LIMONADA

I had vacationed in the Dominican Republic a few years ago and met producer Alan Piantini through a mutual friend. He seemed to me like the Roger Corman of the DR. Not big movies but alot of them.
When he called out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to direct a little movie there. I of course said yes.

All I knew was that it would be super low budget, a tight schedule and it was a comedy in Spanish loosely based on a friend’s wedding experience. It sounded like a recipe for disaster. My spanish was iffy at best and much of the crew and actors did not speak english.

It was a big gamble but I thought it would be a great chance to within a different culture and with a very diverse international group of actors and filmmakers. It would be a fun learning experience at the very least.
At it’s core it's a story about love, marriage, commitment, and relationships, things we were all going through to some extent.
I had edited movies in Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish before and remembered people are equally whacky all over the world. It doesn’t matter what language they’re doing it in.
If you can tap in to your actor's energy and emotions, your audience can connect to your movie.
A few weeks later we were shooting the movie in the producer’s kitchen.So many of the reactions are real and awkward It gives a nice sense of the lovable people inside the characters. My DP Billy Adamez captured it all and it was his first feature! The cast and crew turned out to be amazing.
Now a year later, back home in my divided volatile country, I see this movie as a burst of fresh tropical air for everyone to breath in and enjoy for 90 minutes. It was a such an odd experience at a very strange time in history. It's encouraging to experience what different people with vastly different cultures can accomplish together when they have a common goal. Make movies not war, that should be a thing... Anyways I’m hoping the audience will enjoy watching it as much as we did making it.