We had the good fortune of connecting with Maria-Sara Santoro and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maria-Sara, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
Growing up I knew I wanted to help people, so me and my family thought I could be a doctor. During middle school I started thinking I could be what I called a “writer-doctor”, as in I wanted to be a doctor and write for my patients so they’d feel better reading stories. Not too long after then I realised something was off. I was quite shy and got bullied for my appearance, we know how kids are… I played piano and guitar and I loved reading genre novels, to the point that my literature teacher asked me to please read other things that weren’t horror/sci-fi because my essays were getting too weird for her. I started winning poetry competitions in middle school and realised I might have wanted to be a storyteller all along. I always thought that making art would save lives, just like being a doctor, because stories and art always had my back and saved me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I was born and raised in Milan, Italy, were my mother instilled a particular love for storytelling in me. She is an incredible woman, she teaches Greek and Latin Literature and Language, which is what I studied too. Afterwards, I moved to England to study Literature and Theatre, and then I got accepted into USC for Film, from where I recently graduated, concluding a journey that I planned in my bedroom on a night in 7th grade after my classmates got annoyed at me for making them watch The Shining. Academia always meant a lot to me, but even though that’s how I got here, I learnt it’s not important in what I do. I wanted to dive deep in the origins and history of storytelling, I did and I am grateful for the path I chose and what I have learnt, but more than knowledge, I learnt that the most important thing in this business is honesty. Along with being humble and nice. It might not be the first behaviours you think about when talking about the film industry, but it’s 2022, everybody should just try being nice to each other anyway.

It’s all been a long journey of discovery to push away the haters and accept myself as queer, neuro-divergent, unapologetically like what I like and appreciate where I am from and what it brings to my character. There are miles to go, but each step forward helps me to be here making the art I make. When I met my creative (and now life) partner, Max Pearce, we bonded over sci-fi movies, not being American, being bisexual, and mental health. The first projects we helped each other on were short shorts on our experience with mental health, something we are fierce advocates for. One of the bigger projects we have wrote together, directed by Max and produced by myself is our USC thesis, a short proof of concept titled Apotheosis, a grounded sci-fi about a young LGBTQ+ scientist born by natural means who has to compete against genetically modified humans to secure a job position on the first space colony. You’ll be able to check it out on Dust when it’s released on their amazing platform in the fall! Queerness, mental health, international characters and the struggle to follow our dreams when society fails you, are the themes our production company, Bantam Bears Production, talks about through the lens of sci-fi/fantasy.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’d take them to Santa Monica to try Ugo’s Italian Cafe on the Third Street Promenade, their gelato makes me cry. Then we’d probably just hang out because Santa Monica reminds me of the Italian Riviera. We might walk down the beach to get to Venice, but then we’d drive to downtown to visit the Last Bookstore and get lost in it and to conclude the day I would 100% take anybody to party in West Hollywood and then get a nerdy drink (and maybe play a board game) at Scum and Villainy on Hollywood Blvd. Huntington Gardens would be another stop, but that’s a whole day trip that would end in a restaurant on the Sunset Strip.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My parents undoubtedly, I am very lucky and can say that my parents have always supported my dreams and my sibling’s. We both decided to take the creative freelance route and they did everything they could to understand and support us, and they still do. Another person that deserves all the shoutouts is my soon-to-be husband Max Pearce, we met in grad school, started making movies together and just opened our genre production company, Bantam Bears Production. He is a wonderful artist with incredible ideas who has battled with OCD and depression his entire life while still managing to be his best self with me and create meaningful art. He made me realise the power of collaboration and the importance of support systems in this crazy unpredictable world. USC and all the amazing filmmakers friends I made along the way did that too of course, but we are not all getting married.

Website: www.bantambears.com

Instagram: @thetimeisoutofjoint

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maria-sara-santoro-0a3b161a9/

Twitter: @it_smariasara

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mariasara.oro?locale=it_IT%2F

Other: Production Company IG: @bantambears Latest project IG: @apotheosisuscthesis

Image Credits
Rielle Oase; Rebecca L. Flores; Kate Osumi; still from 2022 USC thesis short film Apotheosis.

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