieces Belonging to this queen or her sister or her father, and that allows you to put things together.

Speaker 2: 13:39

So, I had no idea.

Speaker 1: 13:40

Yeah, three years. How long was the film? Was it an hour and a half or two hour film, or?

Speaker 2: 13:47

90 minute film yeah Hour and a half Okay.

Speaker 1: 13:49

Yeah, I had no idea. I've also told you I've got a radio background and we could put things together in a minute or two, so that's a little different.

Speaker 1: 14:02

Now I watched Tuya and Yuya. Those were names I I wasn't familiar with before. They are, uh, the, the great-grandparents of, of king tut. Yeah, and the thing that I found the most fascinating and I've I've got it written down somewhere here um tuya, I think it was about halfway through tuya, about halfway through the film, it surprised me that on her death mask she's smiling. I guess I haven't seen too many death masks, or even in drummings of the Egyptians where they're smiling.

Speaker 2: 14:39

That kind of surprised me and I mean, if you consider her daughter, queen Ti, she always looks very upset in her images. Then you have, you know, tuya, and she's got this little smile, she's got the rounded face to show, she's got youth on her side, that death mask. You know, with Tuya and Yuyet, people didn't know about them and I felt like we could tell their story. And then also, through doing research, you find out so much more. And one thing I did find out is some of the stories that we hear about the discovery of Tut's tomb that gets retold and retold and retold, like we are quoting Howard Carter as always saying everywhere the glint of gold. That was not Howard Carter that said that, that was Theodore Davis. So when he entered the tomb of Tuya and Yuya with his candle, he wrote down in his diary everywhere the glint of gold.

Speaker 1: 15:51

Oh, one of those urban myths then attributed to the wrong person.

Speaker 2: 15:55

Yeah, and then Tuya Nyuya I mean that mask of hers, also going and seeing the piece, you can see that underneath, because she had like a veil placed over her mummy and then that was sealed with resin and you can see the black marks still on the mask where they couldn't clean the resin off. And underneath that resin is actually a lotus flower, which I've never seen documented before. But when you go there and you look at it and you look really closely at every little detail, then I was like, oh, she's got a lotus on her forehead and that's how we know that that mask is made for her, it's for a woman.

Speaker 1: 16:39

Another thing I noticed in the film there and we're talking with Curtis Ryan Woodside. I'll mention'll, I'll mention his YouTube channel in a minute, here, as soon as I can bring this up. But where is it here? There we go. But Curtis Ryan filmmaker, there we go. And but before King Tut was found by Howard Carter, tuya and Yuya were the big discovery.

Speaker 2: 17:05

Isn't that right. They were the complete tomb found in the Valley of the Kings. And this is another part of, you know, debunking fake news and this fake news. We keep hearing that King Tut was the only intact tomb found in ancient Egypt or in the Valley of the Kings, or whatever they keep repeating to us. That's not true. We have Tuya and Nuga. Their tomb was found intact. I mean it had been broken into, so had Taz, but the pieces were there. The pieces were complete and intact. And there's also a Nubian official who was buried in the Valley of the Kings called Maiherperi, and his tomb has also been discovered with all of his grave goods intact. So we keep hearing the sameis and his tomb was found intact. We have several examples of other burials that have been found that have been intact. So, again, that's some fake news that keeps getting repeated.

Speaker 1: 18:21

Certainly. Certainly Another thing just today, and I shouldn't be surprised that this popped up in my Facebook feed, because I'm sure it was an algorithm or something. But you mentioned the daughter of Tuya Enuyah. Ti Tei, yes, ti, okay. It's very difficult to say it. I like to say Ti Ti, okay, and it was a photo from the Egypt Museum of a reconstruction of her face. She was beautiful, she was absolutely beautiful she was.

Speaker 2: 18:54

But which reconstruction was that? Because I know mine have been lifted before and then distributed without credit, so you probably saw my reconstruction, uh-oh.

Speaker 1: 19:03

I'll take a closer look for it. I'll forward it to you if it turns out to be yours. I had no idea, but I think that's fascinating.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Queen Ti had this hair that she was one of the rare Egyptians that didn't shave their head, and she had her own hair on her head, which was this like auburn color. She had this texture on her head, which was this like auburn color. She had this texture on her hair which was like soft, wavy hair. It's so beautiful to see her mummy. She looks as if she's just gone to sleep. There's an image from when they took her mummy out of the cache and you can see that there was like a sheet over her face and if you look at it for a split second, it just looks like someone's sleeping.

Speaker 1: 19:53

That's amazing. That's amazing. Now, your first film was the Fear of Hugh. The movie that was 2013, 2013, and I watched that also the other day. I've got to tell you the Right in the beginning, the whisper of I see you that? That kind of freaked me out, just the audio it was.

Speaker 2: 20:20

So I see you, that was you. That was you, that's me.

Speaker 1: 20:28

It was the perfect, I think audio and mystery and intrigue, everything mixed up in there. I just thought that's better than you know. If you build it he will come from Field of Dreams. It's better than so many of those. He will come from Field of Dreams. It's better than so many of those eerie whispers. I've heard in film that when you see that, you notice and you remember that.

Speaker 2: 20:50

And that ICU was intended for the audience to go. Oh my god.

Speaker 1: 20:55

It did.

Speaker 2: 20:56

It definitely did and that is a repeat. That sound has been extracted from the film and used on TikTok and it's got like 12 million reshares with that audio of ICU. Again, no one knows that it's me.

Speaker 1: 21:12

Yeah, well, we got to let the word out then.

Speaker 1: 21:17

And everybody can find it on YouTube, correct? Yeah, excellent, very good. And everybody can find it on uh on youtube, correct, yeah, excellent, uh, very good. And uh, also, I started watching, um, let's see what was it here. The uh, egyptian secrets of pompeii. Uh, for some, for some reason, in the last uh, three, four months or so I have been, I've had a fascination with pompeii, and then I stumbled on Neil Laird, who was a friend of yours and a director. I recognized his name just from History Channel.

Speaker 2: 21:53

I'll have History Channel on. I spoke to him on the phone a few days and we spoke about you, oh really he's in Turkey right now, isn't he?

