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

Carley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My journey as a filmmaker began with the poetic short film “Everything I Never Told You.” In the short, our main characters are at a crossroads in their relationship, ultimately being asked to choose themselves and their individual expansion, or continue a cycle of limerence. Writing, Directing, and Producing a story about love and self discovery upon graduating college and diving headfirst into the “real world” was a beautifully terrifying practice in surrender and self-trust. I felt incredibly lucky to be surrounded by such an incredible support system and collaborators while stepping into the space as a first-time filmmaker. To see what was once a poem in my notes app coming to life as a living breathing world with voice, vision, and a million moving parts gave me such a strange sense of… serenity? Alignment? It was like there was no other path for my life to have taken other than being right on that set doing what somehow combined everything I was passionate and curious and excited about all my life. The artists and mentors I worked alongside on ‘Everything I Never Told You” have taught me what it means to pour love, trust, and a fierce commitment into my work in a way I will forever cherish. I could thank that entire cast and crew a thousand times over for making me a filmmaker. It makes me excited for the meaningful projects on their way.

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 back background and context?

I have been a writer forever, since I could hold a pen or speak at my mom long enough to make sense of my feelings. My identity as a producer and director began when I forced my fifth grade class to let me cast them in a living room production of “Annie”- scripts and schedules all printed and prepared. My ability to act came as a product of all three of these, because who’s going to tell the stories anyway?! My mom, a beautiful theatre director, and my dad, an entrepreneur, raised me in the queer community of Fire Island Pines. The people I was surrounded by as a young girl ushered me headfirst into the musical theatre space, where I discovered my love for storytelling. I decided to pursue acting in college at NYU’s Tisch School of Drama, and to my surprise was plopped into a studio that focused on cultivating actors abilities to write and direct their own works, Playwrights Horizons. It was here that I found a deep sense of trust in my voice as an artist. I found myself continuously drawn to cultivating spaces for community and storytelling, empowering stories by women for women with a profound ability to heal. I met the most incredible collaborators and friends through these spaces, and was continuously guided back to writing, directing, and producing new works. Whether it be connecting through digital media on my wellness platform, @afoodywithabootie, or hosting monthly events in NYC for sharing new art with my Notes App Productions co-founder, Beatrice, I feel so passionately about connecting artists and creating spaces and stories that heal.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I remember explaining all of my aspirations, starry eyed and rambling, to a mentor and being met with “pick just one and work at only that, or you’ll never be great at any one of those things, you’ll only be good at some of them”. I was terrified. You want me to stop writing so I can act? To drop any thought of wellness entrepreneurship passions so that I can produce new works? How am I meant to pick just one? What if it’s the wrong one?
(Enter: Sylvia Plath’s fig tree analogy)
Now, I know with mastery comes hours of dedication and persistence but I hold the symbiotic belief in the idea that when you are living in alignment with your purpose, or on the path toward whatever it is you’re meant to do here, your passions feed into one another. Multidimensionality is the key to any creative endeavor. Without my years in acting, I’d never know how to speak to actors as a Director, or write in some not-so-secret code that only the actress in that role would understand. My interest in entrepreneurship and digital marketing in wellness on social media paved the way for creating community and stepping into the art space as a producer. I swear there is a space for most of our passions to converge into a career path that feels so right and true and beautiful. I think it may start by saying “here is what I love”, “here is what I’d do every day if I could be paid to do it”, and then leaning in to all of it. There are so many figs to pick. I hope you brought a big basket.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

The books “Big Magic” by Elizabeth Gilbert, “Untamed” by Glenn Doyle, and “Emergent Strategy” by Adrienne Marie Brown completely shifted, validated, spoke to, empowered, the way I work and connect with creativity and the world around me. I’d shout them from the rooftops and share them with anyone I know that wants to make something.
I’d also say write. Write, write write.
Read what YOU write.
A grocery list is meaningful when it’s done with presence and love.
There is magic everywhere, in everything you do, and it’s worthy of being connected over, laughed at, romanticized, ripped apart.
Write it all down.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.carleylovito.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/afoodywithabootie
• Linkedin: carleylovito

Image Credits

Niteka Creative