Today we’d like to introduce you to Dulcinea Circelli.
Hi Dulcinea, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today.
I’ve always loved stories. My earliest memories involve looking at books and going through them wanting to read what they said so desperately. I loved the indecipherable shapes even more than the pictures.
They were these marks of mystery that my mother would look at, and a story would appear out of the words she spoke, wholly contained in those marks that made sounds come out of her mouth that told of wondrous worlds and fantasies and the amazing works of God and men and supernatural beings of the Bible. The stories were magical and exciting, and I couldn’t wait to know how read, too.
This love of words turned into a love of writing, and I wrote a prize-winning essay in 5th grade about how I wish my grandfather hadn’t died in a drunk driving accident many years before I was born.
I loved acting in community theater in La Miranda, and I loved watching TV and movies growing up. I think the love of stories evolved into a love of expressing myself through films and writing and acting for the screen.
I would write journals growing up, and into my 20s. I have over 20 of them. I’ve lost count. But that written storytelling evolved to visual storytelling pretty quickly.
I ended up double majoring in biology and Creative writing at USC and fell in love with writing and words some more, thanks to workshops with David St. John, Joseph Dane, Heather James, and James Kincaid, among many inspiring teachers in the English and Creative Writing Departments. I loved doodling and hoped to cultivate a visual writing style that would be easily translated to a screen or other visual media, such as graphic novels.
After college, I really didn’t want to get a job, so I earned an MS in Cell Biology and Neurobiology. I thought I could be a science teacher and do lab work. I went to Rio Hondo Community College at 16 and hoped I could give back to the community as a community college biology professor.
But the queue of stories inside me was always full; I always wanted to write them into the night, and there was never any time to write and develop a voice. I would cry sometimes because it would feel like I was getting story after story from… somewhere, but there was no outlet for it, never enough time to write it down or follow a trail of sentences to shape it into something.
So, I graduated from my MS program and decided to take low-paying, low-responsibility tutor gigs and writing jobs so I could spend 4-6 hours a day in libraries and bookstores writing shitty short stories.
I had some novel ideas but didn’t want to follow through until I could practice, write some shitty short stories, and become a better writer.
I finished my first novel, Midnight Jobs in Wonderland (published by FreeReadPress), when I was teaching biology classes for pre-health majors at California community colleges.
Being the movie and television series junkie I am, after publishing the novel, I realized the best way to tell stories now was through movies, music videos, and series. I wanted to make a limited series out of my first novel, so I started making little movies.
I loved acting and wanted to combine that love with my love for stories, so I stopped journaling and started making movies to process my life, feelings, and experiences instead. My movies are a combination of autobiography, imagination, and collaboration. Some characters are completely imaginary. Some stories come from a situation I’ve observed or lived through. Some films I make are the collaboration of many people, creating something that holds a piece of all of us.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I had a lot of issues with some poverty growing up and well into my 20s. We were doing well when I was born, but my mother suffered from cancer several times, and we were broke by the time I was a sophomore in high school. I basically had to get really high SAT scores and weight my GPA with community college classes to get college paid for with scholarships, or I wasn’t going to college. And I had to go to college if I wanted to do well and be independent. California is an expensive place to live.
I didn’t have a hope of doing anything creative as a profession because a poverty mindset really kills any sort of dream that isn’t practical. I was really good at science, so it was natural to gravitate towards a career in biological research.
After I graduated from grad school, I lived through some periods of homelessness, crashing on friend’s couches, staying for short stints with family, living out of my car, and living in a garage for a while while working part time as a tutor and developing my voice as a writer.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I needed to keep telling stories and auditioning for movie and commercial roles, so I kept writing and auditioning for acting roles while working as an adjunct Biology, Anatomy, and Microbiology adjunct professor. I would book some small roles on internet commercials as a side gig and keep writing stories.
One day, a student called the community college I was working for and said he was coming to shoot the school up.
Clearly, I could not carry on with my microbiology lab exam review I was teaching, so we all ran for our lives and hoped to survive long enough to get off campus. The lab exam review would have to wait until Monday.
