Mariano Dongo
Mariano Dongo
When Mariano Dongo reached out to Keith McNally about a film project involving his long-running brasserie Balthazar, the New York restaurateur invited him to his apartment for a quiz. McNally played Dongo a piece of iconic film music and told him he could make the movie if he identified its source. “It was the main theme from François Truffaut’s Day for Night. Even though I had heard it and seen the movie, I didn’t guess it. He said, ‘What a shame.’ Then he asked, ‘What do you really want to do? And how can I help you?’”
Dongo told him that he didn’t want to make a movie about Balthazar; instead, he wanted to make a film at the iconic restaurant. He believed that McNally’s Instagram, which he cites as a source of amusement and inspiration, had “opened the door into a fascinating universe” and wanted to properly capture the place’s energy. Dongo and his team spent two weeks meeting people at Balthazar before finally filming for one day. After screening a 15-minute sample, finally McNally gave Dongo permission to make a full feature in the restaurant.
Taking its cues from the works of Frederick Wiseman and Robert Altman, the currently untitled film will mix documentary footage of Balthazar with fictionalized scenes. The hybrid film will embrace the musicality of the spot, with the intended effect of focusing on different overheard conversations across an ensemble of characters. “It’s a very alive project,” Dongo explains. “I wanted to make a movie that hopefully captures the new and old glory of downtown New York.”
Born in Lima, Peru, Dongo says his interest in film began by watching movies with his mother, whom he describes as “an accidental cinephile.” During this time, he would frequent Lima’s bootleg DVD shops, where he was exposed to films by Robert Downey Sr. and Jim Jarmusch. After graduating from Emerson College, he became a development intern at Darren Aronofsky’s Protozoa Pictures. “I had to read [a large historical] biography and give coverage on it. I’m unsure whether [they were] just trying to keep me busy, but there was something about reading a voluminous [account] of a big person and imagining it in film form in an office full of film posters that I really loved.”
He eventually matriculated into NYU’s MFA film program, where he studied under Alexandre Rockwell, who “really instilled in us [a desire] to follow our fascination and [the belief that] that a good film is made when everything else is messy and there’s one diamond in there. It’s not necessarily when the whole thing is shiny.” Dongo eventually produced Rockwell’s most recent feature, Lump.
At school, Dongo met his frequent collaborator, cinematographer Theo Gray, who photographed his short film Mucho, Mucho Amor, which follows a quiet kitchen worker and features all nonprofessional actors from the Peruvian community in Queens. Dongo lost his main actor last minute and asked a woman who was doing locations and catering breakfast to jump in as the film’s lead. “It was an incredible exercise not just in improvising but also in working with people who had never been in front of the camera, making the film with them and asking them, ‘What would you do now?’”
Dongo’s facility with improvisation extends to his capacity as a producer on his peers’ work. During production of Jorge Sistos Moreno’s In Freedom, a film about a couple speculating whether a mysterious presence is at their doorstep, he was tasked with acquiring a house and a baby. He spent hours walking around a neighborhood where he previously filmed until he found a house for rent. “I called [the owner] and asked if we could use her house for a film. While waiting, a woman walked by with a baby. I stopped her and said, ‘I know I sound like a crazy person, but you have a beautiful baby, and we would like to put her in a film.’ I love that thrill of having to put a film together.”
Dongo plans to finish filming the Balthazar-inspired film by the end of the year before shifting into pre-production on his first dramatic feature, an “urban horror” film about a group of housing activists who conspire to bring down a landlord in the aftermath of a gas explosion; their revolt entangles a weary super and a family of migrants he houses in the basement. Though these two films may seem disparate, they both evince a humanist’s respect for people’s dignity. “As much as possible, you should come close to understanding people that are drastically different than you. I feel like when people try to show you someone, they inevitably become background. I want to go above and beyond when I decide that I want to represent a person or a job or a morality. I want to make sure that they’re front and center, always.” —Vikram Murthi/Image:Jeremy Gumener
