Born from a first generation American Sicilian mother and an American Revolutionary Irish southern good old boy my parents fought to rise above their poverty and lack of education to give my siblings and I the American Dream. As a child the birth of rock and roll and MGM musicals fueled my every waking moment and by my teenage years I was a musician, writer and front person for a band. Songwriting has led to script writing and making films using my music, wildly vivid imagination and tumultuous childhood as a catharsis for creative expression. Luckily I had an Italian mother and large family full of love and music to counter my father’s drinking and hot temper. Though scared, I survived, recovered and am striving to be a conscious individual making films in spite of ageism, sexism, money and any and all other internal obstacles.
-What inspired you to become a filmmaker?
Directing and acting in theater for over 30 years, putting on a show and creating something out of nothing isn’t new to me. What’s new is having the technology not only affordable but accessible and comprehensible. If I would’ve had a Mac and an IPHONE when I was a teen I’d 10 times famous by now.
–Do you think the cinema can bring a change in the society?
That’s what it’s all about. The human experience encapsulated in an hour and a half premise allowing the individual to feel and process universal emotions manipulated by color, sound, music and premise through the eye of the director. The art of cinema.
-What would you change in the world?
To put money in the hands of the artist rather then in the fist of the business executives who only see monetary gain as the final solution.
-Where do you see the film industry going in the next 100 years?
Maybe going to greater heights, maybe to the lowest depths of what social media has to offer. Perhaps there’s too much accessibility to filming everyone’s waking moment from birth to death. If by chance there’ s a future in a 100 years the attention span of the average person may only be 10 seconds long, or there’ll be a revolt against stupidity and an endless cinematic film full of love and delight, despair and sorrow will be made by true hearts sharing a kindred spirit for truth. Only the shadow knows.
