Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘MEA CULPA’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?
I started as a child, filming with my phone and telling the stories of my life. Over time, this passion led me to develop increasingly professional products and more complex stories, in parallel with the life I was living. Therefore, I am completely self-taught and my training as a filmmaker comes from a lot of hard work and field experience, as well as from watching countless films that I have seen and continue to see. These films inspire me and give me the fuel to keep going and be out in the field shooting myself.
Tell us about ‘MEA CULPA’. How do you describe it?
Although the film “MEA CULPA” directly and explicitly talks about the mafia and what it means to be under witness protection as mafia informants, the analysis I want to make and the message I want to convey is that the mafia is also a sort of state of mind, and you can feel hostage or persecuted in many moments and contexts of your life too. So, I would describe it as a sort of “inner gangster movie”.
Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.
It’s difficult to rank my favorite directors, but without a doubt, I must mention the masters who have been an incredible source of inspiration for me, such as Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, and Martin Scorsese. Additionally, I am a great lover of Eastern cinema, particularly Takeshi Kitano with the film “Sonatine” and Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo”.
If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?
Great question. I have two films in the works that I’ve been wanting to make for a long time, but they require a medium to high budget. One, “The Happy Song” is about the son of a country singer who makes a pact with the devil, leading to a series of murders. But more importantly, the other film titled ‘Racing God’ is the one I’m most attached to: it’s the story of a priest forced to engage in underground boxing matches to save his life and his community.
Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?
It is very difficult to answer this question. In general, in film production, whether it is low, medium, or high budget, adhering to the production schedule, a crucial element, is fundamental. To do this, you need a team that is perfectly aligned with you, both artistically and in terms of work methods. It doesn’t matter if it’s a large or small team, because cohesion and teamwork remain the determining factors for the successful completion of the film.The steps are, therefore: one, find a reliable team that is aligned with you. Two, establish a production schedule that is not unrealistic but close to reality because it pushes you to do more than you had planned. Three, be methodical, flexible, and ready to face all the black swans that will occur.
What was the hardest part of making ‘MEA CULPA’.
Relating to the previous question, the most difficult part of making ‘MEA CULPA’ was managing to work with so many people towards a common goal, considering that many of these people and artists who worked on the film do not do this as their only job. Therefore, they had to, and we had to, make sacrifices that many professionals in the industry do not make.
If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?
The upcoming films in production and set for release are two documentaries. One is a documentary that tells the life and history of elderly people in Italy from the perspective of words and the lexicon that shaped them but are no longer used in common language. The second one, on the other hand, is about the incredible life of cowboys in Uruguay, and I will shoot it in Montevideo in November 2025.
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