Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Sebastiano Sallemi. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Sebastiano, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

The reason I fell in love with cinema was without a doubt my father (and his love for cinema).
When I was around five years old, he decided to cut the cable/antenna at home because he did not like what my sister and I were watching (I think he felt that most of it was low quality, silly television), and instead of letting us grow up with that, he bought a DVD and VHS player and started showing us movies. And he showed us EVERYTHING. From Conan the Barbarian to Seven Samurais, from Hayao Miyazaki’s films to The NeverEnding Story, from The Dark Crystal to The Bourne Identity, from 8½ to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and so, so, so much more. At the time, I did not fully understand what he was giving me. I was just a kid watching strange, beautiful, exciting, scary and funny worlds appear on screen, but over the years, those films definitely became part of me. They gave me a huge cinematic imagination before I even knew what cinema really was.
By the end of high school, when I had to think seriously about my future, filmmaking felt like one of the only things that I loved with my whole heart. It wasn’t just an interest, it was an addiction, it was another language I had grown up with. So I applied to SAE Institute in Milan and began studying film.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I am an Italian filmmaker born from a (loving) Sicilian family, currently based in Los Angeles where I am attending the New York film Academy.
My path in filmmaking started very early, thanks to my father, who introduced me to cinema when I was a child. He showed me an incredible range of films: from Japanese classics to Italian cinema, from fantasy to westerns, from action movies to auteur films. That became the foundation of my imagination, hence, by the end of high school, I realized that filmmaking was one of the things I truly loved with all my heart.
I studied filmmaking at SAE Institute in Milan, and a few months after graduating I had opportunity to work on my first feature film as DIT trainee on Cyrano, (during the covid period!). That experience gave me my first real taste of a professional set, with all its pressure, rhythm, discipline and magic. After that, I moved to Rome and continued working on several Italian and international productions shooting in Italy, first as Data manager and then as Video assistant. These experiences helped me understand how large productions work, but they also made me even more curious about finding my own voice as a writer and Director.
Today my focus is mainly on directing, writing and creating short films. I am interested in stories that mix humor, emotion, awkwardness and humanity. Even when I work with comedy, I like to ground it in something real, like insecurity, family, loneliness, embarrassment, love, fear and the strange ways people try to connect with each other.
Recently I finished a short drama with very little dialogue (and a very cute dog) and I am now preparing my thesis film, which is a weird crazy comedy. Comedy is something I have been exploring more seriously during my time at NYFA, and it feels very natural to me because I use humor on a daily basis. People around me often tell me that my humor and positive attitude are a big part of who I am, so I am trying to bring that energy into my work as a filmmaker.
What I think sets me apart is the combination of my cinematic background, my experience on professional sets, my work ethic and my personal sense of humor. I grew up watching many different kinds of movies, then had the chance to see how the industry works from the inside, and now I am trying to build stories that feel personal and honest. I like the characters who are imperfect, a little ridiculous, but still lovable. I am drawn to situations where comedy comes from human behavior rather than just jokes (even if many jokes are constantly spilling out of my mind).
What I am most proud of is that I have kept following this path even when it required moving cities, changing countries, starting over and learning from the beginning again. From a Sicilian family, I was raised in Milan, from Milan I moved to Rome, and from Rome, now I’m in Los Angeles, where every step has been part of the same “simple” dream: to make films and tell stories.
I want people to know that my work comes from a very sincere place, I care about cinema deeply, and I am very serious about it, but I also do not want to take myself too seriously if that makes sense. I believe filmmaking can be emotional, funny, strange, uncomfortable and joyful, all at the same time, and that is the kind of work I want to keep creating.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me, the most rewarding thing of being an artist is seeing the result of my efforts as writer and Director come alive on screen and in the eyes of the audience.
My art comes from something very personal: an emotion, an image, a joke, fear or feeling that I have inside.
I get actual joy from seeing the reactions of people looking at what I have made and what came out of me. Through writing, directing, mise en scène, acting, camera, sound and editing, that internal feeling becomes something visible, and the most beautiful part of it is when the audience connects with it.
It allows people to feel what I felt while creating it: if it is drama, they can be moved and cry by what made me cry, if it is comedy, they can laugh at what made me laugh. That exchange is incredibly rewarding because it means that the emotions did not stay only inside me but it reached someone else.
To me, that is one of the most powerful things about cinema, it can take something personal and transform it in a shared experience.

Have you ever had to pivot?

One important pivot in my career happened when I realized that the path I started on wasn’t exactly where I felt the most alive.
At the beginning of my professional career, I was working as a data manager (and Dailies colorist, and I was actually very good at it), it was an important role and it taught me discipline, responsibility and precision. But I quickly understood that it was not the best fit for my personality: I’m a very active, energetic person, and I couldn’t imagine myself spending 12 hours a day in a dark room far from the movement and energy of the set.
So I decided to move towards video assisting (even if I was getting a lower pay rate). It was still demanding, sometimes even more physically, but it felt much closer to who I am. I prefer the spending 12 hours on set, walking around, solving problems, and staying close to the camera department and the Director (even if I went home with sore legs and feet most days), because I felt more fulfilled.
That change taught me that fulfillment is not just about working in the film industry, but about finding the place where you can grow, learn and feel truly connected to the work. As a video assistant I could observe the set much more closely, understanding how different departments communicate and learning lessons that later became valuable to me as a director.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sebastiano_sallemi/
• Linkedin: https://it.linkedin.com/in/sebastiano-sallemi-88496a176/en
• Other: IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/it/name/nm13466033/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_1_nm_6_in_0_q_sebastiano%20sallemi