ALBERTO AND THE CONCRETE JUNGLE
a CHRIS SHIMOJIMA Picture
starring ALEJANDRO SANTONI
Executive Producer HILL HARPER
Producer PAULL CHO
OSCAR ELIGIBLE LIST 2021
SPOTLIGHT FEATURE, Cinequest
BEST ACTOR, Bushwick Film Fest.
BEST FEATURE, Big Apple Film Fest.
BEST FEATURE, North East Int’l Film Fest.
ALBERTO is an inventive adventure dramedy.
My goal was to take my love for Indiana Jones and blend it with my absurdist and deconstructive instincts and street docustyle - trapping the digital nomad Alberto in the city I know well. A bit Cassavetes. A bit Kafka and After Hours — things becoming so unbelievably zany and difficult, not just for kicks, but to hint that it must be fate (or the city) (or the hero’s creator) laughing at him. As it progresses, this definitely becomes less fun and more interior and angst-ridden.
It was an opportunity for me to present people with a fresh, expansive way of seeing NYC — enhanced with maps, Google Earth, and real life frequently in the frame as another character — and to question something deeper about adventure in this day and age: we see digital nomads jumping locales, sampling cultures, renting life… the gig economy is so widespread... it's freeing, for sure... but might we also lose a sense of roots and belonging?
What I’m proud of is we juggled a sprawling tale (5 boroughs, 100+ cast) in the most independent way, thoroughly DIY, adventurous, and self-reliant — often just me and the actor running around. It was out of necessity, since I had few resources, but we also made it part of the aesthetic. It was about meticulous hands-on planning… a very specific vision… concepting everything through post… a love of experimentation… and churning out something mammoth and appealing under tons of limits.
— Chris Shimojima