As a half-Mexican, half-Polish person, I’ve never felt like I fully belong or fit anywhere, and this has always made me interested in characters who are outsiders. Unusual individuals with unusual stories, trying to find their place in the world. Heck, I pretty much think this might have to do with my own quest to understand the world around me. It has never been easy, and, quite often, it has been only through films that I’ve found something to connect with. Films like The Royal Tenenbaums or Silver Linings Playbook have come as a great way to feel understood, and, for me, that’s the actual magic of cinema… its capacity to connect people. We can try to tell someone how we feel and they might not understand it, but if we show them, if we make them sit through around 90-120 minutes of a fictional reality created by a group of artists, then they might get to do it. Films create empathy like no other art is capable of. They make us emotionally invest in a character. They make us care for them, suffer for them, and cheer for them. It doesn’t matter if you’re watching The Godfather or The Avengers, the excitement is the same. You are living in this amazing world that you only see through a screen, and whatever emotion the characters are going through, you get to feel it as well. For me, that’s awesome.
And so, what I try to do when I’m creating a story, whether it be the silliest comedy or the most complex drama, is that. To understand someone that I know, or to understand myself a little better, and to share that experience with the audience, because, who knows? Maybe someone out there feels the same or is going through something similar and my story might make them feel understood or, at the very least, entertained for a little while.
Therefore, the most common elements one could find in my work are outsiders or delusional dreamers hoping to find their place in the world, hoping to be understood, or to get back at the world that has treated them unfairly. Quite honestly, I have a soft spot for quirky comedies about oddballs engaging in absurd plots… but every now and then I like writing more serious projects that deal with heavier subjects. It’s impossible to look at the world and not be pissed about something, whether it be social injustices or nonsense decisions that jeopardize innocent lives, and you just feel the need to fight it back by any means you can, even if is just creating a story. Again, I’m convinced that films might be one of the best options to create empathy, and if we can’t understand each other by talking, maybe we can do it by watching a movie.
Most of these stories have received good responses from coverage services such as Stage32, WeScreenplay, SellingYourScrenplay, or Barnstorm Media, or have been placed in different international competitions (you can find more details on the page for each project).