Rising Stars: Meet Sebastián Rea

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sebastián Rea.

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 in Ecuador but raised in NYC. Although I was about 3 or 4 years old when I got to NYC, I vividly remember what made me want to become a filmmaker: watching Batman Returns in the movie theater in 1992. There was something about experiencing this movie that made my future clear for me – I wanted to be a director. Of course, I didn’t know what a “director” meant or what it took to make a movie, but I knew that was my calling. Ever since then I would always say “I wanted to be a director” when anyone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. A future in the arts was not a viable profession since we were Latino immigrants, and no one in my family really supported my ideas.

Finally in high school, my English teacher suggested I apply for a Smithsonian Institute Young Ambassador program because he knew I was obsessed with filmmaking. So I made my first short film with a tiny digital camera and some friends, and I was one of 20 young Latino artists across the U.S. selected to be part of the program. This was the first time I was exposed to professionals of color in the entertainment industry. I had never felt so encouraged! Since then I have been making films and working in the “industry.” From high school through college I interned at every possible film place from SilverCup Studios to the Tribeca Film Festival. I spent all my time at the MoMA and Lincoln Center watching cinema classics, foreign films and attending film festivals. I knew I barely had any connections in the industry but I was determined to forge my way in somehow. And I did.

On top of this, I had just come out as queer and lost the connection to my family. I was kicked out and emancipated myself in order to get grants from the city to attend college. Right after college I got my first full-time job as a content coordinator at Tribeca Enterprises and was winning emerging filmmaker awards from various film festivals for my early work. I worked my way up the ladder all by myself because no one was going to do it for me. I also had to force myself to network and be very outgoing. I wanted to meet everyone and I wanted everyone to know that I was hungry to work in film. I started my own film festival in NYC called the 30 Under 30 Film Festival where we screened 30 films from 30 filmmakers under 30 years old, and I ran that for eight years. Since I worked in the industry, being able to champion emerging talent from all around the world, especially underrepresented communities, was HUGE for me because many industry circles are saturated with white-cis-gendered-men. The pandemic halted our festival but many of the connections I made remain very close to me and we are helping each other out in the industry today.

Finally today I just moved to LA and am setting down roots here in Hollywood. I have cultivated a network of friends and mentors who are “gatekeepers” in the industry and am “paying my dues.” Meaning, I’m doing mostly personal assistant jobs to Directors or Producers and shadowing Directors on set. Learning the nuts and bolts of filmmaking at this high-budget level has opened my eyes to the process and has given me an education many graduate film students wish for. My goals are to continue working my way up now that I have the connections to producers and am writing and pitching my own ideas to one day direct a studio-backed movie I wrote or the next Marvel movie (whichever comes first 😉 )

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The biggest struggle along the way is self-motivation. Growing up, all I heard was, “you’ll never make it” or that this industry “wasn’t for me.” But I didn’t believe that, or at least I didn’t let myself believe that. It’s hard to push yourself when no one is rooting for you. I learned that at least staying consistent in what I’m doing will bring my motivation back. Another big motivation for me was that I was going to prove everyone wrong, and so far that’s what I’m doing.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a storyteller. Many of the films that I’ve written and directed have one way or another been based on something that actually happened to me. I’ve learned that writing what I know has let audiences connect with my stories because inside one mind is the mind of everyone. I’m really interested in identity stories. Being from both Ecuador and America, I was never really one thing or the other. In Ecuador, I was always seen as the “gringo” and then in the states, I was always an immigrant. Never enough for either. But I’ve noticed that there are many people with this same perspective, and so I’ve started to write stories with that in mind – the diaspora experience. I like to include stories with social justice issues because we are still fighting for equality all around us. Storytelling, specifically filmmaking is a powerful tool to inspire empathy and create awareness. I’m determined to make films that allow me and my people to see themselves with the “Hollywood treatment.”

As I grew up I never saw Latino superheroes or leading actors that looked like me, let alone stories that I knew as my own. I want to bring my heritage to the big screen, infuse genres like horror and sci-fi with Latinx, Queer, and Indigenous characters, and stop telling stories of trauma that seem to only surround people of color storylines. We are not a monolith, we are multifaceted and I want to tell those stories. I’m most proud about my latest film, HERITAGE, which is a gay Ecuadorian love story that positions queer identity through an indigenous lens. I was awarded a Netflix grant in partnership with LALIFF and they supported my film all the way from script to premiere at the famous Chinese Theater in Hollywood. It is my proudest moment because I put my community on screen. I’m currently working on scripts that infuse Indigenous Ecuadorian folklore to my storylines, so stay tuned!

What are your plans for the future?
I’m going to be a Producer’s PA on the next Jennifer Lopez movie called ATLAS. It is my second Hollywood film that I will be working on. It shoots here in LA and this is why I moved here. Between working my way up in the industry, I will be applying to grants and fellowships, anything that will help me level up in the industry and be seen.

Contact Info:

• Website: SebastianRea.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imjus2illmatic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sebz14
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sebz14