How long have you been doing movies? How did you decide to start making movies?

Even though I grew up making movies with a very low-grade camcorder, my first real experience as a filmmaker was in high school, when I made a feature-length film with a cast of my friends. I’ll admit that, at the time, I made the film because I wanted to impress this girl who was an actress and whom I had a crush on. The film didn’t succeed in that regard, nor in many others, but it put me on the path to becoming the person and filmmaker that I am today.

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Why did you do this project?

Even though it was my thesis film for my Master of Arts degree, El taller de Naldi was a project that had long been brewing in my mind. The film was inspired by the myriad conversations I had with my grandfather, Arnaldo, on Puerto Rican and family history. I had grown up surrounded by his paintings, and I was particularly fascinated by the landscape he did of his hometown of Cupey, the same one which features very prominently in the film. This fascination grew into both a personal and intellectual curiosity that I eventually resolved to satisfy in a film which is based on the conversations I have had with Arnaldo, as well as his paintings.

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(If you can say). How much budget did you have to do this project?

I don’t have a specific number, but El taller de Naldi was shot for very cheap. My MA program, run by the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology at the University of Manchester, generously provided each of its students with enough equipment for us to run a short-form independent documentary production. I also had my own equipment I accrued over the years as an independent filmmaker. At the time, I was still living off of student loans, and so I used that money for transportation costs. Thankfully enough, I was also able to stay with my grandparents for the summer during production, so that saved me from paying for living expenses. All in all, while there was some money spent, it was very marginal.

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Was it self-funded or did you get budget/producers/investors?

El taller de Naldi was in a sense self-funded, but what money was spent came from my federal student loans, or from a helping hand from my parents or other family members. There were no producers or investors which contributed to this film.

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How long did it take from the initial idea to being able to release?

I began thoroughly conceptualizing El taller de Naldi about halfway through my first semester as an MA student, around October of 2022. I spent the next few months doing preliminary research on Puerto Rican art history, and I went into production at the beginning of June 2023. Post-production ran from around mid-August to October 2023, when I submitted the film for assessment, though I added a few scenes and retouched others from November to December 2023. The film was finalized around the beginning of the new year and has been premiering at festivals ever since.

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Are you happy with the result?

I’m very pleased with the results of the film. It’s a very sentimental product which has touched so many of my family members, and especially my grandfather Arnaldo. I see it as a sort of heirloom which I hope I can share with my own children and grandchildren one day, so they might also come to know who my grandfather was and where their family came from.

What phase is this project in right now? Are you in the initial phase of sending it to festivals, middle phase or finishing the circuit?

El taller de Naldi has been premiering throughout the festival circuit since the beginning of 2024. It has been selected for a few, and still has many more decisions ahead of it. I also plan on showcasing it at the 2024 Puerto Rican Studies Association Biennial Conference, which is to be held at UC Santa Cruz this coming August. I’m hoping to receive plenty of feedback regarding the work and look forward to what my colleagues in both film and Puerto Rican studies have to say about it.

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How has your experience been with the festivals so far? Where do you think they should improve?

Festivals are tricky and often daunting. For every ten you submit, only one of them accepts your film. There’s a whole vetting process to them, and you have to be careful about the ones you submit to because more often than not, they’re looking for specific programming and marketability. While I understand that festivals have to make a profit, and that I think that it’s great that so many films still get shown, I think they should be more transparent as to why certain films don’t get selected. That way, filmmakers aren’t just given a standard cookie-cutter rejection letter that doesn’t say anything about the why the film was rejected. It would be a nice learning lesson for the filmmaker and it would show festivals as more open and approachable.

Normally, filmmakers use many references, favorite directors, favorite movies, etc. Were you inspired by any director or film? If so, tell us your references.

One of the first documentaries that truly wowed me was Louis Malle’s Calcutta (1969), a film which he produced as part of his Phantom India series. The film seamlessly explores so many aspects of one of India’s most prominent cities, all from a perspective which feels informed by ethnographic theory and thought. Anthony Bourdain is another example of a creator who I’ve really come to admire in the way he’s always sharing stories of other people while also coming up with some very creatively informative and often darkly funny commentary. I miss him dearly. I’ve also been thoroughly informed by Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah (1985) and the way that he managed to excavate the memories of his interviewers through often uncomfortable questioning that elicits an orally-informed, holistic narrative of the greatest crime of the 20th century. It’s a masterwork in interview-based storytelling that, coupled with some truly haunting cinematography, makes for some of the best documentary filmmaking of all time.

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Your favorite movie?

These are always changing. I’d say the four I often give are Y tú mamá también (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001), A Brighter Summer Day (Edward Yang, 1991), Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962), and The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998).

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Favorite series?

Denis Villeneuve has been absolutely killing it recently with the Dune films. I’m very excited to see where he goes with Dune: Messiah. He is, in his own way, the Lisan al-Gaib of cinema.

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Do you see yourself making movies in 5 years? Where do you see yourself?

I am proud to say that I am officially a career filmmaker. I recently started a position as a Media Producer at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College (City University of New York), where I am in charge of running a video series profiling various Puerto Rican artists living in the diaspora. This is but the first step in my continued life as a producer of cinematic works, and will no doubt continue to do so both professionally and on my own time.

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Do you have any other project in mind?

I always have a consistent rotation of film ideas in my head. I’m beginning production on a documentary which I must keep to myself at the moment, but I’m also running through various scripts for narrative films; from a coming-of-age story set in the contemporary American gun violence epidemic, to a transatlantic romance story inspired by my own parents’ experience in the 1980s, to more historical works such as that of a rural Spanish family torn apart by the battle frontiers of the Civil War (I’ve always been a student of history; one of my primary research topics has been the Spanish Civil War). With films, I feel like you can really only make one at a time, but all these ideas remain with me as projects which I would love to develop once the time is right.

What do you ask for the future? (cinematographically speaking)

Give young and independent filmmakers a chance. We’ve got great stories we’re trying to tell, and not to get fatalistic, but the odds are stacked against us. My friend in South Florida is about to go into production on her first feature-length film with a crew of a bunch of our other friends. The film is pretty much entirely crowd-funded, and if they hadn’t succeeded in their campaign, I don’t know if they would have had the chance to make it. What I’m trying to say is that we are so ready to take on these challenges and to show to the world that we can also make an impact. We only ever really need one shot to prove that we’ve got what it takes.

 

Your best experience in a movie theater?

Recency bias tells me that it was watching Dune Part II in IMAX; I also remember seeing Interstellar four times when that film first came out. On a more personal note, it has always been a tradition of mine to reunite with my cousins in Puerto Rico and go to the movies at least once during the summers when I am visiting. I have very fond memories of seeing The Dark Knight Rises, Star Wars Episode IX, and even Ice Age 4 together. Regardless of the film we watch, I always look forward to spending time with them at the movies. My family is the rock upon which I have built my life and career as a storyteller.