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

Luca, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I am really happy as an artist even though the more you move on with your career, the more you learn that it’s really a never ending path. Most likely it’s the essence of the artist itself that put him in the position of almost constant non satisfaction which is the drive to make it better on your next chance. Everyone who has faced a creative process knows that there is a moment when you literally need to pull yourself away of your creation or you take the risk that you will never complete or release it because you’re always looking to that final detail to make it better. This is exactly what I’m talking about that also involved other aspects of your life.
I think it’s very unlikely that an artist or a creative person doesn’t live a creative life, and that means that almost every aspect of it are deeply affected by your personality.
This doesn’t mean to have a cool artistic house or a beautiful extravagant office: it goes much deeper, sometimes with very dark sides.
The necessity of always expressing yourself, and, in a way, always been not 100% happy with it, always make you feel a certain struggle no matter how successful you are. And this sometimes involves also your family or people around you.

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.

My name is Luca Severi, but everyone call me Luchino, I’m a film Director and founder and producer of LSPG (Luca Severi Production Group), an international production company based in Los Angeles (USA) and Rome (Italy) which is about to open a third branch in Asia. I’ve been directing and producing narrative films as well as documentaries over the past 15 years and I was really fortunate to have traveled the word thanks to those projects.
I believe we are a pretty unique unicorn in our industry because we try to merge a mini studio setup in an independent department, when it comes of filmmaking.
This means that we control the entire flow of our projects but at the same time we focus on thought provoking productions that aim to reach that audience that mainstream movies have lost during the last years.
Film industry is facing many different challenges and changes and everyone is aware of it because the biggest example are the new streaming platforms that provide a very different distribution model.
I believe that independent filmmakers will play a strategic role in this time of change, and we try to do our part.

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

Art belongs to everyone, even those who don’t feel particularly attached to it I have no interest in it or don’t go regularly to museums, art galleries, or movie theaters. If you think about it, mankind started to draw and paint before building the first weapons to defend himself; so much sooner than inventing the wheel; way before even building the first house.
This explain the artistic need that everyone has inside of course many times daily routine tend to make you forget that you need exposure to art forms as much as you need sport, healthy food and good sleep.
Of course every artist has a big challenge in front of him: reach the audience and make his art noticeable.
But I think audience is part of the artistic process, and so to make it easier, the audience can reach artists !
My suggestions are always: do not only look at what is main stream, search more, don’t stop the first thing you find or listen to. Be the one who discovered new talents and form of arts, and spread the word.
First of all, this will give you a genuine, enthusiastic approach but also allow you to be the person of waves of creativity, which may surprise you, your family, your friends, and takeoff and reach many other people.
So what society can do to best support artist is: support the artists !
Don’t speculate on art. Don’t make artists struggle more than what they already do.
Art might not change your own personal life but maybe will do with someone else’s.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Things don’t go as you expect, at least almost never in a creative field. And that’s the best part of it ! I think for many years, I’ve binged a little bit of a control maniac.
Being an emerging talent, an immigrant in a foreign country, I had to face many obstacles, other than my own profession.
This made me think that I had to plan very carefully every single move and create a plan that I had to follow step-by-step in order to succeed. Of course this made me feel very safe at the beginning, but while I was growing we’re not always expected and created sometimes a big amount of stress because I felt I was losing pieces and things were falling out of my hands.
This ended up not to be always the case, sometimes the opposite actually.
I learned that the life of a creative person is so various that you can’t really plan (now I could say you cannot really plan anything) but that can be the best part. If you’re open to be surprised by your life, by the challenges that your life presents to you, if you keep a positive and enthusiast mindset and sometimes you’re also brave enough to just set back and wait the right time to make your next move, you will be amazed about how much you are adaptable, and how much that will affect positively your creativity.
At the end of the day creativity means exactly that: it doesn’t mean to make a good painting, or create a nice sculpture.
It means to be creative in adapting, your life and solving problems, no matter, if that is your job or not.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lspginc.com
• Instagram: luchino_severi
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luca-severi/

Image Credits
@Stefania Rosini, photographer