– I would describe “His Mother” as a different perspective of a story we are all too familiar with in this country – a perspective that is often silenced in favor of narratives that oversimplify.

– This was my first time directing, so everything was challenging. However, I was lucky to have a team of collaborators who were all very experienced and great mentors. Beyond that, it was physically very challenging to shoot inside a moving vehicle. When writing the film I thought it was brilliant to keep the entire story inside a contained space to save money on locations, but I quickly learned that was a very novice idea.

– I think it’s important to challenge people to stop villainizing or victimizing complex nuanced players into the archetypal roles we tend to place them in. In a national drama we’ve watched unfold time and time again, seeing it through this lens blinds us to our own complicity, as well as the multifaceted nature of these issues. I look at this film as an effort to humanize the characters we often prefer to misunderstand.

– I’m just excited to see it on the big screen for the first time and feel the audience’s reactions along with them.

– Gun violence is an epidemic in the US – if we don’t explore the myriad perspectives these tragedies are experienced from, we will never understand them.

– I don’t know if there is something  in particular I am hoping for people to learn from watching this film. I can’t control what people take away from the story. I crafted this 13-minute real-time narrative as an experiment and my goal was to immerse the audience in the mother’s experience as she realizes her worst nightmares are coming true. By making the audience live through those moments with her, I wonder if it will challenge their preconceived notions about these sorts of tragedies.

– At the moment, I am trying to finish a feature I hope to shoot next summer in my grandmothers town in Puglia.

– I have an account on instagram where I post photos of cool looking pigeons I see in New York City.

– I’ve been watching a lot of short films. I really like a platform called Airtime which has a website and also hosts in-person screenings. I’ve seen so many different types of films from around the world through their outlet and I love the programming. Their website is airtime.world

– Not that I can think of !