There I sat, in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 10 freeway, epinephrine and disbelief swirling through me, combining into a strange, uneasy dread I’ve never felt since.
Being practical with my life was not working out.
So, I quit teaching and decided to focus on filmmaking, acting, and producing.
I had only produced a few small, short films, and then, when I was hitting a stride and in preproduction on Red Wings, my first feature as associate producer, the Pandemic shut everything down.
During quarantine, I somehow managed through Zoom meetings and electronic transfers to continue producing with my executive producer partner, Rhiannon Aarons (Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power), with whom I produced Red Wings (Red Wings – IMDb), a horror feature about a special bat that transforms an office worker’s monthly menstrual period tampons into an unnatural bat army, and Spider, a horror short starring Ms. Aarons and Ron Jeremy as a monster (I directed this shortly before he was accused of rape in 2019 and later arrested).
I also met Pablo Vergara, a gifted filmmaker, in a quarantine karaoke chat room during the pandemic, and we started collaborating on a feature now in post that I executive produced for the first time: Morbid, a Necromurder Story (https://www.imdb.com/title/
Morbid is a dark fantasy horror film about a metal band whose members are taken over by a demonic madness, with horrific results. Pablo Vergara, the Writer/Director/Producer/star of the film, produced shoots through multiple abandoned outdoor locations during lockdown in New York City to finish our movie. He joined forces with me, and we shot the last quarter of the film guerrilla-style on the Pasadena/Colorado Street Suicide Bridge, in Hollywood Forever Cemetary crypts, and in cars driving through downtown LA city streets.
Pablo Vergara and I made a feature film in the middle of lockdown, collaborating with each other for over a year before any face-to-face meetings could occur. I’ve never felt more empowered as a filmmaker to find a way to make art happen than during that difficult time.
We planned more scenes and shoots via Zoom with collaborators in South Africa, utilizing South African actor Johnathan Pienaar (Blood Diamonds, imdb.me/
The Pandemic was not going to stop me from making films. I survived earning my driver’s license in LA and survived a shooting threat and evacuation. I truly feel nothing can stop me from making films at this point.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I specialize in telling film stories from a unique perspective. I want to tell a story from the perspective of the underdog, the monster, the one in the corner you usually don’t notice. I want to bring back old-fashioned, quirky, indie storytelling from the ’90s and foster a return to characterization and natural, believable dialogue in films.
I also enjoy collaborating with my partner at Homay Productions, Luke Homay Lewis, on music videos (https://www.
I think I am most proud of Morbid: A Necromurder Story, a feature film I executive produced under my film company, Lala Mancha Films, with Director/Producer Pablo Vergara (Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel), and I can’t wait to plan the premiere when we finish with post! Please check out more info on my website for how to get involved: @DulcineaCircelli | Linktree
I believe Morbid: A Necromurder Story will be a cult classic hit on the level of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Never before has black metal music infused the lore of this type of genre-defying film.
I am currently working on developing a supernatural horror feature as executive producer, co-writer, co-director, and actor in partnership with producers Carlos J. Ramsey (Couture, https://www.imdb.
We are in talks with ITN (Pooh: Blood and Honey 1-3), and hopeful that we can turn our project into a franchise partnership to take ITN to the next level! I’m so excited about shooting the project in Atlanta because I’m a huge The Walking Dead fan and have been dying to work there forever.
Also, most recently, I have been finishing up Pandemic Missed Calls, a short film directed by the late Marylyn Presley Brooks (Mary Brooke Zepeda). I thought up the script, trying to process the claustrophobic horrors of lockdowns and grieving the deaths of our loved ones. And then, my dear friend who shot and directed the film, died tragically two months after we filmed, so it has become a mission to get the film screened at festivals this year. Find out more here: https://thehissingcats.
I think what will set me apart as a producer and filmmaker is my unique perspective as both a professional writer and scientist. I’m halfway done writing a sci-fi short film/narrative commercial as a side project and am enthusiastic about bringing my experience as a scientist into my creative work.
