Many people say they want to make a movie or write a book. Now, imagine actually doing it. Rodrigo Moreno, a film director based in Brownsville, has done something few accomplish.
Moreno invested his life savings in making a film. He is the director, producer and executive producer of “The Whole,” as well as the co-writer of the script, along with his brother, Joel Moreno.
“We wanted to do it here in the Valley,” Moreno said. “All of this concept of a necessity expressing yourself, that rage that you have inside, that’s my motivation to make a film like this.”
“The Whole” is a psychological thriller that is centered on Peter Ramsey, played by Javier Andy Zavala Jr., a university professor with problems of self-acceptance and self-actualization. The movie has philosophical elements behind it, particularly in regard to existentialism and the concept of essence and what makes you who you are.
The movie is suspenseful with relatable characters and compelling writing. Peter finds a hole in his wall. He discovers that this hole has metaphysical properties and that everything that he puts into this hole becomes salient in history. Through the course of the movie, Peter changes as he decides how to use this newly found power.
“He does discover something in the movie that can help him get there, but in the process, he loses his own identity,” UTRGV Communication Professor Sharaf Rehman said in describing the lead character.
Rehman plays the president of the university where Peter works.
The majority of the cast is Latino. Some people who are part of stage support are from UTRGV.
“It is a local production, made by a Hispanic-American person, featuring Hispanic-American characters, involved in front of the camera and behind the camera,” Rehman said. “Yet, it is not a movie that feeds the sensationalist issues of drug trafficking and violence and cartels and human trafficking and that kind of stuff. It is an honest-to-goodness psychological thriller. So, instead of cashing in on the cheap thrill, where one could have made it a popular commercial film, he chose to do something really sincere and serious, and to make a movie that really makes people want to think. It is a movie for a thinking person, rather than bubble gum for the eyes.”
Much of the filming took place at Texas Southmost College between January and April, with post-production being finished in June.
Moreno did not want to make a regional film about drug trafficking, border violence or immigration.
“We wanted to do a project that is not the common project for that region,” he said in an interview Aug. 19 at his Pink Ape Media office in north Brownsville. “People talk about drug cartels and violence, which is a perfectly legitimate topic, but we wanted to do a more universal film, a film that can be watched in Timbuktu or Paris and you can still enjoy it.”
Victoria Mendez, a UTRGV communication freshman, served as a production assistant on the film.
“Going in, I thought I knew a lot about film, but this whole experience showed me that I didn’t, but it taught me a lot as well,” Mendez said in regard to working on the movie.
“The Whole” was screened at the San Antonio Film Festival and the Sunrise 45 Film Festival in Michigan. It will open the South Texas International Film Festival at 6 p.m. Sept. 7 in the UTRGV Performing Arts Center on the Edinburg campus.
For more information about the event, contact Soledad Nuñez at 383-6246.
