We were lucky to catch up with Thiago Leoni recently and have shared our conversation below.

Thiago, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

Not many people know this story but I guess when I was around 7 or 8 years old, there was a day that my teacher, right before sending my whole class to lunchtime, asked everyone to sit down for a few minutes longer: “Kids, I know that it’s almost lunchtime, but before I send you all downstairs, I wanted to open up this space for a colleague of yours who has asked me to share a story she wrote.”

Upon hearing those words, the whole class began exchanging looks, not knowing what to think of this. Most of us just wanted to play soccer, eat pão de queijo and drink mate. A classmate stands up and, with her head down, walks towards the teacher and the front of the room with her notebook in between her hands. After a subtle cough in an effort to forego the anxiety of standing in front of 30 rascals, she began reading her own words, in her own pace, with her own voice out loud.

It was the first time I remember experiencing complete silence in that classroom. I looked around to capture my colleagues’ reactions and their eyes were all darted across the room until… the applause. A collection of palms merging in synchrony. The lunchtime, the single, most awaited moment of the day, was simply forgotten by a few minutes. “How?” – I asked my self; still appalled, on my chair, taking in the empty classroom around me.

That same day, I got home and went straight to my desk with an open notebook. A story was already on my mind. A story about a quest. A man in his journey to penetrate a dangerous castle in search for the rarest diamond the world has ever seen. It took me a couple of days to get it perfect. Just the way I wanted. It was thrilling, exciting, full of high stakes. There even was an element of sci-fi to it, something that made it more fantastical and complex.

Then, on that same week, I approached the same teacher and asked her to do the same. To present my story to class right before lunchtime. To be fully honest, I don’t know why, but I don’t think she was as genuinely excited about it as she was with the first one. She basically said: “okay, if I have the time I’ll call you out.” For some reason, I hadn’t told any of my friends about it. So when the time did come, and the teacher (not as enthusiastically) introduced me just as everyone was packing up their backpacks, I could feel a more resounding disappointment from the whole class. “This again? But why?”

Nonetheless, as soon as I started to read my notebook and recount my 6 or 7 pages of an intrinsically convoluted, clearly Indiana Jones inspired, Mario Bros sci-fi spin off, I managed to block everything out and simply deliver what I felt was a brilliant piece. The result? A few scattered applauses and people running away to go play soccer.

I guess that, ever since then, that reluctance of “putting myself out there” of showcasing my art to others was somehow minimized. That day showed me that, sometimes, it’s not going to be my fault. That I am not able to control a mood, an environment, nor the people’s willingness to be open to experience whatever I have to show. Sometimes it won’t be the right time, but sometimes it will. Often, what I like will not always coincide with what others do, and that’s okay. I’d take a few scattered but genuine applauses over a wave of fake ones any day.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As a kid, I’ve always loved to write. At ten, or twelve, as I dove deep into playing guitar, I started to make songs and my take of what I thought was poetry at the time. My aunt, who’s an actress, moved in with my family around that same time. She would start to ask me to rehearse lines with her for a novela she was part of and, soon, would take me to her sets. I remember to this day the feeling of just standing there, mesmerized by the amount of people, wires and cables. Hoping to one day be a part of all that chaos.

Editing was possibly the best school I could have as a director. As I started to make home videos, my friends would ask me to edit theirs, and the trips we would do together. My first job was to actually cut 9 hours of footage into a 1-minute teaser for a well-known Brazilian production company that was pitching a docu-series. Crazy.

I moved away from home and into UCLA when I was 17 and my horizon seemed to have broadened in a steep angle. Everything that I was practicing throughout my life felt applicable and, with my first short film “Dear Blank”, I received the critical and public acknowledgment I needed to dive in even deeper as an artist. I turned to the film industry with internships, development gigs, sets, assisting, which helped me to, not only understand the shapes of Hollywood but also to mature the craft of my own work.

Today, I can say that I write and make films, that’s the easy answer to it, at least. Short films, documentaries, commercials, music videos. I work to treat every project of mine as a film itself, with its own narrative, story and provocation. In everything I make, it’s important that this intention is there. That I’m staying true to myself, to a moment, to a feeling. That this project becomes a staple, a tattoo in my life. That I’m learning something about myself in the process, that I’m okay to vomit something out, something beautiful that was previously resting. I guess this is what connects to people, the specificity.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I guess, as contradictory as this may sound coming from a filmmaker, people need to think deeper about the effects of screen time.

Today, everything is designed to attract our attention, everything is meant to grab and get a hold of your eyeball and wins whoever can hold on to it longer. Ads and news and fake news and fake ads and more and more we’re starting to lose sense of what is real. Soon, a computer will be able to generate any type of image, any type of video, any type of sound, something that will be crafted instantly and specifically for the analytics and metrics of your taste.

More and more, people’s attention span is decreasing as they are growing more and more used to the idea of clicking on what they want, and swiping what they don’t. Videos and films have been having to adapt to this by being released at shorter lengths. Nowadays, if a film is over 2 hours long, most people will think twice about watching it.

Boredom is almost inexistent nowadays. If someone is waiting in line to go into the dentist, that person is probably on their phone, and the receptionist is probably on their phone too. At the bus, on the subway, …. people don’t have room to think for themselves, to look around anymore. Conversations are typed without the warmth of a voice, without listening to each other.

So, for me, the best way for people to support artists is for people to support themselves. To walk around, try new things, new tastes, new sounds, new roads, talk to new people, go to cinemas, restaurants, museums, concerts, theaters, stay in silence, hear each other, be human.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Since we’re talking about films, I’ll list a few filmmakers that have deeply impacted my journey, my taste, and my style as a professional. Antonioni, Fellini, Bergman, Cassavetes, Glauber Rocha, Truffaut, Edward Yang, Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Kieslowski, and many many others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thiagoleoni.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_thiagoleoni/

Image Credits

Samar Kauss