Meet Rafael Maman | Director & Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rafael Maman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Rafael, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking.
I think filmmaking (and generally speaking art) is all about risk taking. As Robert Evans used to say, if you don’t break the rules you keep the status quo. And there is no such thing as status quo in creative industries, where you constantly have to invent new things to stand out. It all starts with what is then considered as a risk, or at least it did for me. When I said I would change my career from financing companies to becoming a director and producer, everyone told me I was crazy. It paid off. When I said my first short in the US would be about a street mime in black and white, with no dialogue, people laughed. It worked and allowed me to have access to all the actors I wanted since. And of course it doesn’t always work, sometimes risks don’t pay off and you feel stupid. Yet, all the great advances in my life and career happened because of risks I took.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My job mainly revolves around 2 different positions: director and producer.

As a director, I primarily make films that differentiate in tone with other films you might see: my films are fantastic thrillers, in which suspense flirts with a very dark sense of humor. I guess you could say it’s the blend of Hollywood filmmaking, which has always been my favorite, and a more realistic European perspective in which I grew up. Starting from this, I am very proud of the films I have made but more importantly of the encounters and human experiences these films led me to. One of the biggest challenges of this art form is the collaboration process, which is the basis of any good content creation, and which entails dealing with very different type of people who sometimes live in their own world. Navigating these collaborations taught me a lot about others and therefore about myself, opening my mind to new ways of thinking, working, being. I’m particularly proud of all the projects I have made with people who initially weren’t actors (but painters, mimes, stunts…) that I convinced into acting in my films. These experiences appeared as transformative to them and to myself, as it forced me to think differently about the whole directing process. One of my proudest achievements happened on the first short I did in the US, le Mime et le Mome. I had met Karen Zar, this incredible mime artist who initially was difficult to work with, very independent and free spirited. After a few weeks of complicated exchanges, I decided to change my approach, disconnect it from the part to turn it into a more personal thing. Karen turned out to be the most wonderful collaborator and told me after we made the film that I had just explained everything about his life to the audience through the film, one of his great prides. Understanding what it meant to him gave me a measure of the impact my art could have on peoples’ lives and pushed me to keep going, even when the times are difficult and it seems like your project will never see the light of day.

As a producer, I am trying to find the projects that I think are edgy and told by artists evolving in a very specific genre: whether it is horror, comedy, romance or drama, I’m looking for radical things. The main challenge is to bring my touch without hindering the director from expressing what he had in mind when he came on the project. It is sometimes very difficult as people often tend to think it’s a war of egos, while we always have to remain t the service of the film itself. I guess the most challenging one I have done so far is Barely Teddy, an ambitious short that I co-wrote and produced, where I had to draw the line between my functions to let the director express his vision to the fullest, which I think he did wonderfully.

In both positions, pursuing a career in this art form taught me how to put myself in other people’s shoes more, to always surround myself with people who know better than me and to have an absolute trust in collaboration. That will be the key to keep growing in this industry by reinventing myself through others.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It would probably be very film oriented. I would start with Warner Bros Studios in Burbank, which I absolutely adore. As a film lover, it is the most immersive experience you can get into the life of a studio. I would then go to my favorite LA landmark, the Griffith Observatory, to walk on the steps of James Dean and admire what I consider to be LA’s best view. I would for sure go spend a day at Universal studios, perfect mix of fun and film. At night, I would alternate between night outs and cinema: a night in the vibrant West Hollywood bars and clubs (Rasputin, Barney’s Beanery, Bacarii), a night at the TCL Chinese theatre, a night in the wine & cocktail bars of Silver Lake (I love Cafe Stella, Apotheke), a night at Tarantino’s New Beverly Cinema. And why not both in the same night?
I would also take my friends to DTLA museums, have a drink at the Perch over sunset, and spend a day at the beach in Manhattan Beach.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would particularly like to thank my friend Nicolas Vauguier, without whom my film career maybe would have never existed. Had he not decided to go talk to the strange guy in an Edward Scissorhands costume (me) in a fancy London restaurant six years ago, I would probably not be where I am today. He’s the one who talked me into making my own films, and together we did my first short Out of Reach that got me into the industry.

Website: https://rafaelmaman.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafael-maman-4b1069146/