Speaker 1: 22:09

Yeah, nice, I can't't remember, but we did. We did speak. But I'll have history channel on in the background sometimes and I'll look over, and so many times neil laird's name would pop up there. And so he's writing the pompeii book now, or has already, uh, but e Egyptian Secrets of Pompeii, your film.

Speaker 1: 22:24

I was about a third of the way through that and I'll admit I'm an American male and I like baseball. So I'm watching your film, I've got your film up on the computer. I'm watching the baseball game on TV. I'm watching the baseball game on TV and suddenly, once again, I hear this voice and, if I can describe the way, I noticed that I'm watching the baseball game and it could have been a grand slam, a home run, anything by my favorite player, and I would have turned my attention to what I was hearing on my computer and it was Sophia Aziz, with her speaking as ISIS. And what an intriguing voice that was. I mean, if you picked her and you did that voice yourself in the Fear of you, then you've got an ear, my friend, you know audio as well as video.

Speaker 1: 23:26

And I tell you that's a director at work, because she was the perfect voice for that portion of the film. But tell me what you learned at Pompeii. And we've got to talk about Sophia Aziz too.

Speaker 2: 23:40

We have to. We have to talk about Sophia Pompeii. There's so much to learn at Pompeii. And we got to talk about Sophia Aziz too. We have to. We have to talk about Sophia Pompeii. There's so much to learn at Pompeii. But with that film I always had this feeling that there was an Egyptian connection.

Speaker 2: 23:54

And then I went to Pompeii for the first time when I was in Napoli. I was doing an Italian course, so I went with some of the other students and we walked around Pompeii and then we went into some of the houses that were there and I started to notice Egyptian influences over and over and over, and I didn't know much about Pompeii. So I started researching and found out okay, pompeii was actually founded by the Greeks. So the city of Napoli, which was called Neapolis by the Greeks, was founded by them. And Greece and Egypt have a very strong connection as well and with the whole Alexander the Great connection. And I just dug deeper and deeper and go down the rabbit hole and found this whole, all these clues to show. Well, here's a stele from someone talking about when Alexander the Great expelled the Persians out of Egypt. And now the stele ended up here in Pompeii and his family moved to Pompeii.

Speaker 2: 25:00

We have proof there that the Egyptians were there. There's Egyptian scenes on the walls. There's images of Nile scenes. Whether that was someone who wanted to feel like they're on holiday or that was someone who lived there, I would be more inclined to believe that someone who lived in Egypt and bought a little part of that with them. On the walls, sure Temple of Isis I mean Isis was worshipped there. Isis is an Egyptian goddess. There's a very strong connection. We see Egyptian priests on the frescoes. So we know the Egyptians were there and the Egyptians had a very, very big influence in Pompeii.

Speaker 1: 25:41

That was part of the reason I was intrigued so much by just seeing the title of the film, because I thought Egyptians and Pompeii I mean you look on a map and they're pretty far away from each other. It's 2,000 miles away Pompeii and Egypt. But yeah, like you said, there must have been some travel and Egyptians must have been there.

Speaker 1: 26:03

Yeah for sure, for sure. I think part of the reason for a fascination with Pompeii is, you know, they were wiped out so fast by Vesuvius, of course, and I just think, and this is, I think, a general fascination with history, but I think there must have been somebody with your kind of talent, you know, and getting more famous in Pompeii, but a writer or a playwright or something. And there must be lost books, manuscripts, there must be a lost library of Pompeii. But just imagine if that could be uncovered today. You know, we'd have a new old classic literature that we could experience today, from 2,000 years ago. On Pompeii. I mean, it's got to exist, we got to be able to find that someday. I hope I'm around when it happens, because with technology it's just got to happen someday.

Speaker 2: 27:06

You know they have some scrolls that they did find in Pompeii that they've been able to I'm not sure do CT scans on, and this has revealed some of the texts inside the CT scans. It just takes a lot of time to unwrap them digitally. So I think we will be able to start unwrapping some of these texts that have been found.

Speaker 1: 27:32

That would be wonderful. That'd be wonderful to be able to see that. I'm sure somebody would make a movie. Maybe you would make a movie about whatever is found, but that would be fascinating. I think Now I mentioned Sophia Aziz and I was not familiar with her before I heard her voice on your film watching Egyptian Secrets in Pompeii. She is a biomedical Egyptologist, is that right? I'm not familiar with that. What is her specialty?

Speaker 2: 28:05

So what Sophia can do is she can examine mummies and tell us about their life, about their death. She's also an expert on ancient Egyptian medicine, so she does Egyptology but focuses mainly on the medical, human side of things. So that's why she's such a great help. When I'm doing documentaries and I need someone to talk about a mummy or something, because I don't know all the correct terminology I can tell you about the history of the person, but I I look at a CT scan and tell you this, this and that she can. So she's great at doing that.

Speaker 1: 28:50

Sure, now something else. You speak of terminology, and this is just. I never knew how to describe this item that I always saw the Egyptians in the drawings holding on to, and I remember I think the first time I saw it you know, maybe as a 10-year-old child or something you know I blatantly screamed out what's that? And ever since I've been saying what is that? And I found out recently it was the Ankh, the Egyptian Ankh. Oh yeah, what's that for? I mean, I've read a little bit about it and it could be immortality, it could symbolize life or protection, or passage into the afterlife, or so many things. Do we know for sure, do you?

Speaker 2: 29:39

have a theory what the Ankh represents. I would say it's a key.

Speaker 1: 29:42

Well, that's what it looks like.

Speaker 2: 29:43

Yeah. Yeah, it symbolizes life, but it also is the key to the afterlife. So we see them holding it on the loop, offering an ankh to the nose or the mouth of the person in the scene of the Pharaoh of the deceased Um. So the ankh can mean many things. We also have the art and sun rays coming down, and each hand of the sun ray that comes down is holding an ankh.

Speaker 2: 30:21

Each hand of the sun ray that comes down is holding an ankh, so it's a big symbol for life and getting into the next life as well, even though Akhenaten, with the Aten, had a different belief in the afterlife than the rest of the other pharaohs.

