Writer/Director
How did you get started?
I started young. I didn’t start film making young, but I started writing when I was about 7 or 8. It was something I enjoyed doing as a young child, and when my family moved to the United States, I kind of went through a culture shock and so I embraced it more. I dove into my own world and that allowed me to flush out creative thoughts. Actually, I left it alone for quite some time, through high school and college, I didn’t really write. Then I decided to take an acting class and that snowballed in to year of study and I saw different plays and films. Eventually I became a writing director.
How did you learn about MakerSpace? How has MakerSpace helped you?
My manager actually saw an ad on internship and he asked me if I wanted to apply. I said sure, it turns out that there was an opening and I got it. Here I am. MakerSpace has provided me a space and has helped me find resources such as grants and has been great with making introductions to people in Staten Island's film community. Sometimes just a change of environment allows you to focus more. When you get into, or at least when I get into too much of a routine, I kind of become stale and get distracted easily. So being here allows me to attack my projects with a new sense of zeal.
What projects are you currently work on? Have you done?
I am in pre-production for a film called Miranda. I originally did it as a 12 min short film and it won audience choice award in Texas. It played at the New York City Public Library and several other festivals. Because of the response, it led me to [want to] do more of the story side. SO I expanded it into a featured film. Miranda is a contemporary Mo’ Better Blues meets Love Jones. But the main theme is domestic abuse. The protagonist is Miranda, a spoken word artist who kind of lost her poets voice and is struggling to find it again. Part of the reason is because of the abuse and trauma she is going through. I guess, typically speaking, people tend to turn to their craft or their art work and bury themselves in that, but for whatever reason she is stifled by it. When she… I guess I’ll stop there, and you should watch the movie.
Other Work:
Black 2 Sugars- There’s Black 2 Sugars, that is a 20 min film and because it so short I can’t give many details. I am also in productions on a boxing documentary through the eyes of the storm. It follows female boxers.
ANOTHER FILM- Called A City Called Heaven
Tell me about one of your favorite moment thus far as a director/filmmaker?
I’ll say collaborating with actors and seeing the work come to life. That’s always a powerful thing. I mean it's fine when you write, but when you hear it and you feel it from other people, it really makes a difference. For Miranda, the short, as an example. When we were selected for a festival in Texas, the Red Wasp Film Festival, I went down and ended up sitting in the middle of the theater. As the film was playing, everyone was responding when they needed to, they laughed when they needed to laugh, they gasped, or what ever was appropriate as I wrote it in the script, the audience caught it. They gave every cue that was impactful for me. And then seeing the response during the Q&A, people thanked me for making that film, that topic. One lady said she'd wished she had seen it 20 years before because she wouldn't have gone through the court hearings and restraining orders, and her life would have been different. So seeing the impact of art in people’s lives and how it effects lives is. That’s what makes this what it is.
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