By Calgary Maez
Albuquerque continues to grow in the entertainment industry, especially for young, talented filmmakers. With Netflix coming to the Duke City, more opportunities are beginning to unfold, especially for local Albuquerque resident Antonio Marquez. I had the honor and pleasure of sitting down with him and talking about his award-winning film, “Alivestock.”
“Alivestock” is Marquez’s first short film that wasn’t backed by the University of New Mexico. When asked about this, he said, “This is the first short that wasn’t a student film. We raised all of the funds ourselves, I wrote the whole thing, and we wanted to take a crack at it and be more independent.” He went on to explain how all of the equipment they used was their own as well as the crew they hired. Two actors in the film were local, professional actors and the others were friends that he knew that were just naturally talented.
This hard work paid off tremendously with its incredible success. Marquez went on to discuss the achievements the film made, “We won the award for best film at the Santa Fe Film Festival. We won the best Albuquerque production for ABQ Film Festival. We won the best drama for the New Mexico Film Offices film awards. We also won the Jury of Peers Award at the LA Crime and Horror Film Festival.”
The success of the film is very much deserved due to its amazing storytelling, stellar cinematography, and incredible acting. When we discussed what inspired him to create this film, he said, “We actually wrote it based on a feature film of a feature-length script that we’re still trying to make. I actually started writing that at UNM. So I wanted to do a shorter version with the elements of it.” Not only that, but he went on to talk about some filmmakers that inspired him such as the Coen Brothers, Martin Scorsese, and John Milius. He used these inspirations to help with the transitions as well as the framing of the characters. The result was a beautifully shot film that gave so much more depth.
Marquez doesn’t want to stop there. The world of “Alivestock” is expanding and the local filmmaker has his own cinematic universe in the making. When discussing his future projects he said, “I have a feature-length script that involves some of the characters and kind of the scenarios. We’re making another one in September, a short film. We’re still working on getting a crew and some actors for. We’re looking for older, Hispanic actors and possibly some younger ones. It’s supposed to be a younger, coming of age teenager story.” His new story will see some actors reprising their roles from “Alivestock” and will be seen in previous locations used from the film as well as new locations.
“Alivestock” was a film made with love, care and passion and it shows through its storytelling, cinematography, acting, and direction. The film deserves to be shown to the masses and is a great film to inspire young filmmakers with their ventures in film production. Since Marquez is gearing up to tell his next great story, he could use the amazing talent that Albuquerque has to offer. Whether it be acting, sound production, or cinematography, Antonio Marquez welcomes Albuquerque to partner with him.
Antonio Marquez can be contacted via email at a.marq.productions@gmail.com
