My name is Jesus Mateos, I’m 27, from Madrid, Spain.

I have a BA in Media and Communication (too much theory, too less practice = useless) and my background is audiovisual production. In Madrid I worked in corporate events production for many years until I came to London, in October 2007.

The reason I came to this city was to enroll a film school, but finally I decided to be self-taught, working with many other novel filmmakers in their projects. True is that I took some short courses, but I refused to do the masters in Filmmaking I wanted to do in the past. Right or wrong? We’ll see. But with the money I had I filmed my short film instead, with professional crew and actors from the London Actors Centre. Everyone worked for free, as the project was self-founded, and it was my first short as writer/director.

This experience has been the best in all my life. My aim with this first short is to get funding for the next one (already in my mind), and do not have to ask for favors again. Everyone deserved being paid! What an utopia in this industry, sadly. The point is I am sure that I have learnt a lot doing my own short film and making my own mistakes. I’m not going to say that I chose the right way, but I’m quite happy with my decision.

I work as well for a film festival: “Discovering Latin America Film Festival”. This is a charity, so anyone is get paid for their job, and all the incomes are sending to another charity in Latin America, a different one each year. Last edition, the 7th, I directed the Logistics Department, with duties such us Print-Traffic Coordinator. This year I’m working within the Programming Team, and I’m directing the Short Films Section.

In order to pay my bills I work in a restaurant as barman. Film is not a very well paid industry for beginners, specially in a different city, with a different language. But the beginning always is hard, almost for everyone!

I don’t have to say that I am a film lover and I want to live making films (hopefully doing nothing else). I love storytelling, and film is the way I feel more comfortable to do it. In a couple of years, after doing at least two more short films in London, I would like to come back to Madrid, and keep doing films there, in my beloved city. It is sad that you have to go out to make a name and to learn “the” language. How many things we still need to learn, Spain. Everything coming from abroad is better (not true) and we live too good to show any interest for what is out of our borders. But things are changing. We do have to change them.

I want to say hello to my fellow film lovers and invite to everyone to exchange some words wherever you want.

All the best.

Jesus Mateos