Diego Velasco is an award-winning Latin American filmmaker with strong Mississippi roots. He attended East Central Community College and later graduated from the film program at the University of Southern Mississippi, where he was named to The School of Mass Communication and Journalism Hall of Fame in 2011. Throughout his career he has directed a number of TV series and feature films, his most recent being the Venezuelan folk horror thriller The Whistler, which opens in select theaters and on demand April 17.
Whatâs your background and the path that led to you working in film?
I was born in Buffalo, New York, and my dad is Cuban. My mom is from Venezuela. And then, like many Cubans at that time, they moved to Miami, Florida. I was there until about 4th grade. Then my parents got a divorce, and I went to go live with my mom in Venezuela through the end of high school.
I finished high school and my dad said if you come live with me, I’ll pay for college. At that time, he was living in Philadelphia, Mississippi. So, I went from being in the huge city of Caracas, Venezuela, with like 4 million people to a very small town which was probably like maybe 15,000 people.
I wanted to study music. I went to a community college in Decatur, which is an even smaller town. It had two gas stations. (laughs) East Central Community College was a great college and I had a great time. I made so many great friends. And I fell in love with music. And then from East Central Community College, I transferred to the University of Southern Mississippi, where my sister had gone through the Mass Communications program.
I had visited there over a weekend once and saw how they were making short films and I thought it was the coolest thing. So as soon as I graduated from ECCC, I went to USM and I majored in film with a minor in theater. And it was great. Some of my really good friends who I’m still in contact with, like (Film Mississippi Director) Nina Parikh, came from my life at USM. And film school really taught me to do things with my own hands and how to lean on others for support and be scrappy and to also understand the big picture. I made a couple of short films there, and I was like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Then it became a process of getting more and more experience. After I graduated, I moved to Gulfport, and I was working at a production company called Gonzaflex Film Productions. They did a lot of commercials for casinos at that time. Then I got the opportunity to move to New Orleans, where there was a lot of work being done. I specialized in the camera department and I worked my way up from being a loader to a second AC to a first AC until eventually I became a director of photography. And then in between doing all those gigs, I kept making short films, trying to get better and better and better until eventually I got a TV show gig as a director finally. And that was back in Venezuela. And then when the political climate changed in Venezuela, I came back to the States, and I decided to just go straight for it and I moved to Los Angeles where Iâve been since 2001, so it’s been a minute.
I see from your IMDB that you had an early credit as a second assistant camera on My Dog Skip. Was that your first big on set experience?
My first on set experience was actually when I was in college, a Eudora Welty story called A Worn Path. It was shooting in Jackson, and they contacted the Mississippi Film Office (now Film Mississippi), who contacted USM to see if there were some film students who wanted to come work. And that was the first time we worked for a weekend.
But My Dog Skip, that was a funny story because Nina was working on that too. I think somehow maybe she got sick or something. And then she passed the job on to me. And that was cool. That was my first Hollywood credit in the camera department.
Tell me about The Whistler, your horror feature coming out this weekend. What was the genesis of that project?
When I did my first feature The Zero Hour (La Hora Cera), that was an action movie, and I learned that people who like to read subtitles don’t necessarily like action movies. So, it was hard to find a place where I could sell it and get distribution. Somebody told me that the horror genre travels everywhere because the more authentic you make it, the more people want to see it. And horror fans don’t mind reading subtitles and don’t mind learning about different things.
So, I started working on this project based on this South American legend that I grew up with called âThe Whistler.â It’s about a spirit that haunts the Venezuelan plains, but the catch is that the further you hear the whistle, the closer it is. So, when you think you’re running away, you’re actually running towards it. I started working on that and it took a long time to write. And then we were about ready to make it and the pandemic hit, and then we lost the funding. After that, though, the right people came in to fund it, which was a production company that made Old Henry based out of Nashville, Tennessee, called Hideout. Now it’s coming out April 17th in select theaters and on demand.
What are some of your other recent projects?
In between those two film projects, I did a lot of work in TV. I was able to direct episodes of Orange is the New Black, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, This Fool, Diary of a Future President and Teenage Bounty Hunters. I was lucky to do some good stuff for Netflix, Paramount Plus and Disney Plus. And that kept me busy while I was trying to raise the money to make The Whistler.
You have your own film company, Open Studios. Whatâs your mission for that venture?
Thatâs run by my wife Carolina Paiz and me. She’s a writer. We met in New Orleans, and we moved out here together. We’ve always remained open to telling fresh stories and to do new things that other people have not done. So, we created Open Studios, the idea being that weâre open for good, open to challenging stereotypes, open to telling stories that are normally not told. What weâre focused on is writing scripts and going out and selling those. Our focus is giving voice to the Latin experience through storytelling.