Speaker 1: 30:39

I've heard a theory recently about when it comes to the Egyptians and the afterlife and of course they'll leave things in their tombs to help them get into the afterlife and through it. I guess I realize they aren't regarded as slaves, but the people who built the pyramids. They probably didn't have the resources to put things in their tomb to get them through or to the afterlife. The more wealthy people likely did so. Is that cheating a little bit? If you get things during your life that you put into your tomb, that'll help you through, you think that's cheating, no, no, no.

Speaker 2: 31:22

Okay, you know they with the I'm trying to think with the workers, it's. You know they were buried close to the pyramids. A lot of the main officials, who were afforded a big tomb, were buried on the Giza plateau. So they have their mastabas with their burial chamber and just being close to the pyramid. That's a link to help send you up to your next life. So it's all within the area. And we have the workman's village, which is next to Giza, separated by a wall, and those men also had tombs. So I don't know if we'll be cheating.

Speaker 2: 32:11

And then in their lifetime, we have which is known as a heart scarab, which is a stone shaped like a scarab, and on the underside it says oh my heart, protect me I have not spoken badly Protect my wishes to enter the afterlife, blah, blah, blah. And this you could have made in your lifetime. You take that with you and it's placed on your mummy lifetime. You take that with you so that, and it's placed on your mummy, and when you have the weighing of the heart, which is the final test to get into the afterlife, you can actually offer up the heart scarab instead of your own heart. Oh, so you could in, in effect, use that as basically get out of jail free card, so if you have done bad things, you can use the scarab and that will help you.

Speaker 1: 33:04

Okay, all right, I don't know cheating it's just one of those things, as I was thinking. You know, you get into thought after thought and hey, I wonder if somebody could consider but you have your own death mask, do you not? I do yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:22

I do. Now, what really was the purpose of a death mask and why do you have one? So when I am mummified, I will have that over my mummy so I can be recognized, of course. Of course, I have actually spoken to Salima Ikram about how do we go about this, so it's a whole complicated process. You have to donate your body to a certain university in Egypt and get your body there, and then the students will mummify you as an experiment, for whatever.

Speaker 1: 34:02

Oh, you're absolutely serious. You're going to be mummified, yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:09

Oh Okay, not now. Yeah, some other time Some other time yeah, so and that would be the idea. And then I'd have the mask and I would just, you know, tell them okay, make a glass case and stick me in your university or whatever, and that's there for your students to see sure, sure yeah, why not?

Speaker 1: 34:32

of course now. Uh, hopefully long before that time, uh, we'll be able to see your upcoming film Alexander the Great Feral Now. You're working on that now, or is that finished?

Speaker 2: 34:47

Alexander came out in January. Okay, I put Alexander out on the same day that Netflix put their Alexander out. Oh, how did that go.

Speaker 1: 35:02

How did that go?

Speaker 2: 35:04

How did that go? Mine was received very well. Ned Peaks' one was a bit. I watched it. Salima was in it, but she was speaking very factually. She doesn't know, obviously, what visuals they will use. The whole documentary was really really badly done, over-dramatized, so much wrong factually, which is why I decided, as soon as I saw the trailer for that one, I knew okay, I'm going to make my Alexander, which was already filmed. So it's not like I saw Netflix and said, okay, now I'm doing Alexander. I had already filmed Alexander. So I have a list of about 60 documentaries that have been filmed that have to be edited. Oh, is that right? So I just pick and choose what I feel like doing next. Sure, so Alexander was done. Put it out to show the true story of what happened when he was in Egypt, which also doesn't get discussed a lot, even in this Netflix documentary. It is overlooked so quickly his stay in Egypt and it's also told factually completely wrong.

Speaker 1: 36:29

That's another one that, like your connection there between Egypt and Pompeii, I think a lot of people would think Alexander the Great and Egypt. I personally don't know the story. What happened with Alexander? Briefly, We'll watch the movie. But Alexander the Great's time in Egypt, what happened there?

Speaker 2: 36:50

So the film starts. We have an overlook of his youth and the connection with Persia, this rivalry that builds up under the rule of his father, philip, and then eventually, him becoming king, going after the Persians, wanting to conquer what the Persians had. Egypt was part of the Persian empire during that time and obviously Alexander wanted to have what the Persians had. The other thing as well is that greece and egypt have a very strong connection that has not been explored deeply enough. So when alexander arrived in egypt, after chasing the persians out, he was welcomed, completely welcomed, with open arms as the savior, which is quite normal because egypt and greece were so close, so it's not like he was a foreigner.

Speaker 2: 37:42

So he then went to the Siwa Oasis and he wanted to speak to the Oracle of Amun, and in the film we discuss the different options of what could have happened, because we don't know the full conversation that happened with himself, the high priest, the oracle, and what the exact questions were. We know that the answer was you are my son, you are the son of Amun. So even in the Netflix documentary they have this whole thing where they make out like they know exactly what was said. We do not know what he said to the oracle.

Speaker 2: 38:21

We just know. He exited there being told you are the son of Amun. And then he goes on to build several chapels and different things throughout Egypt during his six months stay there and then he goes on to conquer the rest of the world. So the film focuses on a lot that he built that doesn't get discussed a lot, Of course of course yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:48

Who are some directors, either past or present, then, that you admire or maybe have or do inspire you? Who do you like to watch?

Speaker 2: 39:01

maybe have or do inspire you. Who do you like to watch? I got into filmmaking because of Peter Jackson, so from watching Lord of the Rings I really loved his work on that. But then when he did the King Kong movie, I watched how they made that film.

Speaker 1: 39:24

And that inspired me to start making films.

Speaker 2: 39:29

You started at a very young age actually you started at a young age doing film, 10 years old, yeah, 10 years old. I had a little camera, like a little digital camera, and I was with my friend Alicia the one day and we were bored, it was raining and we said okay, let's make a movie. So we started making a movie, of course, and we haven't stopped.

Speaker 1: 39:52

Yeah, that's the thing I think. Like I mentioned about the Egypt fascination, that's eventually where a lot of us stopped there, but you've definitely taken it to higher levels, folks, I'm talking with pardon, I try talking with Curtis Ryan Woodside. He is an independent filmmaker. Now, tell me about Ramsey's. You've got a film about Ramsey's a second. Is that the one that you're finishing up now about Ramses? You've got a film about Ramses II. Now, is that the one that you're finishing up now?

