New Year, New Direction
Image Courtesy: Strike FSU
“The one promise guaranteed in life is death.”
Nicolas Manterola, a young, thriving director, caught me off guard when he told me this was the inspiration behind his new film. Nick is a filmmaker based in Tampa, Florida. He has produced numerous film projects and opportunities this past year including a romantic film in Italy, a commercial for Bacardi Spirits, and even a directing position for the Porsche Sprint Cup Challenge North America.
Image Courtesy: Nick Manterola
While his day-to-day career consists of managing his production company, Stones Hill Productions, he also practices the art of music, fashion, and design, with a collective brand of his own, Marque Visions. Marque Visions spreads across all his practices, labeled as an art academy meant to inspire young artists of all trades. Nick does not set limitations on his creative endeavors but directing is his salient passion.
Manterola explains where his love of directing originated from, his own father who was a director for a major television station in Chile, “Growing up, I would spend a lot of time with him on those sets - I was obsessed with the energy and aura of the collaborative environment… I was hooked from an early age. I knew that I wanted to be a film director from day one.”
Image Courtesy: Instagram
From that point forward, he held himself to a standard that would lead him on a path of success. After graduating high school, Manterola attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and The New York Film Academy, which resulted in amazing opportunities for him to work under some famous names like Elijah Wood, America's favorite Hobbit, Frodo Baggins.
In 2021, the young artist was focused on a film based on a romance novel, adapting a story of rediscovering a lost love. This film sent him to Lake Como, Italy, where he romanticized not only the screenplay but his life. He describes Italy as an oasis, for it is sexy, intriguing, and the perfect place to create such an indulgent movie about this love affair. However, on his flight back home, he came back to reality, a struggle with his mental health that had been affecting him for a while. Not only affecting him but his future work. Nick enlightened me on the word ennui, or dissatisfaction from a lackluster life. In the seemingly desirable life of a traveling filmmaker, not all that glitters is gold; Nick’s accomplishments don’t always outweigh his passion to achieve more.
On the plane ride home, he found inspiration for his next film- a visual commentary on ennui. Intended to be released in the summer of 2022, Manterola wants the film to hone in on a feeling that everyone has felt at some point in their life: sonder, or the realization that everyone else around you has a life of their own, that you are just walking flesh interacting with other walking flesh every single day. It is terrifying when you come to terms with the fact that life is simply just a matter of sitting around and avoiding the inevitable: death. Until you realize this, you cannot really live. Scrambling to find the right mindset in life can fill you with anxiety. Are you truly living? Do you know the meaning of life? The film will encapsulate all these feelings by telling the story of a “black sheep” he says. His journey home led him to also find inspiration in Albert Camus- a Nobel Prize in Literature winner- whose work relays these same feelings of numbness Nick was experiencing. The film will also emphasize the Latin philosophy “memento mori” (remember that you have to die), striking people to live as if they will die tomorrow. Nick continues to push himself each day, and told me that 2022 was going to be his biggest year yet; a new year brings in many broken self-promises, but he defies the popular statistic that resolutions fail within the first two weeks of our “fresh start”. What really makes Nick Manterola stand out from the rest is his consistent pursuit of authenticity, confidence, and ambitiously pouring himself into his craft. This is what I learned from Nick, “...art rewards those who never turn their backs on it.”
Strike Out,
Writer: Ella Selph
Editor: Roxy Rico
Graphic Designer: Allexandria Clemons
Tallahassee