Interview with Filmmaker Roberto Serrini.

How did you get into being a documentary filmmaker?

I actually never planned on being a filmmaker, I’ve always just wanted to travel. My parents both worked in the airlines, and I was always on a plane going somewhere back when companion passes actually had value. If there was something like a “professional experience taker” I would want to be that. My whole life has been about going places and meeting people and trying to be wowed by life. 

Since they don’t really offer that as a major in college I went with my second love, filmmaking, and ended up studying Film Theory at UCSB, which is great if you love film but not very useful if you want to work in film. So,I listened to some of the people that I admired like Spike Lee, Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino and just started shooting what I was interested in and thats when I latched onto documentaries. 

I live in NYC which is one of the only cities that I feel can compete with how interesting the rest of the world is. There are so many weird, wonderful and interesting people and places that there was always something to discover. I would just roll into a place and ask whoever if I could make a short video about them. Most everyone loves to tell their story, especially to someone that is really interested, so it was easy to come up with material. I could shoot it myself running the sound from a lav right into the camera, and was a solid editor to boot, so docs were something I could do without money or help.

What was the inspiration behind wanting to make a documentary about your dinner?

I have spent my life trying to outdo yesterdays, and some of the most fun I’ve ever had hasn’t been in some remote country submerged in some foreign culture, it’s been in my kitchen with Peter, our friends, some good funky wine, and amazing food. We all knew the city was about to shut down any day, so we wanted to do a “last supper” of sorts, a blow-out, and something a little different then the ordinary. We’ve always talked about doing something with these amazing cookbooks too, so the time seemed now or never. 

We really weren’t trying to make a film, we were really just trying to make dinner. This is us going shopping, talking about what we want to make, screwing up, succeeding, eating, laughing, etc. In a way it’s my most honest documentary I’ve made because it’s not trying to be anything. It’s just two guys who aren’t chefs who really love food, making a great meal out of really wild cookbooks. It was made for fun and out of love, and if I could, I would let that be my inspiration behind everything I do, but we all gotta go to the DMV every once and a while.

How was making this film different from how you’ve made previous films. 

Other films start with a directive and you usually know the story you want to tell. For Omnom I wanted to talk about how unique this Northernmost chocolaterie was. For Heretic I wanted to explore how wild Douglass Little was making couture scents in his upper west side baroque laboratory. For this film, In Bocca, we were just making dinner. We didn’t really know how deep we were going to go with these books, or our connection with it, and we really didn’t have a roadmap of what we wanted to shoot or say, but that ultimately became a part of the film, which is why I love it so much. I really love seeing the process of filmmaking adding to the meaning of the film itself; my absolute favorite episodes of Bourdain’s Parts Unknown is the penultimate episode you get to see the crew work with him and how the sausage is made. It makes it so much more real and honest, which I appreciate in all types of film really. 

What really sets this film apart is how damn personal it is. The connection Peter and I have through these books and how they connected him to his family in Italy is a crazy story. They basically inspired us to go to his home town of Borgotaro, and when we arrived the mayor brought us around to every one of his relatives houses, people he never met, and they opened up their homes to us. They shared stories, and history, and of course food with us. That’s really what the film is about, how these books are a gateway to everything we love about Italy and life in general; meeting good people people, eating good food food, and a true love for life. Trying to get that into one film isn’t easy, but we didn’t have to try, it was just there. 

There is obviously a lot of work that went into the post of this film. Was the edit process more difficult or different since you didn’t have a clear roadmap or message while shooting it?

Getting to go through old memories with my best friends is never work. I’ve been editing since the beginning, and even when I’m just directing, I’m still doing it through an editors discipline so it’s never difficult I’d say. However, one difference was that I started editing this right when Italy was getting destroyed by the pandemic, and the news from friends and family about how bad it was was putting everything in this film in perspective. Here we were having a wonderful time with these amazing cookbooks from this profound culture that has given us so much, and its source was suffering. It became important to make that connection clear in the film and bring attention to Italy, which I think makes this film more then just another doc about cooking. 