Speaker 2: 40:26

So, yes, ramses II is going to be my 30th documentary and he's my favorite pharaoh and I feel like he's been given a very bad rap by previous Egyptologists and people who have how do I say this very nicely, very subtly People who've watched the Ten Commandments by Cecil B DeMille. Now, that movie, it's a great movie Technically, everything it's beautiful. Now that movie, it's a great movie Technically, everything it's beautiful, it's lovely. But Cecil B DeMille went and plucked Ramsey's name out of nowhere and made him the pharaoh of the Exodus.

Speaker 2: 41:16

And this is stuck in the consciousness of the whole world that it is Ramsey II who's the pharaoh in the Exodus. They paint him as this evil person without any archaeological evidence and even the timeline I've worked out the timeline from the Bible of the events that happened, because we have specific dates so many years pass, and then the building of Solomon's Temple and so many years before the building of Solomon's Temple, moses was born and because of all this you can work out there's about 150 years that the exodus would have happened then. And then Ramses II came 150 years later. So it's not him. The main part of the documentary is to show the entire life of Ramses II and that's why this one? I've finished writing it, I finished shooting it. I'm working with Dr Hawass on this whole production very closely and it's going to be about three hours long.

Speaker 1: 42:16

Oh my yeah, how long does just editing take once you've got everything you need? Um, because that's something. Uh, you know, I'm venturing into podcasting for the first time and I am having a terrible time with digital editing. Um it, no, come on, I'm learning, but um, so how long does it take? A three hour? Mean, if you end up with three hours, obviously you've got a lot of film. How long does just the editing take?

Speaker 2: 42:48

It's going to take a while. I haven't even got around to recording the voiceovers yet. I haven't done a lot of the things that we need to do. But everything is shot, everything is written. The script has been written. It's a crazy amount of pages, the script Cause it's. It's going year by year what Ramses II did.

Speaker 2: 43:15

And we are following the full story from the time of Tutankhamun, because Tut's reign directly affects Ramses II's reign with the war with the Hittites. So it starts from Tut's reign and we go all the way through and then the Battle of Kadesh. And I tell the story of the Battle of Kadesh as it actually happened, not this abbreviated thing that we keep getting told. It actually happened over several days. And another main part of the documentary is to show that Ramses, even though all these Egyptologists keep regurgitating the same information because they've been, I don't know, brainwashed or whatever They've watched the Ten Commandments, they believe that it's real. You know, it's passed down through the ages, through our consciousness, to everybody that Ramses II is evil. And with the Battle of Kadesh we see that Ramses II always has the upper hand against the Hittites.

Speaker 2: 44:20

And this whole story that is propaganda. And he lost the battle and all of that. That's fake. He received a letter after the first day of battle from the king of the Hittites asking Ramses to please stop because Ramses had killed the prince of the Hittites. Okay, and he ends the letter calling himself your servant. They go away. Ramses says he won the battle, which he probably did, went back to Egypt, documented it everywhere, and then for 13 years they were discussing back and forth and in these 13 years Ramses went back several times into the land of Hatti. And in these 13 years Ramses went back several times into the land of Hatti where he had very victorious battles, defeating cities that were rising up against Egyptian rule. So we know he had control over that area. And all the letters that the Hittites would send, they finished every letter saying we are your servant. That's interesting. If you win a battle, if you win a battle, are you going to refer to yourself as a servant to the person you defeated?

Speaker 1: 45:30

Yeah, you got to think about that, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:35

Now I can't wait to see the movie. So we tell this whole story. It's going to be great. Sophia Aziz is in it, sahar Salim is in it. So we have a lot of things that are being told about Ramesses that people will not know. Even I was learning stuff.

Speaker 1: 45:53

Of course. Oh sure, sure, you've got to keep yourself going. I'm sure you're learning new things every day. With the amount of history you're researching and discovering, it's got to be fascinating.

Speaker 2: 46:03

Every day, every day.

Speaker 2: 46:04

And what's great with doing the research for this film for Ramsey's is I took also each family member I researched because each family member has their connection to him and something that they did for him, so it tells more of his story.

Speaker 2: 46:23

So we have the stories of the sons and the daughters and his mother and how important his mother was to him and how important Nefertari, his wife, was to him. And I tell the story of each wife that he has, each royal wife, and by working out with the daughters as well, we can see that one daughter would die and then he would make the next daughter the great royal wife, which is the queen. He didn't have any intimate relations with these daughters because we know that they didn't have children and the 19th dynasty frowned upon incest. So when you follow the whole pattern, I could actually work out each daughter when they died, how the next one became, because a lot of sources say that he had three of his daughters being great royal wives at the same time, which is not true. You can see one died, the next one came.

Speaker 1: 47:24

That's something else fascinating. Americans have such a fascination now with genealogy but it seems like there's a lot regarding the ancient Egyptians that we do know. I'm sure obviously even more that we don't, but it's interesting. You know some of those History Channel specials, regardless if the History Channel is history anymore. But we know and even from you, tuya and Yuya begat Te. And then we have King Tut, and it's fascinating to see the similarities but the differences between each of them and how their lives were, you know, when they either reigned or were adults.

Speaker 2: 48:12

Yeah, yeah, the genealogy with tracking all of these different ancient Egyptians. It's so interesting, even when I did Sobekneferu to track the story of her daughter not her daughter of her sister, who died before her. Her sister was intended to take the throne if the father died because there was no actual male heir. He was too young. Then he died, so the sister was intended to take the throne, and a lot of pieces of jewelry that were found in her sister's tomb because there's several princesses that they called Neferu Ptah, because there were two different tombs but only one tomb was filled. And this is where I ruled out that there's only one princess called Neferupata, because a lot of the pieces found inside Neferupata's tomb came from several different pharaohs, including her own father. So she cannot be a predecessor of Neferupata, because how does the predecessor end up with jewelry from the father of Neferupata? So it's one princess, two different tombs. They just buried her in the one that they saw fit. So that's where it's doing some genealogy. You can see, okay, there's only one princess, sure.

Speaker 1: 49:42

You've got to follow the steps. Yeah, that takes the research that you're doing.

