We were lucky to catch up with John Tedeschi recently and have shared our conversation below.

John , appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I formed the film production company, The Continental Shoemakers, to produce edifying narratives that use the emulsion of senses to get to a profound understanding or exploration of a story. Our third production is BEGET – and it is fully my most meaningful project. The backstory is incredibly complex but also fundamental – I thought about millenniums we have been conditioned to accept Queer, BIPOC, and Women as less than, the other, the not the norm, the not as strong, secondary – and why, and why does this persist, and why in 2025 does it appear that that secondary state will be pushed to invisibility and erasure. BEGET turns back time, yes Cher we can, and starts at The Old Testament Biblical beginning and makes creation equal and Queer – A male couple and a female couple pro-create – how will this change all of history?

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My filmmaking is extremely new, and one of the things I call it is 3/2, meaning Third Cinema with a fraction of Second Cinema. The films to create are those that collectively bring light to, and challenge: the degeneration of the culture, the pop-social media-Americanization of many aspects, the need for more and more, using socio-political arguments to examine why there are so many taboos – and what is taboo, raise consciousness, expose exploitative conditions, engage action to improve life, express experiences that have shaped a group, fortify humanity with power and possibility, and provide liberation.

Success is having ideas, creating stories, collaborating, the persistence of making the work, having the labor produced, and leading to many actively experiencing the film. Ideas, and creation are thriving, and I hope to be able to put these qualities into feature without sacrificing the scope and vision that often happens when one is confronted with lack. Lack is a holistic barrier experienced when an artist or project does not have support from organizations, does not have economic funding and provision, does not have some amount of social impact, and does not have resources, equipment, or an environment to make art flourish. I am educating myself, quickly, regarding opportunities that are available through specific research, application, connection, outreach, and resources to bring BEGET to fruition.

This project, BEGET, is fostering an expanse of enthralling and immersive possibility to express and create, – the narrative is so large that the allegorical parables are an almost new planet of stories. The idea is stimulating and affecting the creative practice to combine aesthetics, and application of diverse philosophies, polemics, and parameters.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

A problem that many artists face and have to increase their love of self, belief of self, and increase self resilience because of is the double edged sword of: hype. An audience will adore or hate something in comparison to what others say or think. Reviews are often more believed and sought than the art itself; and because of that pleasing or dis-pleasing the artist thrives or suffers – and often, not because of the attestation of the art. The subjective, elusive, and fluid nature of art upholds or drops an artist and their work, and forms extensive difficulty for an artist to thrive within a glass box such as this. Resilience is the steady faith in your work, your aesthetic, your voice and vision, and your purpose of why you do what you do because of why, what and who you are.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Many peoples experience an expected secondary position they are meant to acquire and live by – this must terminate. Due to definitions and labels of race, gender, and orientation, the world’s societies have created zillions of instances and practices of hierarchy, sexism, and homo and trans-phobia instead of equality, nonsexism, bias-freedom, and pluralism. As a middle-aged-Queer-male I have experienced, since my earliest youth, a need to people please, shrink, silence, and taper many aspects of my being, because of a predisposition of less than or unequal, simply because my existence, to many, is viewed as sinful, unnatural, and without normalcy. The conditioning and persistence of how things should be is an elemental practice that should be changed and questioned.

I create as a Herald to proclaim and promote the possibility and potential of our present and of our future, I am a mirror who reflects, refracts, and revises the conditioning and persistent practice of how things should be, however, not with a prescribed process but one of multiple prospects – and I use huge words to create buzz and interest, of my work, art and films of an actually very simple idea – We need equity, and we are all equal.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecontinentalshoemakers.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johntedeschiroar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/roarjohn/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-tedeschi/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBfFnudrc7au5VSEAID0Svw

Image Credits

Shani Hadjian Photography
Marsco Media
Michael Lavin Flower Photography
Ethan Hunter Raysor