Meet Marlon Aguilar Galdamez | Filmmaker & Non-Profit Film Advocate

We had the good fortune of connecting with Marlon Aguilar Galdamez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Marlon, where are you from? We’d love to hear about how your background has played a role in who you are today?
I’m from a classic western small-ish city known as Reno! The one in Nevada and named after the show. Reno is a bit of an odd duck because it’s a city everyone seems aware of but not in a good way. But also not in a really bad way that would draw itself into a political spotlight. A very neutral city that at best is a punchline to most who are aware of it. All it takes is one walk through downtown Reno to realize the city is a failed attempt of being an extension or reimagining of Las Vegas. When Reno came to terms that it would never be Las Vegas, it tried to be other things like Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and Washington DC but nothing ever stuck. To this day, it’s still trying to figure out who it wants to be. Reno has fame but not identity. A face with no body.

A great deal of that cultural history (or lack of) rubbed off on me and my upbringing pretty much mirrors it. I’m the youngest of three siblings and both my parents immigrated from El Salvador. Didn’t have much aspirations growing up besides moving out of a city I was embarrassed living in. The only thing I knew was that I loved anything classic Americana coded (art, music, clothes, furniture, cars etc.) and anything that had fiction. Mostly movies and short stories. But not in a way where I’d watch any Spielberg movie and have my life changed forever and wanted to be the first Salvadorian-American Spielberg from the get go. I really liked writing and making videos at a young age but the thought of being a creative professional in any capacity never occurred to me nor was I ever encouraged to.

I remember doing a career test once in high school and at the time I really wanted to join the FBI. Silence of the Lambs made it look really cool. Sorry! Anyway, I tried to answer the questions in a way that would produce that result and validate my underdeveloped career aspirations. Nope! The answer it produced was “TV/Movie/Commercial – Director/Producer. Annual Salary: $70,000 – $100,000.” That somewhat pleasantly threw me off. Sounded cool as hell. Something I certainly wouldn’t mind doing for a pretty penny. Brought those results to my guidance counselor and asked her how I could score that gig. She shrugged her shoulders and told me I didn’t have the grades to get in a good school that would support that career well. In that same breath, she gives me a pamphlet for joining the national guard and says the military could help other career aspirations and I should look into jobs that appealed to me. Then I see the national guard could pay for college and at this time I couldn’t comprehend scholarships conceptually. No one in my family has ever received a scholarship or gone past high school alone. Without putting much thought into it, I applied. I picked a military police job because that sounded like it could get me closer to the FBI.

Long story short and a few years later, things thankfully didn’t work out with the military and my career in criminal justice went down the can. So, I spent a couple years doing odd jobs at Salt Lake City, Utah and staying out of school until I had a plan or an identity. Then one day, I found myself volunteering at Sundance nearby and something clicked. There was so much dreams and creativity that infected me. It was invigorating to be a part of something bigger than myself even if it was just for a couple weeks doing cold painful free labor. Felt like this world had enough room for me. The kicker was that I didn’t know how to get in that world of Hollywood. I had no connections, no experience, no guidance and no money. So, I took things step by step. Became a full time university student while I worked full time to pay for tuition. Made short films with my friends. Directed my own stuff. Can’t say if they’re any good. Did film internships at Toronto, Sundance, Cannes, and LA. Some of which were with major studios. I was unstoppable. Barely slept a wink and if I wasn’t sleeping, I was working or studying. Within a couple years I was a new person completely fueled by ambitions I didn’t know I had!

Right after college and the lockdowns, I scored the job of my dreams at my favorite film studio in LA. Just like that. Who would’ve known hard work pays off! Happened so fast that I wasn’t sure if I should be proud of myself. Almost felt too easy. However… when I wanted to make my first REAL film I couldn’t come up with anything. It was jarringly confusing. I did so much studying, so much watching, so much reading, and so much working. How come I couldn’t come up with anything especially when I had so much tools in my disposal. Then it hit me. I’m still Reno. I have the fame but still no identity. Art is essentially drawing from your life and experiences and making the personal universal. But how can you do that if you spent so much of your existence working and waiting for life to happen? You can’t. This realization hit me like a door. I thought I would find myself through a job. My dream job. Turns out it was just fool’s gold.

