Camila Mendes and Rudy Mancuso Interview: Música
160One of the most exciting and beautiful aspects of filmmaking, and storytelling in general, is getting the opportunity to step into someone else’s shoes and experience a reality that’s different from your own. In Rudy Mancuso’s case, however, the reality he’s trying to pull viewers into -- and have them see, hear and feel -- is a rather tough thing to communicate. Mancuso’s feature directorial debut puts a spotlight on a condition he has, Synesthesia.
As he described it himself, “Synesthesia is a condition that's being researched and studied continuously. There’s, what I learned, a hundred different types and counting.” He went on to note that it’s a challenging condition to diagnose, so it’s likely that many out there who have it, don’t even know that they do. He continued, “By definition, it's when one sense involuntarily stimulates another. So some Synesthetes can taste colors and others can smell numbers. For me, I have what's known as rhythmic association, whereby I try to organize sounds and situations into music almost in an obsessive fashion.” That’s what Música is about.
Executive produced by Riverdale’s Camila Mendes, Mancuso leads Música as Rudy, a young Brazilian street performer with synesthesia from Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood. When he’s not trying to finish up his college degree, he’s staging puppet performances for commuters. Rudy tries to convince his girlfriend, Haley (Francesca Reale), that his ambitions will eventually lead toward some sense of creative fulfillment and stability, but their definitions of and timetables for finding success don’t quite align. Then there’s Isabella (Mendes). Not only does she instantly catch Rudy’s eye, but the more he gets to know her, the more he comes to suspect that she might understand him better than anyone. As described in the film’s production notes, “Caught in a love triangle, Rudy tries to balance his cultural heritage, the women in his life and the música inside his head.”
While in Austin celebrating Música’s world premiere at SXSW 2024, Mendes, Reale, Mancuso and Maria Mancuso, Rudy’s mother who also plays his mother in the movie, all visited the Collider interview studio to give us a little insight into the making of the film.
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