Speaker 2: 49:49

Dedicated research. It's really interesting because you know, it's like when you're playing a game of cards and you can see your next move and someone does something and you sort of forget your move, or you're doing your move and you forget what you're doing in the middle of the move. So sometimes I'll have a note and I'll write something down. Then I read something, read something and then I get completely lost. I have to go back and reread all of that and then I go okay, so I was right. There's only one princess. Okay, so I was right.

Speaker 2: 50:22

There's only one princess, Ironically that's the thing.

Speaker 1: 50:27

In doing this show and radio shows I've done in the past, I get guests like yourself that make me think so much a little bit that I know a little bit that I don't, a little bit that I'm wondering, and you'll spark something in my mind. I'm like, oh, I've either got to ask that or that was similar to a question I already had in mind but now we're going a different route, so it's just it's.

Speaker 1: 50:51

this is why we need to learn our history, you know, to remember those things that people did before, either right or wrong, to know how we need to go in the future.

Speaker 2: 51:03

Yeah, and if we look at our history, we can understand that we are not so different from those people.

Speaker 1: 51:10

Is that the big thing that you've discovered in researching history? That maybe people are the same?

Speaker 2: 51:18

We're the same people, Different technology different news.

Speaker 2: 51:21

well, different technology, different news. But yeah, different technology, different news. We can fly places but at the end of the day we're all the same. You know we have the, the people wanting to wear the nice wigs or get the nice clothes or, um, you know, someone dies and they feel sad and the whole thing and they go into a depression, which we see. Ramses II goes into a depression after his first wife, the Fatari, dies. You can actually see it happening when you research. You can just see the whole decline. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 51:59

They didn't have Prozac back then though.

Speaker 2: 52:04

No, no, they just sniffed on a locust and got on with it.

Speaker 1: 52:07

Um, now you are in italy right now. That that's where you make home. Yes, okay, tell me about, uh, the national archaeological museum in florence. Archaeological museum in Florence, please.

Speaker 2: 52:22

What do you want to know about it? Pardon, what do you want to know about it? Where do I start?

Speaker 1: 52:31

Well, they've You've said they've got some artifacts there that aren't necessarily being taken care of the way they should be.

Speaker 2: 52:38

Yeah there we go Good. So they have a pillar of Seti I from his tomb showing him with the goddess Hathor. Now, this is a pillar that apparently fell down in Seti's tomb when Giovanni Balzoni found it in the 1800s. It was then taken by Henry Salt, who was the head of antiquities for Egypt under British rule. So whenever you see something in a museum that says Henry Salt Collection, that is an illegal artifact, is that right, very deep story If you go into it. Anything that says Henry Salt Collection is an illegal artifact, it should not be in that other country. So he hijacked these pieces, sold them off to the highest bidder and he sold. He cut the pillar. The one side was damaged where it fell. So there's three sides that were perfectly preserved. One side he sold to the Louvre, which has the same scene of Setti and Hathor. The second side was sold to Florence and it has the same scene, setti and Hathor. And the third side was sold to the museum in Berlin, which has Setti and Osiris. And the one in Berlin perfectly preserved. The one in Paris perfectly preserved.

Speaker 2: 54:05

It's in a humidity-controlled room, it's behind a glass case. It has good lighting on it, it is very well looked after, the one in Florence and I am friends with the curator of the Florence Museum and I don't want to be mean about her job, but the stuff that's been happening to this happened before she became the curator and they all left. Because it is a very difficult system, because they have the Greek section, the Etruscan section, the Roman section, the Egyptian section, this, this, this, this, this, this. They have to have a meeting with each person individually to get anything done. If you want to change one light bulb, you have to have a meeting with every single one of these members before you can change a light bulb. You have to have a meeting with every single one of these members before you can change a light bulb. So I'm not holding anything against her because she's been able to get in her time there. Two new glass cases installed, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 55:14

But this pillar it is standing in a room. It has no lighting on it because it is in such a bad condition. The color has deteriorated so badly where it doesn't even resemble the same one which is in the Louvre. It has blackened so much it has actual mold. You can see the mold growing on this pillow. There is an open window right next to the pillow, blowing humid air. The European air is not fit for these Egyptian artifacts because it has all this moisture in it which you don't have in the desert. Sure, of course, all this moisture is coming in, it's damaging the piece. It's not covered, it's not protected.

Speaker 2: 56:04

Then, I don't know, three years ago, they decided to restore this pillow and it has been painted. They painted directly over the mold that was growing with acrylic paint. Yes, so when you take your phone and shine a bright light on it, you can see the ancient paint, which is matte, and the new paint, which is completely shiny. You can see it's not even they didn't even try and match the paint. It's very badly done. And they I've seen them they bring children in and they give little lectures to children in front of this pillar and they are so proud to have this pillar, are so proud to have this pillar, but they don't treat the pillar with the respect that it deserves. And they are using this pillar to promote the museum, to get people in, but they are not treating the pillar the way they think the pillar is treating them some of the things you mentioned.

Speaker 1: 57:16

I mean this this sounds like it should be a prestigious museum. I don't think my local county museum would treat artifacts like that, you know, next to an open window. That's sacrilege, it's losing the piece of history.

Speaker 2: 57:32

I've spoken to other Egyptologists and, like Cara Cooney has told me I won't name which museum it is, but she's also seen museums paint sarcophagi with acrylic paint.

Speaker 1: 57:49

We're not talking.

Speaker 2: 57:49

Egyptian museums we're talking out-of-Egypt museums that are doing this, and it's not all of them. The museum in Berlin treats the pieces very well. The rooms are air-conditioned, humidity-controlled, the pieces are looked after the Louvre everything is looked after so well In Florence. I just think maybe they don't have the funding to look after their pieces. Perhaps I made this big post complaining about it because I went there two weeks ago and I saw the deterioration that had gone even further from the time before and I put pictures through the years showing how bad it looks, where you can see the paint has been repainted or chipped off or whatever, and I I did. It did reach somebody at unesco, so it's now in their hands to see what they're going to do. And just my belief that if the museum cannot look after that piece the way they are looking after other pieces, they should just send it back to egypt absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 59:05

Um, that that was one of the things uh with zahi was we talked about is some of those artifacts the rosetta stone, the bust of nefertiti that should be back in egypt, with the egyptian people yeah, and the nefertiti that should be back in Egypt with the Egyptian people.

