Sudbury's Steven Pigozzo returned from Bermuda recently with more than a tan and some photographs.
Pigozzo's short film "Committed-ish" was honoured with the People's Choice Award at the 2018 Bermuda International Film Festival. Now living in Toronto, the Sudbury native has been acting for a number of years and appeared in the Sudbury-shot "A Fighting Man" back in 2014.
He recently set out on his own and took on the challenge of producing his first film. “Committed-ish” is a 12 minute film about the world of online dating, and Pigozzo not only produced, but acted in the film as well.
"Being in my 30s and having been online I thought it was a good subject matter for my first film," said Pigozzo. "I didn't want to do a film on a subject I didn't know anything about, so dating online is an interesting thing that I had to go through after I became newly single."
The entirety of the film was shot in about 20 hours, but that was followed by nearly nine months of post-production and CGI. Once the film was in the can, the real leg work began as Pigozzo dedicated his time to getting his project on to screens everywhere he could.
"When you're doing your own thing you don't really have a big marketing budget to promote your film, so what do you do? You apply to festivals," said Pigozzo. "We applied for about 70 festivals and had 18 get back to us. Of those 18 we were accepted to two, one of them was Bermuda."
Those who attended the Bermuda International Film Festival clearly enjoyed the film as it picked up the People's Choice Award. Additionally, the film picked up the Remi Award at the Worldfest-Houston International Independent Film Festival.
"It was really great to pick up the People's Choice Award. I was watching the other films and ours was so much different and I didn't know how it was going to be received," said Pigozzo. "I think because at its core the movie is really about communication and people just want to communicate with each other. It's my first film and I'm really proud of it."
Pigozzo has applied to have the film entered in Sudbury Cinéfest which runs Sept. 15-23, and says he'd love to be able to show the film in his hometown. While he has moved south to pursue his acting career, Steven speaks highly of the growth of the film industry in Sudbury.
"The growth here is so great to see, there's so much happening in the industry," said Pigozzo. "I always laugh about it because I moved down south but I seem to be coming up here more and more."
The actor gave a nod to Northern Ontario Film Studios CEO David Anselmo for the work he's done to grow the industry, while pointing to their similar paths.
"David and I actually played football together when we were younger, we played for the Sudbury Spartans," said Pigozzo. "I've auditioned for a few of his projects but we haven't been able to work together yet."
In the meantime, Pigozzo says things are on the move for “Committed-ish” as he hopes to see it get into more festivals, specifically his hometown's.
"The feedback for it has been great so far," said Pigozzo. "I'd love to get into Cinefest (Sudbury) and be able to show it in my hometown."
