Left: Director Aaron Naar Right: Matthew Stoneman
Who: Aaron I. Naar is a filmmaker based in Los Angeles, CA. He is a Film Independent and IFP Documentary Lab alumnus and recipient of the Pacific Pioneer Fund. A graduate of Vassar College, Naar currently works at Editree Inc., directing documentary-style commercials for clients such as Google and Expedia.
Naar’s first short documentary, LOS HOMBRES DEL LAGO, (THE MEN OF THE LAKE) premiered at HotDocs in 2008 and went on to screen in several hundred venues across South America as part of the international documentary series Planet.Move.
MATEO is Naar’s first feature film.
What?: His documentary Mateo screening at Hot Docs 2014
Why?: Imagine what the story behind the USA’s first gringo Mariachi singer trying to accomplish his stardom dream in Cuba.
Can you share with us the most challenging aspect of making this documentary and the biggest payoff?
When I first started making Mateo, I inherited almost one hundred hours of archival video from my subject, Matthew Stoneman. Over the past twenty years, Matthew tried to have several documentaries made on him, yet failed to complete any of them. Normally this footage would be a gold mine for a documentary filmmaker. But for Mateo, it served more as a distraction and sidetracking of the story I wanted to tell. The archival material was an odd amalgam of moments in Matthew’s life that raised exponentially more questions than it answered. I never wanted to make a biopic of Matthew or include his entire life in the film. But the availability of the archival material pushed me in that direction for a while, when I spent several months in editorial with my team trying to give the footage its due justice. I actually really like a lot of the archival sequences we ended up creating. But in the end, it had nothing to do with the story I wanted to tell. The character and potential that I saw unfolding contemporarily over the four years that I followed Matthew was much more layered, intimate, and compelling than an encyclopedia entry of his past. However, my intense investigation of Matthew’s past did ultimately allow me to further focus my current day storyline. Coming to terms with abandoning the archival material actually allowed me to be more confident in telling a much more specific story overall. And I think the film is stronger for it and the character more cohesive. Most importantly, and probably the biggest payoff for me, it allowed me to treat the musical trajectory in Matthew’s life as the film’s predominant thread. Music is the glue in Matthew’s life that holds all of the pieces together.
Matthew Stoneman, the subject of your documentary is a talented, yet quite flawed human being. Do you find that this should be the aim of documentary filmmakers? To show all the layers, warts and all?
I think it really depends on the goals of the film. What I like about Mateo is how intimate the character is and how conflicting his inspirations are. Like most people, Matthew is flawed and is constantly balancing various motivations. The emotionality that seems to be lacking in Matthew’s personal life is vividly expressed through his music. And I want the audience to be challenged by this juxtaposition. I think that is what makes Mateo a very human story.
Ultimately, the goal of Mateo is to illustrate Matthew’s current journey to make music and to make his mark on the world. Parts of him are beautiful; parts of him are ugly; and parts of him are definitely strange. But in the end, I think it’s the combination of these elements, warts and all, that make Matthew relatable and Mateo’s story poignant.
As as filmmaker what is next for Mateo and your own career?
Next up for Mateo is a screening at Rooftop Films in New York this summer. In the meantime, we’re currently looking for distribution. I’m really excited about a soundtrack release of the film — it will be the first time the music that he performs in the film will be available publicly. For Matthew, he’s continuing to make music in Cuba and will soon be recording in Brazil and Argentina for the first time. Hopefully, he’ll be able to find management and/or a label soon enough.
As for me, I’ll be lending my editorial skills to a few different projects over the next few months. I’m also developing another feature doc and looking for my first feature fiction film. Hopefully, more good things to come soon!
Want to know more? Follow these links:
Website: http://mateofilm.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mateofilm
Twitter: https://twitter.com/mateofilm
Director’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/AaronINaar