Inevitably, I experienced clinical depression for the first time ever. I became disinterested in everything. My job, art, food, and relationships. Eventually I end up in New York as one depressed art major does. Got a job in my field that paid decent. Certainly not as interesting and sexy as the one that gave me depression. Back to square one. Didn’t know where to go from there. I relieved myself of the pressure of being the first Salvadorian-American Spielberg. I didn’t have a “dream job” floating around in my head. Rebirth at its most mundane. The days suddenly became twice as long. Had so much free time on my hands, I didn’t know what to do with it. I was always so used to spending any free time “grinding.”

To kill time, I would go to Central Park and lay on the grass reading novels and watch clouds slowly drift across the sky and squeeze through skyscrapers. The next day I would go to a networking event but not for professional reasons for once. Strictly to meet likeminded individuals who would share my love for The Matrix. I find them. Exchange socials. A couple weeks later one of the new friends invites me to a karaoke happy hour in Brooklyn. I still got plenty of time to kill so I go. I have an amazing time. My life starts to look like this for a while. It even gets better than that. One day, I go to the cinema to watch a favorite film of mine I hadn’t seen in a long long time. Barely halfway through the movie I started to cry like a child. Didn’t know why. It was like I watched the movie for first time ever and I understood it on a molecular level. I was angry at myself for not understanding it years ago. But what changed that made me get it this time? Oh yeah… my life! For once, there was life in me that could connect to art. Then I started to see things. Things such as love, sadness, heartbreak, and happiness. The things you miss out on when you hide away in working all the time. Suddenly every song, movie, book, poem and piece of art became new and I had full access to them. Life becomes more richer. Everything around me is more beautiful. Even Reno. I start to explore places there I never been to before. Places that have always been there.

For the first time, I felt proud to be from Reno. It never needed to be another city. It’s perfect the way it is. Could it be better? Yeah of course. But it doesn’t have to be. The moment I embraced where I came from, it made me love who I am and that’s how I found the person I am today.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’ve been on a path making films that speak to the way I see everything now. But the way I approach films has significantly changed compared to the way I did in film school and a little after film school. Before I only made films as if I was supposed to. Like it was homework or just plain work. Make them look and sound like the hundreds of classic and high brow films I studied and watched at the Criterion Channel. I was just consuming them and not actually engaging with them on an emotional level. Purely technical. I also felt like I had to deliberately sabotage my life and use that suffering to make my writing good. I genuinely believed I had to be miserable for my stuff to be good and happiness would only hinder my chances of being a successful artist. I obviously took the wrong lessons from Paul Schrader and Werner Herzog’s playbook. But the day I prioritized my life over my work and art, my art has never been better. Because when you have a life it will find its way into your craft and people can instinctively feel that life in it without it being explained to them. If you try to make your life all about art and then try to make art, I promise, you will make nothing good or interesting. It’ll just be empty nutrients and you copying other people’s work and calling them “homages.” You will be a much better filmmaker if you spend more time touching grass, falling in love, making mistakes, traveling, watching the sun rise and set than watching Citizen Kane for the millionth time. I mean Citizen Kane is obviously a perfect movie. I’m not saying stop watching movies like Citizen Kane or “high brow” movies in general. But just do so in moderation. If you’re trying to make an original film that does come from you, I can guarantee you that your favorite influences will naturally bleed in your work but subconsciously as it should.

That said, now I feel as if I don’t make a certain film, I’ll die. That if I don’t make x film I will fade away from existence because if I don’t express myself and what I’m feeling whether it be happiness, sadness or love, it’ll rot inside me and it’ll stop me from growing as a human being and artist. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

I’m confident in saying I’m a successful filmmaker even my stuff has a small audience because if you make something that truly comes from you and speaks to at least one human being then brother you’ve made it. I obviously haven’t “made it” in a conventional sense but I’ve made it my way where I can happily say I’m on the right path to getting better and better. While I continue to do my thing making films and working a new job I love, I have been doing work with non-profit film organizations to try to give back to a community that I cherish with my whole heart. Hopefully, all this work I’m doing will somehow amount to me opening the first independent theater and film society in my hometown at Reno!

