Today we’d like to introduce you to Franco Vidal
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was born and raised in Lima, Perú for the first five years of my life until moving to Southern California with my family in 2003. Even from an early age, my father would introduce me to all sorts of classic Hollywood movies and I immediately fell in love with film. Most people thought it was a phase or maybe just a minor hobby but from that moment I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker and never once looked back. Moving to California felt so exciting, as a kid you think they make motion pictures at every corner and you’ll be right there with easy access to the movie business. I couldn’t have been more wrong than when my family planted their roots in Riverside, CA, which was not exactly Los Angeles. When I was growing up, there weren’t many programs or avenues in Riverside for me to learn filmmaking so I depended on youtube tutorials to help me understand the basics. Suddenly, I became the one guy in high school always bringing his camera, making short sketches and promotional videos for the school assemblies. I just loved trying new things, making mistakes, having fun making videos but I knew I didn’t want to work in video forever, film was my real passion. I enrolled at California State University, Northridge for my undergrad under their Film Production program. At CSUN, I was truly inspired by the like-minded artists and aspiring filmmakers who made me want to hone my skills and find my voice as an artist. It all lead to me being one of four students chosen to write and direct a senior thesis film. Pulling from my deep love for my Latino culture and music, I wrote and directed a Latin Jazz musical, “Hot Latin Nights at the Granada!” It was about a white-washed Cuban American teen who asks his former Mambo King uncle to teach him how to dance in order to impress the girl of his dreams. It was a really ambitious film that combined my love for 1950s musicals with my love of salsa music and dance. We ended up being awarded the “Franz Wieser Grant” by ARRI and premiered at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater. Our film went through the festival circuit and was an Official Selection at the 2023 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival and awarded “Best Latino Student Film” at the 2023 Latino Film Market. Since graduating from CSUN, I still felt there was so much I didn’t know and wanted to improve my craft and enrolled at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts for my Masters in Fine Arts. It is an incredible privilege to attend USC’s film program as a recipient of the George Lucas Family Foundation scholarship. I’m now currently in my final year at USC as I gear up to shoot my latest thesis film, “The Jobber”, a wrestling comedy about a luchador who has to put on a racist gangbanger persona for a chance at the championship belt.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being a Latino immigrant that wanted to pursue a career in the arts is definitely not the easiest path one could take. When you’re a kid, you would never think about the obstacles and pressure that comes with living in the United States. Playing catch up with learning English and American customs was difficult enough but then you come to the realization that in this country I am judged and treated differently because of the color of my skin. I went from being normal like everyone else in Peru to being a “minority” in America. Suddenly there’s these societal boxes that you’re placed in; I’m either seen as a threatening immigrant who’s bypassed all legal obstacles or “one of the good ones” who should stand on an unrealistic pedestal for all other immigrants to imitate. I just wanted to be me, someone my community can be proud of without feeling the weight of an entire people on my shoulders. On top of that, there’s so few avenues for Latinos to break out in the film industry. Everyone knows its about who you know in this town and more often than not, the people who manage to get these doors opened to them were opened by someone their related to or knew someone their related to. Most Latinos I know come from a similar working class background with zero industry connections; we’ve had to hard twice as hard to network and make our work great enough to be paid attention to and hopefully lead to a door opened here and there. No one ever said it was going to be easy, but fortunately for me, I love what I do and I push forward to do be the best I can be.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am primarily a writer/director filmmaker that likes to work as an assistant director. My work primarily focuses on Latine-based stories as those are the stories that I enjoy most and feel most personal towards. I love all types of films and in many ways I just want to make the films I grew up loving but with the people that represent my community. I love genre and especially comedy as I find that to be a great way to tackle more nuanced societal issues while engaging and entertaining a large group of people. My proudest achievement was making my Latin Jazz musical, “Hot Latin Nights at the Granada!” which was all about embracing your culture and heritage no matter how far away you may seem from it. When I first moved here to the US, there were so many Latine kids who were never taught Spanish or were taught to assimilate to American ways in order to succeed in life. I’m very connected and proud of my Latino heritage, my identity is directly tied to me being a Latino immigrant and instead of shying away from that, I claim it with pride. Salsa music is all about telling the stories of our people and all we’ve endured and persevered through for generations, it’s our celebration of who we are and what we’ve been able to achieve as a united Latine people. That was the driving force for my musical, try to translate that message in my people’s music into the film medium with the aesthetics and flair of the Hollywood musicals from yesteryear. It was a true labor of love that my crew and I put into the film and I’m very fortunate to hear a lot of Latine people and non Latine people alike really loved it. I credit the success of that film to be the reason as to why I’m still given opportunities to make more films and improve my craft. My next project is a wrestling comedy satire called “The Jobber” that’s more focused on the comically offensive and borderline racist stereotypes that plagued Latine representation in the early 2000s. It’s an equally ambitious project as making a musical but I try not to view my work as “easier” or more “achievable” than my last, I just like to make films that I personally want to see as an audience member. As for my work as an assistant director, I love working on film sets and helping a project be as fully realized as the director intended. Some people find the work as an AD to be very tedious and laborious but it just kinda clicked for me. There’s nothing quite like finishing a shoot day on time with all our coverage shot, it’s very gratifying. Ultimately I just love being part of the movie making process, it’s why I’m here in this country and have chosen the path I did. Wether I’m making my own films or helping on a film I want to see come to life, I’m a happy man. If I’m not on set or working on my own projects, you’ll likely find me at any repertory theater in LA like American Cinematheque’s Aero Theater, Los Feliz 3, The New Beverly Cinema and Brain Dead Studios. I think it’s important for all filmmakers to watch and study all types of films and see them on the big screen or even projected on film. It helps me become a better filmmaker but also I just love movies. I’m very lucky to do something that simply makes me happy.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
It’s hard to say where we’re headed in the next 5-10 years. I like to believe that we’re going to see an increase in smaller, more personal independent films to balance out the large big budget tentpole movies. People want to see something new or something that they can connect to on an intimate level; there’s so many hungry artists and filmmakers with a real point of view just waiting to be told and I have to believe there’s an audience out there wanting to listen. I would also like to see our industry diversify in meaningful ways. There’s so much conversation about what representation we want to see on screen but I also want to read Variety or The Hollywood Reporter and see that a Latine director is given the opportunity to make big waves in the industry. I just want to see people like me be given more opportunities and avenues to make the art we want to make. I will say, what I don’t want to see in the next 5 years is an increase in AI technology being used to replace creative work in film. The reason I love film so much is because there’s a person, a voice and a soul behind the camera who is trying to express something out into the world, hoping someone hears them and connects with that expression. It’s what makes us human and no AI generated image or product can ever recreate that. It’s really shameful to see how many people want to use AI as a means to eliminate real creative positions. I hope artists everywhere continue to push back against AI in our industry, hopefully in 5 years, it’ll be a distant memory that we can all laugh at.
Contact Info:
Image Credits
Photo Credits: Nathan San Filippo, Diego Olivarez, Marlana Dunn, Taha Sobhani, Marlonino Banut, Nina Prommer/LALIFF
