Writer/director Anthony Nardolillo is passionately working on his next film and he is hoping you will share his passion and help him produce it. If you are a dancer or even just a lover or salsa dancing, and there are millions of us, you haven’t seen a story this immersed in the world of salsa dancing in a long while.
It’s been a few decades, in fact, since salsa dancing took center stage, not since the 1980’s film Salsa which starred ex Menudo band member Robi Rosa Draco. Nardolillo is banking on the exciting and intoxicating world of Salsa dancing once again finding its audience and he is certain his film Shine, a New York Salsa music/dance drama will fit the bill.
Shine is the story Two brothers, once NYC’s renowned Salsa dancers, are reunited years after the death of their father, on opposing ends of a city in full bloom gentrification.
As a precursor to Shine Nardolillo’s calling card is the award winning Salsa short film Mano starred Giancarlo Esposito, Laz Alonso, Lee T. Young and featured some of the most talented faces in Salsa, both musicians and dancers. More than 500K people from 28 countries viewed the 24 minute short.
Nardolillo considers himself a symbol of “Spanish Harlem”. He is inspired by his Puerto Rican roots and in particular, Salsa—the music that echoes and serves as the vocal conduit for love of family, pride and culture. He wrote Shine to reflect the theme of gentrification and the wealth of culture in those of Puerto Rican descent.
While holding down a 9 to 5 job at Kaiser Permanente, Nardolillo continues to develop his craft as a filmmaker, directing commercials for clients such as Target and Disney, as well as various music videos which have been played on MTV3, Disney Music and Univision. Anthony did a domestic violence documentary in the Caribbean, taking a short sabbatical from his Kaiser and spending three weeks in Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. This is a very visible documentary as it is being endorsed by the largest domestic not-for-profit One Billion Rising.
The production has already completed a lot of the pre-production including casting, recording original music from Grammy winning Spanish Harlem Orchestra, locked locations, locked the best camera equipment (Arri Alexa XT), lenses and Grip/Electric. With much of the pre-production legwork out of the way, the production caught a break when they were allowed to shoot scenes from the script at the NYC Puerto Rican Day Parade saving themselves thousands of dollars having to recreate the scene int he film.
Being resourceful in a major component of being an independent filmmaker in this day and age.
It it time to shoot the film and to raise monies the production has started a Kickstarter crowd funding campaign. So far they have raised $50,519, they are half way to their goal of $100,ooo. But the way Kickstarter, works if the full $100,000 is not raised, they don’t get to keep the pledged monies. There are only 18 days left to meet their goals. You can read all about the production and decide if this is a film you would like to see and if it, your contribution can help make this film a reality.
Go to the Shine Kickstarter campaign to donate.
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