5 Questions with Matthew Puccini
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I fell into filmmaking via my high school theatre program. It was a pretty incredible environment; we were this public school that put on four shows a year, often really challenging work like Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice and Edward Albee. I started off acting but ended up serving as the assistant director on one of the shows my junior year, and it made me realize how much I enjoyed working with actors rather than being the one on stage.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
I was thinking a lot about the things I wish I’d known and seen when I was growing up in the closet, and how naive I was going into my first handful of sexual experiences. I became really interested in the idea of trying to flip the script on the “losing your virginity” narrative by centering it around queer teenagers, and by portraying queer sex very tenderly and honestly.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?
There are so many challenges in making something on a micro budget like this, but I’d say the biggest one for me is always casting. I was terrified of not finding the right people for the two lead roles, especially because in the initial weeks of our search it felt like no one who was taping was “getting it.” But then we had a stroke of luck and found both Manny and Morgan via Backstage! We brought them both in for a chemistry read and it was like lightning in a bottle. I feel so lucky that they ended up being the cast of this film. Huge shout out to our casting director, Freya Krasnow, who has cast all three of my shorts and always puts up with my neurosis.
The easiest part of the process was definitely working with the two of them; they were so open and trusting of me and one another from the very beginning, and just seemed to have this innate understanding of what this piece was. It took very little work on my part to get them to the level of what ended up being in the film.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
I just watched Beau Travail for the first time the other week and it completely undid me. It’s so sensual and gorgeous and devastating…The way she films bodies and creates atmosphere is so inspiring to me. I’m also loving the new Luca Guadagnino show for similar reasons.
5) What’s next for you?
I’m chipping away at a short documentary project and am inching toward making a first feature film. I’m a slow writer, though, and am trying to make peace with that. There’s always a long period of absorbing and thinking about things before any writing happens. On a good day, quarantine has been a nice opportunity to just amass references and start figuring out what I’m trying to say next.
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IG: @matthewpuccini