Blog Post #277: Manuel Delgadillo - The Man, Movies and Method!

THE MAN

In the early 2010s, I was toying with the idea of returning to Florida International University to resume my undergraduate career following a dramatic health emergency at University Central Florida years prior. Before I ultimately enrolled at FIU, however, I became involved with their fledgling film club where I submitted and screened one of my short films for their annual but short-lived film festival. It was amid these circumstances that I first became aware of Manuel Delgadillo (he goes by "Manny") and his filmmaking even if we wouldn't properly introduce ourselves to each other until a decade later. Since establishing our friendship in earnest, I've had numerous occasions to enjoy company with Manny and get to know him as a person and filmmaker.

Both serious and good-humored, I was pleased to learn that our creative pasts shared an uncannily similar feature. Evidently, we both began work on scripts in our early adolescences for disaster epics modeled after related Hollywood films of our youth, proving a precocious eagerness to get the cinematic ball rolling at such a tender age. Beyond that, I also learned that Manny possesses a vast knowledge of film history no doubt enabled by his massive physical media collection. But more important than origins and possessions, one of the qualities I admire most about Manny is the degree of his devotion to this art form despite the constant challenges posed by time, employment and major creative ambition.

What's more, Manny nurses a strong generosity of character as evidenced by the fact that he and I regularly attend screenings of each other's films. Additionally, we routinely exchange feedback, float formal and contentual ideas and generally encourage each other to reach new heights with our work. While it may sound like little more than building castles in the sky, we also help each other with more practical matters like arranging get-togethers among our circle of fellow creatives and providing assistance in securing venues for local screenings of our films. No doubt, a firm esprit de corps exists between us and is only possible by a steadfast constitution like Manny's.

THE MOVIES

This past March, Manny screened his 2nd feature film Los Fumadores at Kendall Branch Library to an audience of friends, family and at least one notable film critic. The film centers on Manuel (Manuel Delgadillo) and his frayed relationship with his mother Rita (Rita Iglesias) and her live-in boyfriend Gustavo (Gustavo Rodriguez; all analogues inspired by but not beholden to their real-life counterparts) as Manuel seeks out the truth behind the tragic death of his older sister. Manny's (the filmmaker) sophomore effort is both a solemn meditation on family, loss and memory as well as a shining example of formal experimentation so lacking in contemporary cinema, mainstream or not. Draped in lush black and white cinematography, it moves with a decidedly unhurried pace (the genre of slow cinema is an oft-cited inspiration) and committed performances.

Manny's debut feature film was 2024's Everything Has Led to This Moment which had a properly eventful Florida premiere at Fort Lauderdale Film Festival. Everything... finds its subjects in two sisters (Amelia Gonzalez and Charlotte Delgado) and their single mother (Mabel Leyva) contending with the challenges of poverty, a broken home and continuing antagonism between themselves. The film finds the most intriguing consonance with the themes of untimely sibling loss and sanctity of memory in Los Fumadores. While Everything... abides by certain conventions of narrative dramatic fiction, its free-hand style and virtuosity in shot and edit prove most exceptional. Undoubtedly, one of the more exciting debuts as micro-budget, Miami-bred cinema goes.

Before Manny made his courageous leap to the feature film realm, he produced a spate of short films which he was kind enough to share with me about two years ago. I immediately appreciated their generous quantity, experimental form and transcendent themes. Indeed, one of the more striking short films of the set is based on an idea by French philosopher Michel Foucault, highlighting Manny's interest in expanding the intellectual possibilities of our beloved medium.

THE METHOD

While thorough and deliberate are accurate adjectives to describe Manny's creative process, so are whim and spontaneity. His feature films are the result of years-long investments of time and energy but ring with a remarkable elasticity all their own. I was fascinated but not wholly surprised to learn that Los Fumadores was shot without a script! And Everything... possesses a similar feeling of boundless exploration. His shots unexpected, rhythms uncontained and, as a result, his choices reflect an alluring opacity and mystique. I heard the term "improv filmmaking" bandied about during my film school years and I laud Manny for taking the flame of such a fertile maturation period and preserving it (i.e., in terms of his narrative construction, dramatic performances and cinematographic approach) well into his feature film career.

Another facet of Manny's workmanship that I've admired since becoming properly acquainted with him is his commitment to creative collaboration at the level of cinematography and editing. Frequent collaborator and filmmaker in his own right Daniel Lago (his debut feature A Communist Brainwashed My Daughter I reviewed here) is an essential ingredient in Manny's work yet this alliance doesn't sully Manny's confidence in his own artistic identity despite sharing the considerable creative load with a close friend. And beyond crew, the accomplished performances he elicits from his cast also proves his ability to regularly lead and co-navigate with great vision and charisma.

In addition to the creative and collaborative bravado touched upon, there is also something strikingly poignant in a particularly consistent theme between his two feature works. They both involve some degree of mystery surrounding a family tragedy of an older sibling that I later learned was not far from the truth in Manny's life. As depicted in the films, this imbuement of his work with such a deep, resounding pathos lends an immensely personal - almost private - touch to his budding cinema. Such deeply suffused personal preoccupations confirm the operating principle which informs a time-honored breed of filmmaker - the auteur! Bravo, Manny!