As a nonbinary, queer, Latinx artist and filmmaker, I hope to inspire other individuals that are not the traditional film executive type to just create interesting films that make people think and feel and believe. Audiences are hungry for authentic, truthful stories. I know I am.
I want to inspire people who are marginalized to move forward with a lifelong career as an artist even if you have no connections, no money, and no encouragement to go after making art.
Some of my earliest memories are of living in a trailer and then a cramped little apartment in Whittier, then sharing a home with my grandparents and parents. I had times where I dumpster dove for food at the end of grad school and lived out of my car and on couches for long stretches of time after grad school. I had no connections or support for what I am doing. Yet, I must do what I’m doing because that is my purpose.
What sets me apart is tenacity. I have a million ideas all the time and all the ADHD in the world, but once I have started on a project and other people need me to be accountable, I am really tenacious about finishing.
I think that’s what sets me apart from other people. I start what I finish, and I don’t intend to ever leave this city or give up on telling stories as my life’s work. I have to keep going, keep making stories, and keep evolving as a storyteller, no matter what it takes.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I am currently obsessed with Soft White Underbelly on YouTube. I think it’s important to document the lives of people we would not necessarily humanize if we saw them doing drugs on the street or street walking the tracks on Figueroa or Santa Monica Blvd.
I think that everyone has a story, and we are all connected by our humanity. Telling all stories is a necessity for the education and imaginations of future generations.
I am a really big fan of Buddhist philosophy and meditation. I sit for about 30 minutes every morning with a cat in my lap, play Tibetan singing bowls, rain sounds, or other Buddhist chanting videos on YouTube, focus on my breathing, and try to make my mind fresh and clear(ish) for the day.
In the past, I have struggled with a lot of anxiety, depression, and PTSD from personal traumas, medical negligence, and serious abuse I’ve survived.
I’ve had an incredibly difficult life. As someone who now has limited options for mental health treatment (all of my issues are medication-resistant, unfortunately), the only thing that has permanently helped those issues (other than diet, supplements, and exercise) is training my mind through meditation and some sort of spiritual or religious practice.
I reconnected with Jesus last year and have combined my faith in Jesus/Christ Consciousness, universal love, and Buddhist meditation. I loved the following spiritual books: Living Buddha, Living Christ, and The Heart of Buddhist Teaching, by Thich Nhat Han; Make Me One with Everything by Lama Surya Das; A Brief for Buddhism, The Teachings of Gautama Buddha, a special book written by my dharma teacher and lifelong friend, the venerable Buddhist Patriarch Kunsunim Jongmae Park.
I have recently been revisiting my favorite Bible stories from growing up. I’ve realized these fantastical Hebrew Bible stories and stories about the miracles of Jesus are what inspired me and made me obsessed with “the words.” I could not wait to read and write because of the Bible. Floods! Arks with animals! Plagues! Miracles.
Although I was raised in a very religious home, I’ve stopped clinging to the belief or question of whether all these stories are true and am just enjoying the presence of Jesus in my life and coming back to the stories that made me love stories in the first place.
I’ve come to have faith in the power of our stories. Stories are all that have really interested me my entire life, and I think the belief in the power and pleasure of stories, and how they connect us to each other, is what I like to focus on. Not the certainty of their veracity.
You don’t have to believe in the multiverse or the existence of Thor or the Sorcerer Supreme to enjoy Marvel movies.
Our Internet, TV, social media, and film stories have become what we are passionate about in the 21st century, and I think as a human species, we are wired to love stories and want them to be true, a suspension of disbelief that connects us with the storytelling traditions of our ancestors throughout human history. And showing a story that makes people believe is the kind of beauty I want to leave behind.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/
DulcineaCircelli - Instagram: dulcinea.circelli.
official - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/profile.php?id= 3428061 - Other: IMDb.me/
dulcineacircelli, dulcineacir[email protected]
Image Credits
Bjorn-Ante Angeletaki
Rhiannon Aarons
Dulcinea Circelli
Jake Gardener
Pablo Vergara
Morbid Feature Film