Speaker 2: 59:24

Yeah, and the Nefertiti bust that was stolen they tricked the Egyptian officials into giving that piece over. So when they showed because they had a 50-50 split in those years, 50 split in those years and so the Germans printed pictures of all the artifacts that they had found and they showed the bust of Nefertiti, they wrapped the crown in material, laid it down in a box and covered the one good eye and just showed the broken eye and they showed this section of her face in the picture and they said okay, these are the pieces. And the Egyptian guy came through and said you can keep that because the eye is damaged. Keep that, keep that, keep that. We'll take all of this stuff. And the picture was also black and white, so they couldn't see how well it was painted. And who knows, maybe they bribed the Egyptian officials, maybe they did something they shouldn't have done, but at the end of the day, the piece the Nefertiti bust should not be in Berlin. The way it was taken is not correct. Sure, sure.

Speaker 1: 1:00:32

And I think of the way you know antiquities are, whether it's mishandled or destroyed or misplaced or something. I think Neil Laird, a friend of yours, and I were talking, and ISIS destroyed so much history in the Middle East. That's another thing. It's just sacrilege, it's lost forever yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:01:02

Yeah. So I've heard so many people saying, oh, the museums in Egypt are not capable of looking after. I'm so tired of hearing that because the museums in Egypt have improved so much where they are on a better standard than the rest of the world. Now I mean the Nemec Museum which they opened about three years ago. If you visit that museum, the pieces I've been into the restoration lab and I see how they repair the pieces and how they look after them and radiate them. So there's no bugs or anything in these pieces. It's so well looked after. And the displays they've thought about every single thing. The lighting is perfect, each display case has got a humidity controller inside, um and not just a fake one from like the 1970s, like a real one, um, and the smallest details. They've even got specialized glass so people can take pictures of these pieces and there's no reflection or glare on the glass.

Speaker 1: 1:02:16

Well, it stands to reason that you think if it belongs to the Egyptian people, they're going to take pride in that. If they don't know how to preserve it and display it, they're going to learn it.

Speaker 2: 1:02:27

I think it's their piece and they're going to take care of it. They have and I don't believe every single piece should go back. There are some pieces that were taken perfectly legally, but there are some pieces that should go back. Especially mummies. Mummies, I think, should be back in Egypt.

Speaker 1: 1:02:52

Why I agree with you. But why do you think?

Speaker 2: 1:02:55

so that's their homeland, that's where they were buried, sure, and I think they would prefer to be in their homeland Displaying mummies. I'm totally fine with Looking at mummies, I'm totally fine with, but it's being out of Egypt and there are museums I'm not going to name. I know two museums that have royal mummies outside of Egypt and they are not naming these mummies as royal, they just say unidentified man, unidentified woman.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

Now why would they do that?

Speaker 2: 1:03:34

Because if there is a royal mummy outside of Egypt and it is a known royal mummy, it by law has to go back to Egypt and these museums do not want to lose their mummy card by having to send it back. That makes sense. So I've done documentaries with museums. That makes sense. So I've done documentaries with museums, One museum in particular. I said that this was a 21st dynasty queen. And they immediately sent me an email and said no, you cannot say that, but it is.

Speaker 1: 1:04:17

Yes, but you cannot say that that's just not right. That's just not right. That's just not right yeah yeah, there's a pharaoh.

Speaker 2: 1:04:22

There's a pharaoh somewhere here in europe. Um, I know which museum he's at and I've informed my friends at the ministry and we will see if we can get him returned. Currently he is just displayed as unknown man.

Speaker 1: 1:04:41

Like we said earlier, people throughout time are people. I think the same thing. Humans are going to be humans. We still have desires and sadness, but we also have greed and so forth. We're going to make some of those deals that shouldn't be made.

Speaker 2: 1:05:01

That's been going on for thousands of years. It's nothing new. And some people, even in Pompeii, they would take pride in having Egyptian artifacts displayed in their house. I mean, the Greeks used to visit Egypt as a tourist destination and go into the tombs of the Valley of the Kings as a tourist destination the ancient, the tombs of the Valley of the Kings as a tourist destination, the ancient Greeks 2000 years ago. So how different are we? These people wanted to go and see a tomb as tourists on a boat going down the Nile. I mean, come on, it's a Nile cruise.

Speaker 1: 1:05:37

Curtis, ryan, woodside folks, independent filmmaker, and I think I could talk to you for another hour for sure. We can all learn so much from you. You've done this research. You're so good at passing it along. I mean we need to learn from you. We need to watch your films, thank you, thank you. You're a big fan of I'm lying.

Speaker 2: 1:05:58

Pardon, I'm trying to educate people about ancient Egypt. I first started, I tried to. I did a series which was a four-part series Egypt Through the Ages and that was aimed at getting younger people interested in ancient Egypt. Still very difficult to do, and when I saw that these young people are so stubborn, I thought you know what? There's still people my age and older that are interested in ancient Egypt. So then I started aiming towards a different crowd and showing the people that had an interest at school. And then it went away and now they can watch a documentary and get it back. That's why my documentaries are always based on facts. I don't sensationalize things. I'm always trying to just teach people and show people. This is what ancient Egypt was.

Speaker 1: 1:06:54

I think that makes it more interesting. I mean, dramatization is going to happen in movies and Hollywood, but if we can get more, and you say this is what we know, we don't know everything, but this is what we know. We don't know the conversations of mine in Cairo.

Speaker 2: 1:07:23

She was shooting a documentary with National Geographic and it was about a screaming mummy. So the mummy's mouth was open like it was screaming. It was a man screaming unknown man E is what they call him. They were doing a documentary and she'd done all the tests on him and done all the scans and she sat down with National Geographic to show them her research and they filmed everything and she said to them okay, so this man didn't die of a heart attack, he didn't die in pain, he didn't die from anything dramatic. It's literally.