As for navigating the film industry and getting in a comfortable spot there, it was not easy to no one’s surprise. I can’t imagine it getting any easier unfortunately. Especially when you’re going in with no connections and a degree from a very okay film school like I did. The two best things I learned was that don’t ever be ashamed where you come from. If anything, use it to your advantage. Don’t try to hide or sanitize it. Secondly, networking is the worst advice you’ll ever get. Just live your life and the friends that will come your way will be the best professional connections you can use.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Oh god I am the worst at this because I love to pack whatever I can in a day. I’m trying to tone that habit down though. But in a place like New York, I always like to start off slow. For anybody who doesn’t live in a city as such can immediately find the place to be overwhelming and intimidating. In that instance, I start the day off early before the city is awake. First, I would take them to a classic beaten down diner even though that’s in short supply these days. Get some good black coffee and hash browns in us. Then go somewhere with a lot of space, trees, pigeons, dogs, and benches with good views. Grab a coffee/latte/tea from a nice and homey cafe. Find a good spot to sit at and then relax for at least an hour. Seeing trees sway back and forth. Beautiful dogs and their many personalities trot past you. Seeing pigeons gather in groups and fly gracefully away in the sky when someone gets too close to them. Talk to the stranger that’s sitting next to us if the vibe is right. Old people in the park are treasures hiding in plain sight. They’re the easiest to talk to and always so full of life. You’ll never find a boring old person at a park in New York. I think doing this with a visiting best friend demonstrates that New York is not a crowded tight space concrete jungle outsiders make it out to be. This helps them put their guard down and have an easier time adjusting to the city’s frequency.

Then I guess I would take them wherever that’s in their bucket list and put some twist and turns in it. I like being the pilot of plans but I don’t like being a dictatorial tour guide who acts as if their taste of interests takes precedence over other people’s interests. You gotta let your visiting best friend know their opinion and interests are just as valuable as yours, However, if going to Times Square is in their list I’m not respecting that request one bit.

Then I would end the day by taking them somewhere where it is vibrant and teeming with locals and they can have a lot of fun. Somewhere they can easily converse with the locals. A place like the Metropolitan in Brooklyn where there’s something always going on like karaoke night. Maybe invite other friends as well to not make the visiting friend feel too pressured to socialize. Outsider perception of the locals is also very skewed. Everyone thinks locals are hostile jerks who either want to rob you or look down on you when that’s not the case at all. New York is full of outsiders who love meeting visiting outsiders. Even the legit locals are always so interested to meet outsiders especially when they come from a small town. It’s never not fascinating to them. It’s not a successful vacation in New York if you don’t befriend the people of New York. They are the city! There’s no room for being anti-social. You gotta go out there and love your fellow human beings of all shapes and kinds.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to say my mother but that’s a little too cliche and goes without saying. Hm. I think my answer would have to be a twofer.

I would like to dedicate half my shoutout to the friends who have stuck around with me this long in life. A lot of them are in the industry with me and seeing them find their own success in a tough industry has significantly inspired and motivated me to push myself further. I’m grateful that it has never felt like we’re competing against each other because it’s easy to fall in that feeling given how the industry is slowly shrinking and leaving very little room for new faces. It’s even better that instead of turning against each other, we’re constantly finding any opportunity to collaborate and help each other out wherever we can whether it be being an extra in someone’s short, funding each other’s creative projects, reposting something pertaining to someone’s success, co-writing a script together, etc.

The second half of my shoutout goes out to non-profit film organizations – such as the Salt Lake Film Society and Film at Lincoln Center – that have inspired, restored and continue to preserve my love for film. It’s not news to anyone that the studio system – and in some ways Hollywood trade magazines or news outlets – have hilariously degraded the quality of films over the past few decades by solely using box office numbers as a measurement of success. Because when you do that creative ambitions become profit-driven rather than artist-driven which results in investors deciding what’s good for culture instead of letting individuals decide for themselves. That said, you have these brilliant hard-working people in organizations like Film at Lincoln Center who do all sorts of work trying to push against that regression. For instance, they give away free memberships or provide low-cost memberships to folks like myself in an attempt to introduce younger generations to amazing films they normally wouldn’t see or films studios would never take a chance on nowadays. They also host mingles, events, programmings to introduce members to prominent figures of the film community or staff members who do all the organizing. All of which make you so feel connected and included in the film community. For some reason, people in Hollywood love to gatekeep their lifestyle from the audience that keeps them in business. These guys are the opposite. They want you in the community. They want to expand your palette. Not reduce it for the sake of making you an easy sell. It’s a huge honor to help them out wherever I can especially during the New York Film Festival.

Instagram: @notmarlonbandoo

Image Credits
1. “Finding Flora” – Still of my upcoming short film.

2. “I thought of you last night” – Still of my first short film.

3. “Home Away from Home” – Still of my second short film.

4. “Hello?” – Still of my first music video.

5. Photo courtesy of Arin Sang-urai, 2025

6. Myself and Alexis Creer (Senior Manager, Special Events and Industry Relations of Film At Lincoln Center), Photo courtesy of Arin Sang-urai, 2025