Complaint Review: Carlos Ciurlizza and Sarabona productions - Nationwide

 Here is the true story and facts of how "Sebastian", this movie, was created: Two years ago, I convinced Carlos to write something together so we could both direct it. He accepted, so we started brainstorming. That day he told me: "One time I almost got my girlfriend pregnant". So when he said that, I got this idea: What if you return home and find out that you have a son, but his mom didn't tell you because she knew you were gay and didn't want to stop you from living your life where you could be happy. At that moment, Carlos didn't like the idea because many people, including his mom, didn't know he was gay in real life. However, a few weeks before that, he showed me the "Planete Rouge" script; A short film where Carlos was going to tell the world about how he felt about the subject. The script didn't work. It didn’t have a conflict, so I convinced him to add a few things and to the change some of the actions of the two characters so he could have a good solid story. He liked the changes so much that that's how we shot the short film. I was his 1stAD. He told me that he couldn’t pay me for my work on this short, but he finally agreed to write “Sebastian” with me that our pay will come on that one. We wrote the story together, scene by scene, including actions and some of the dialogues. BASED ON THESE SCENES, ACTIONS, AND DIALOGUES, we wrote the script. We already had the blue print. We decided that the story should take place in Peru, so we both agreed on Carlos writing a lot of the final dialogues because he knew the slang. All he had to do was to put what we created on the computer. Every night, for almost two months, we both worked on the script. I did the same with about 30 pages. During this time, he became so passionate about the character that he asked to play Sebastian. We both signed and register an agreement between us where if he was going to be the main actor of the film, I was going to be the main director, and we both share 50/50 the rights to the script. We finally finished it and REGISTERED IT AT THE COPYRIGHTS office. We then, did rehearsals with the actors, including Carlos, of ALL the scenes of the movie and started pre-production. That December, Carlos traveled to Peru. However, the night before he left, he told he was really stressed out and he said he needed some rest. So because I wanted him to focus on his character, (because he was in 90% of the movie) I called the producers in Peru and told them to please send me from now on all the stress to me so Carlos didn’t have to worry about it. The next day, when he arrived to Peru, he woke me up screaming out of nowhere saying that I didn’t have the right to direct 97% of the movie. At this point I have no idea what the producers told him and how this became such a great misunderstanding. My reaction to that phone call was to ask him in a calm way to call me when he was done with the screaming because if we were going to collaborate he needed to treat me with respect. The same way I did with him. During our rehearsals with the actors he did the same thing in different occasions with some of them. That’s why I wrote an email to Carlos and his brother Meackol (Sarabona productions) letting them know that we needed to fix that situation. Two weeks later, Carlos sent me an email saying this: "I think our collaboration should come to an end" This was a surprised for me and the actors who have been working so hard to prepare the film. I never heard from Carlos ever again. He never wrote, called, or talked to me about the project. I sent then, several emails asking what was going to happen with the movie because I wasn’t the one who made this decision or who quit the project. Months later, in March, They got the money and shot the movie without my permission and with OTHER actors (because the first ones didn't want to collaborate with him after what he did). With this he also TOOK AWAY MY RIGHT TO DIRECT MY FIRST FEATURE FILM (Please remember I was the one who convinced him to write THIS STORY and who created it every single detail of it with him. All I got after that was emails and phone calls from two lawyers who tried to take my rights away as a writer also. His sister, however, tried to mediate because she was the one who made the agreement between us, and she knew Carlos and his brother Meackol were not doing the right thing. They both asked her to step away from their business. I never thought for a moment they were going to do this to me because we never collaborated before on other projects but we had a friendship for over seven years. At this point he has NOT pay me for my rights as a writer either. So I think it's pretty unfair they are showing the movie at the Busan Film festival without my permission and without paying me for my work.