Speaker 2: 1:07:53

They didn't close his mouth properly when they mummified him. So when they laid him down, they didn't put the bandages tight enough, so it just went, it just fell open. You have no muscles when you're dead, yeah, and you know bugs can get in there and bite on the tendons and it moves, which is what happened with Ramsey's II's hand, so that's why his hand moved in the 60s. So she explained all of this and they said, okay, thank you. They switched the camera off and they said, all right, can you give us something more juicy? And she said, no Good, and they said, okay, we'll go to somebody else who can give us something more juicy. So they went to another male mummy expert and he gave them some juicy story that National Geographic wanted to spread out instead of the truth.

Speaker 1: 1:08:45

Some story that he was screaming when he died.

Speaker 2: 1:08:48

Yeah, because it doesn't sell.

Speaker 1: 1:08:51

well, it doesn't sell well, yeah, that's just sad. It's just logic that when you die you can't clench your mouth anymore, it's going sell. Well, yeah, that's just sad. I mean, it's just logic that when you die you can't clench your mouth anymore, it's going to open Even embalmers.

Speaker 2: 1:09:03

today, they actually stitch the jaw up to make sure that that doesn't happen. They did that back then too, so they just didn't do that with this guy.

Speaker 1: 1:09:19

So yeah, but to gain some ratings or something. They wanted a juicier story and they ended up paying for it. But yeah, somebody kept their honesty and integrity intact. I guess that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 2: 1:09:33

I'm very proud of what she did because she could have just said okay, I'll tell you whatever you want, it's going on TV. She said no.

Speaker 1: 1:09:41

I admire that Seriously. I admire that. That's part of fake news. Actually, they created fake news, Come to think of it. Created fake news about a mummy yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:09:52

It's okay to speculate in a documentary and say, could it be? Because they all ask could he have died like this, could he have died like that? And then right at the end of the documentary, they can boom, put in the truth and let everyone go oh, that's what happened, instead of letting them all believe the could.

Speaker 1: 1:10:09

Yeah, I mean, there's something to be said, even and that brings up so many more stories, but there's something to be said for you know, you decide, decide on your own, you know, and bringing up a theory or something, but just to say that was yeah, that's not right.

Speaker 2: 1:10:25

I did that with Nefertiti because I had in that documentary I had myself presenting my idea on who the mummy of Nefertiti is. I had Cara Cooney coming in and saying well, why do we even want to find her mummy, let's just leave her alone. And then I have Aidan Dodson saying oh well, we already have her mummy and it's this one. And at the end of the documentary we never say it's this one. I present each person's theory and you decide.

Speaker 1: 1:10:51

Yeah, that's educational. That may even get more people doing their own research, doing own research, doing some some studying, watch some more films, some documentaries. Yeah, yeah, that's what. That's what we got to do. Now you've got a relationship with Celine Dion, You've you've done some filming with her. Tell me, tell me about your fascination with Celine Dion.

Speaker 2: 1:11:15

Oh my gosh, I don't know where to start with that. Also, from when I was very young, I met Celine when she was doing the 2008 world tour for Taking Chances and she was in South Africa and we had this very dramatic meeting backstage and she liked me. We saw her the next day, we saw her that evening and we just really liked me and so she went on to do the rest of the world tour and then she was doing the in vitro to try and get pregnant and then eventually she gave birth to the twins, eddie and Nelson, and we sent her some flowers to her house in Florida to congratulate her for the birth of the twins and whatever. And the day before Christmas, christmas Eve, we got an email from Patrick Angelil, which is her husband's son, from another wife and saying Celine's inviting you to come to see her in Vegas in April, over Easter, the whole thing. We went to Vegas, we saw her.

Speaker 2: 1:12:35

It was great, and while I was there I told Renee that I like to make films and documentaries and things like that. Renee is her husband, and so then we went back in I can't remember, I think it was August, october, august. We went back to Vegas and we said, okay, cool, now we will shoot a little documentary together. You can release that. Whatever you want to do, do it. Renee was very supportive, went back the next year where I actually got to give her the film in person and present it to her, and since then we've just kept doing things. I've done the backgrounds for some live performances, helped with the sale of the house in Florida, did you get a commission no.

Speaker 2: 1:13:35

I'm sorry, I wish. Could you imagine the commission on that?

Speaker 1: 1:13:43

I'm not going to 10% of that.

Speaker 2: 1:13:46

No, no, and you know, now it's great because I still keep in touch with them. I talk to her sister often as well. With them, I talk to her sister often as well, um, so you know, it's, it's really, it's, it's very nice. Yeah, um, and she, she's just obviously released a documentary on amazon prime. I don't know if you've seen it. I have not. Oh, you should watch that. You should watch it. It's um very tough to watch. Watch that. You should watch it. It's um very tough to watch, um, because it shows the extent of what stiff person syndrome does to a person. Um, and you actually see her have a full attack.

Speaker 2: 1:14:31

Oh no, oh my, I couldn't imagine they were they were they were, they were filming and suddenly it just happens she's just sitting there and suddenly her foot starts moving in and she goes into a full seizure for about 10 minutes. Oh my, and they're trying to resuscitate her and she's there, but she's not there. I had no idea it having like that yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 2: 1:15:01

I didn't have any idea about that because I have my own back problems where I get like spasms and things in my back, and I thought she was having stuff like that. And then I watched that I was like it's nothing compared to what I was having. Um, and with that documentary which was great was just before lockdown happened oh no, not before lockdown. Just after lockdown, sorry.

Speaker 2: 1:15:29

Um, I got an email from irene taylor, the director of this documentary, and at that point the documentary wasn't going to be about stiff person syndrome because she hadn't been diagnosed. It was going to be about her whole life, told through her own way. And I got an email from Irene and it was explaining to me that you know, they were talking about my story with Celine and they wanted me to help with some of the production for that film, sending through pictures and videos and things. So that was very nice to know that even after the whole lockdown we were still there, was still a connection, you know, because people broke down a lot of connections during lockdown. So it was nice to be asked. It's just. Then she got the diagnosis and the whole documentary changed directly. Wow.

Speaker 1: 1:16:27

Yeah, I had no idea it happened like that. Do we know how often does she have those episodes like that?