Of course I didn’t realize this until after we released the film and people started to write us to tell us their personal reaction to the film which is amazing. Usually when I make something I do it because I think it’s an interesting story and that a lot of people will find it interesting as well. For this film, we made it for us and how we felt about Italy through these cookbooks. Even if it isn’t as popular as other films I’ve made, the response has been so personal, so genuine and connected I already consider it my favorite piece of work. I mean the daughter of the man who created these books called me on the phone to tell me stories about how her aunt wrote all those recipes by hand, that it was her actual handwriting in these books, and how seeing them again after being forgotten was such a mind-blowing experience. It’s rare for me to make something that can touch even just one person that way and it is very special to me.

There are a lot of creators out there making content right now, has it been difficult to get your film seen and build an audience?

It might be hard if we had a target we were trying to reach, but really we just made this film to make it and do some good in the process. We all seem to have more time on our hands, and wanting to help somehow, and I think that is why so many people are producing content, which is great. There are a lot of eyeballs at home these days. For us, the reception has been beautiful. Lots of positive comments and people asking how they can help, or just interested in more recipes or being part of the project somehow. We have chef’s we know that are going to be cooking recipes out of the book during livestreams on our channel starting next week. We built a site just for this project to give information and background, and added a blog where we’re putting up additional content. So really it’s doing what it’s supposed to be doing, and hopefully reaching the people that will enjoy it. It’s fun, and it’s celebrating a culture that could use a little love right now, which I’m sure everyone is down with. 

Where do you see the film going? Are you planning on a festival run?

We’ve already been contacted to develop this into a series, which seems like the where the project wants to naturally go. There are 20 cookbooks and 20 regions in Italy. I can easily see Peter and I on our bikes cruising through the country and going deep on the culture, charming family recipes out of grandmothers and meeting people passionate about making the absolute best product. This is what we do normally, if there is a camera there or not, but it be so much more fun to share that experience, and maybe inspire people to respect the magic that good food can have. 

Do you think it would be hard to sell a travel show in this transitioning market, especially since neither one of you have a celebrity audience?

I live for exploring culture, as does Peter, and we’re real people, the people who are actually watching travel shows. I like seeing people who are professionals at what they do have real experiences, and that’s why Bourdain was king because he was his show. People are always using the word “authentic” as if it was mandatory to put in a deck or a pitch, always asking “how can we make this more authentic”. The most authentic you can get is not trying to be authentic; so authentic you’re not even thinking about being authentic. You’re just experiencing and the camera is just there recording it. That to me is the gold standard of documentary or unscripted TV, and it is very rare because people always think you have to stick a celebrity in a show to have any audience. You go to a mechanic to hear why your car doesn’t work, you go to a doctor to know why you’re sick, you should go to professional travelers to discover travel. Just seems like a no-brainer to me, but then again, I’m just a guy who lives to travel.

Do you have any advice for filmmakers out there trying to create something during this strange time of being quarantined?

Yeah, lean into it. For me it’s been amazing to have the time to reflect and think how you can make something while standing 9 feet apart from someone. Leaning into the constraint can yield some pretty unique content, which is always a good thing. In our case we just rolled the cameras on dinner, and out of it came an entire project that lot’s of good people have contributed to. Roll on your bath time, or reorganizing your closed or playing with your cat. Shoot what you love, and do it for the sake of making something you love, and I don’t think you can go wrong. 

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Roberto Serrini is a filmmaker who lives in NYC. He is a commercial director who has created campaigns for brands like Nike, Adidas, Google, and Apple, and has won several awards for his documentary work and online series. He is the creator of Make Me a Sandwich, High/Low Travel Show on Quibi, and the TravelClast Travel channel on YouTube. His personal work can be seen at www.robertoserrini.com