Hello! My name is Joe Albino. I’m a Peruvian/ Italian American screenwriter/ director based in Brooklyn, NY. I wrote and will be directing Jersey Baptism. The screenplay for Jersey Baptism was acknowledged as an official selection at the 2022 Hollyshorts Film Festival as well as the 2022 Filmmatic Drama Competition. I went to Hollyshorts last year and spent a week at the festival in Los Angeles watching films and meeting filmmakers. This acknowledgement was very encouraging, and I’m now shifting this momentum to help push the film into a reality!
Many of you know me for my work as a gaffer and key grip on commercials, films, and editorial video projects, which is what I’ve been doing to support myself in the industry for over 10 years in the New York City area. Surprise! I’m also a screenwriter/ director, in case you didn’t already know.
Sometime after moving to New York many years ago, I started feeling cynical about my financial stability, about the stagnation of my filmmaking career, and my romantic life. In an increasingly expensive city, I felt I was confronting harsh truths, and, in turn, my declining sanity that had me fantasizing over and over again about the idea of starting over someplace new in a way I think that Guy and Lucy are in Jersey Baptism.
The theme of escape is a rich tapestry to explore through the film medium. Escape is a human behavior, something we toy with, execute or deeply fantasize about, for the right reasons or for all the wrong ones. Jersey Baptism observes the excitement of Guy and Lucy’s escape from their alienated lives in New York City, and depicts whether or not their fantasies of Mexico are convincing, delusional, or somewhere in between. The result I think is a ticking time bomb, an impulsive romance, a sticky love trap that suspends in time, an exposé of self deception and delusion thinly veiled as wishful thinking.
Logline: Jersey Baptism is a tragicomedy that evokes the ecstatic highs of a young and adrift New York City couple's impromptu road trip to Mexico, and the eventual lows as it all comes crashing down to loneliness and heartbreak just outside the New York City limits.
To create the film, we work with actors, other artists and technicians to bring critical skillsets to the making of the film. You contribution will go toward paying our cast, crew, locations, food, and equipment rentals.
Learn More: https://www.joealbino.com/