Speaker 2: 1:16:36

We don't know how often what happens is they say it's from overstimulation. Really, if she gets too happy or too sad, which is why, when she was now performing at the Olympics, I was watching that and I thought please just get through that. Or I was like, don't even do it, don't even do it. After watching the documentary you'll go and you'll see like why she shouldn't do these things. I know she wants to go back on stage, but I also. I'm not going to be like these other people and pressure her. She doesn't want to go back on stage. Don't go back on stage. Yeah, yeah, for me it wouldn't bother me, it's about her. So I don't think she should go back on stage, in my opinion, because if something happens it could kill her.

Speaker 1: 1:17:31

Oh yeah, I'll have to watch that Now. I won't force you to get into politics if you don't want to, but there is a story in the news regarding a Celine song, of course, the one we all know my Heart Will Go On Donald Trump decided to use that. Yeah, you know, celine. So if you heard, if you maybe heard what happened before you heard what she said, what do you think? Is that something she would say or how would she feel about that?

Speaker 2: 1:18:08

I saw the video.

Speaker 2: 1:18:11

You know what? She let Hillary use one of her songs during her campaign long ago. So I don't know if she would be on Donald's side. Just because she's taken a picture with him in the past doesn't give him the right to use her song. Regardless of whose side you're on, I am not on anybody's side. Really, right now, with American politics, I think you guys have got two very difficult people to choose between. So you've got Kamala and you've got Donald, and I think it's a very tough decision to make between the two of them because they both have issues. But I mean, I saw that video it came up on my phone of my Heart Will Go On playing at his rally and I just thought what the what is going on? Why do you even choose that song? Why that song? And then when Sunim released her statement and she says, and really that song? I was like, yeah, that's. I mean, even if I'm sitting in the car and that song comes on, I change it.

Speaker 1: 1:19:18

Yeah Well, we've all heard it. It conjures up memories for me of people floating in the icy cold water. I hear that song and that's what I think. I don't know why Trump would think that's the song to use. Who knows anything that?

Speaker 2: 1:19:35

he thinks and you don't want to get into it, but I will.

Speaker 2: 1:19:37

The man is a nut you know, I I skipped that song if I don't see her performing it, if she's not there on a screen or in person performing it, I don't want to hear it. But, um, it's a bizarre choice and I I just I don't get it. Um, and you know, like you said, picturing the song with the, the people floating in the water and dying and the ship sinking, and all of that. I had no interest in the titanic until I went to vegas and I saw the titanic exhibition and they had that big piece of the titanic. And then it like hit me okay, this actually happened now. Now, now I'm, then I, you know you. Then you start to get it, but before you'd like you watch this movie and you're like, okay, but when you see the actual pieces that were on the ship and the people's shoes and the necklaces and the notebooks and the things, then you realize these were real people exactly exactly, there were.

Speaker 1: 1:20:40

There were people there and, uh, you know, then, yeah, you think of their genealogy and what happened to the people who loved, the people who sank or who who drowned, and yeah, that's, that's part of the fascination with history. Is, you know, thinking other stories that have not yet been told?

Speaker 2: 1:20:58

I mean, how do you use that at a political rally? I just Use something that like more upbeat, like I mean use I'm Alive, just the ear thing, I'm Alive, you know yeah exactly so.

Speaker 1: 1:21:16

Curtis Ryan Woodside again. I think we could talk for a couple more hours. I hope we can do it again. I'm sure we will Tell everybody let everybody know where we can find more information about you, about your films, about who you are films for free on YouTube, so it's just youtubecom forward, slash, curtis, ryan, woodside.

Speaker 2: 1:21:43

Or you just go onto YouTube. You see my official channel subscribe. You'll see all the videos on there. There's different playlists with all the documentaries. You can watch them on there. Please watch the ads, because that's how I get paid to make more documentaries, since I fund everything myself. Or if you want to watch it without ads, you can go to Amazon Prime. If you're in the US or the UK, you can go to Tubi Roku, apple TV. There's a whole bunch of streaming services. I have a very good distribution agent, stream Go Media, and then I have another one, janssen, and they put my stuff all over the place, so you can see me almost anywhere.

Speaker 1: 1:22:22

Very good, very good Available in more places than I thought.

Speaker 2: 1:22:25

Follow me on Instagram. On Instagram you can follow me there. That's where I usually announce when a documentary is coming out trailers or whatever. So that's a good place to be notified when it's going to happen. I have Patreon as well. I don't want to push anyone on that. It's a very tough political not political economic time for everybody, so you don't have to go on there. But on Patreon you usually get the rough cuts of the documentaries. You get the scripts, you get to see the documentary before it comes out, like a month before everybody else.

Speaker 2: 1:23:03

Oh wow, very good. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:23:06

Very good.

Speaker 2: 1:23:07

And you get my book for free as well if you're on Patreon.

Speaker 1: 1:23:10

That's all right. The Photographer book, that's the Egypt and Nubia. No, not Nubia.

Speaker 2: 1:23:17

Egypt and Nubia Sailing Lake Nasser. The Egypt and Nubia no, not Nubia. Egypt and Nubia sailing, like NASA and Egypt and the ages.

Speaker 1: 1:23:22

yeah, wonderful, and, of course, available on Amazon as well. Right, those are on Amazon. Yes, okay.

Speaker 2: 1:23:29

Curtis Ryan.

Speaker 1: 1:23:30

Woodside.

Speaker 2: 1:23:32

Cleopatra, I believe, has just been bought by Amazon as well, so now it's on the subscription service. So if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can watch that completely for free.

Speaker 1: 1:23:44

Okay, I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, all right, curtis Ryan Woodside. Thank you very much. It's been fascinating, thank you.

Speaker 2: 1:23:53

Thank you, ryan, we will chat soon.

Speaker 1: 1:23:55

Okay, wonderful and folks. Curtis Ryan Woodside just fascinating. I found information about him from when I was looking for information on ancient Egypt and Neil Laird and Zahi Hawass and those guys, and part of what I've realized since is because I'm just starting up my own YouTube channel. So take a look at that, at discerning the unknown on YouTube. But you know, first of all I put a couple of videos up and with general kind of thumbnails there. You know the part that you see that make you click on the YouTube video. As soon as I put the Sphinx on one of those that my viewers went up. It's about the fifth one I've done now on on this format and the interest in that went up. So I'm gonna keep doing that. The Sphinx on, whether I'm talking about the Titanic or whatever the Sphinx is going.