By MOFILM
I love stories and I guess that’s the reason why I’m a filmmaker today. I come from a family of storytellers. My Aunts and Grandparents always had amazing stories to tell me, and I would listen them over and over and over again! Despite this, they would always sound new and fresh every time. Most of the time the actual “plot” was very simple, but they would tell them in such a way that it always made it sound EPIC. They made me very jealous of their childhoods and growing up they didn’t even have a TV or Spectrum or Super Nintendo or – even more tragically – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! How is it possible to be a child and yet to never have felt the power of the “Cowabunga”?
I think that in terms of having a story, it’s not necessarily coming up with one that’s the difficult part, it’s trying to tell your story in an interesting way that’s hard and even harder then this is to tell a story in such a way that people will relate to it!
I’m not good at telling stories, unlike my family I don’t have ”The Gift of Gab”…
Don’t get me wrong, I like to talk, I’m a woman, I like to talk a lot, and I tend to talk a lot! But somehow stories come out dead when told by me. I had to find a way to switch from “Storykiller” to “Storyteller”. And that’s were filmmaking came in, helping to save both my reputation within the family and my life! I had finally found what fullfilled me and makes me really happy. If I’m willing to get up really early in the morning to do what I do, and still manage to stay happy, I’m sure I’ve made the right choice!
If someone was to come to me and ask for advice, though I’m no Spielberg and not even 30 yet (what do i know about life anyway?) I would probably give a very clichéd “You should do what you love” type reply. Keep in mind that is not going to be an easy path. Think about all the struggle you will have to go through, that people will say no to you, that you will wish you had chosen to be a lawyer or a doctor, think about all the “worst-case scenarios”… If after all that you still want to do it, then go for it!
You can’t train talent but you can train greatness. Just go outside and get prepared to be great! And please, if you achieve greatness due to reading this, the least you can do is send me some flowers. Saying “thank you” never killed anyone =)
Rita Fanzendeiro is a talented young filmmaker and MOFILMer, she recently took first for Burn at our London event, with the film you see above!
Rita has recently been snapped up by not just one agency, but two! We’d like to offer her our sincere congratulations on the news, and our gratitude for taking the time to contribute to the blog!
Thanks Rita, you’re a righteous lady! All the best from team MOFILM!
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