I remember when I was going to school at USM, there were all these directors that I really admired, like Scorsese and Tarantino, and I thought, âWhat do I have that they don’t have?â Because they’re so good at what they do, why try to imitate them? I started to look inwards to see what set me apart from all my friends and from the people I hung out with. And Iâm this person who’s grown up in different cultures, right? Thereâs stories that I found have a place in Venezuela that I could do, but thereâs also Mississippi stories I could tell. I spent many, many years in Mississippi. And a lot of my friends still live there and my dad still lives there in Columbus. It’s a place that I really hold dear. And I’m just trying to find that one thing. To me, the hardest part is always finding the right story because it takes up three to five years of your life.
The Zero Hour broke box office records in Venezuela where it was made and supported by the film community there. What do you think U.S. jurisdictions could learn from how they support indigenous filmmaking?
For better or for worse, the U.S. does such a great job with the film industry as a business, right? And there’s a lot of money involved. But most other countries tend to subsidize filmmaking. For example, in Venezuela, every movie ticket that you buy there is, I think, like a 12% or 15% tax on top of the cost of the ticket that goes straight to fund Venezuelan cinema. When I made that first movie, I applied for a grant, and I competed with every other Venezuelan filmmaker at that time. And we won the top seed prize, which was at that time, like $750,000 of a grant to make a movie.
And then also, if it’s a Venezuelan movie, it guarantees you at least two weeks of distribution in cinemas there. So, I think that what that allows is that people who don’t have a track record making movies are able to make a movie. Like if it wasn’t for that, I don’t know if I would have been able to make my first feature because it’s that chicken or the egg thing, right? Who’s going to give you a million to make a movie when you haven’t made a movie?
In the past in the states, the only way you could do it is by going through the studio system, but thatâs really hard. There’s so many things youâre up against, and you’re competing with the best of the best, right? It’s almost like, oh, I want to be an NFL player. OK, just beat the Super Bowl champs first. (laughs)
Take, say, the movie that won the best foreign movie for the Oscars, when that movie starts and there’s, I’m not kidding you, like 15 credits of companies that had made that movie possible through film funds and grants. Here, since there’s such a strong movie industry, you’re expected just to raise the money yourself.
Thatâs definitely most indie filmmakersâ biggest challenge. What are some other challenges an independent filmmaker faces in today’s landscape?
Todayâs landscape is so competitive, there’s so much noise. You’re competing with YouTube, with TikTok, you’re competing with all platforms. What I’m dealing with right now with The Whistler, is just to make people aware that this movie exists. Hopefully whoever’s reading this will be like, oh, let me go check out this movie made by this guy who went to USM in Hattiesburg. (laughs)
When I was in film school, the hardest part was the access to the gear. It was so expensive, film and cameras. Now you can shoot, edit and finish a film with just your iPhone. It’s just incredible the number of tools available that you can tap into. But then on the flip side, the more access everybody has, the more competition rises, right?
So now it’s not that hard to make the movie. It’s gotten harder to sell a movie because there’s just too much content. And people have decision fatigue; there’s too many options. They don’t know what to choose. Remember back in the day when youâd walk into Blockbuster and take like 15 minutes walking around because you didn’t know what to choose and just grab something? That’s happening in the digital sphere. The challenge is, how can you make something that stands out from everything else. And that’s what we set out to do with The Whistler.
Is there anyone youâve worked with that you consider a mentor?
At different stages in my career, many people have helped me, and they still help me, right? Like Nina, the film commissioner, we talk to each other all the time and we support each other and other friends that live in Mississippi. I feel like when I was in Mississippi going to school, my friends were my influences, and we were there for each other and that’s something that I always carry with me.
Francisco Gonzalez, who is also a USM alum, gave me my first job with Gonzaflex in Gulfport and really helped me a lot along the way. And one of the people that really shifted my career dramatically is Jenji Kohan, the creator of Weeds and Orange is the New Black. She gave me my first major TV episode. I think without that, I wouldnât have been able to do all the TV work that I got a chance to do.
From your experiences, what makes Mississippi a great place to make movies?
Out of all the places Iâve lived, the amount of talent in Mississippi is incredible. When I was going to college, all my friends played an instrument, or sang, or were really good with sports, or great with outdoor stuff. I was just always blown away how talented people there are. If you can tap into that resource in Mississippi, that gives you a leg up that most places don’t have. And in my experience, everybody just really wants to help you. If you have a smile and you have a good attitude, people will just jump to the moon and back for you, because all they want to do is see you happy and succeed. And that goodwill is everywhere in Mississippi and I’ve always been very grateful for that.
There was a teacher at my community college, Mr. Tom Carson. I’ll never forget him. He was like the nicest guy. He gave me a scholarship like on the spot for the marching band. All the teachers I had in Mississippi were amazing people that had so much knowledge and really were happy to share their wisdom.
To answer your question, the people of Mississippi are its greatest asset. Of course, the locations are stunning and there’s nothing else like it. But in my opinion, the people are the amazing asset that Mississippi has that provides a great advantage when making a movie there.
Diego Velasco’s social media:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/chavaina/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/chavaina/
Relevant links for The Whistler:
https://www.instagram.com/thewhistlermovie
https://www.facebook.com/thewhistlermovie
https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/the-whistler/umc.cmc.6tlkn521lk1hb1nfyfdo17wy5
