Culture clash on the big screen

PLOT TWIST: Joe Mari, left, and Michael Pillarella show a more literal version of their short film Pizza Bagel, which they are preparing to shoot as a feature.

Short film mixes Italian with Jewish

What happens when a young Italian-Canadian brings over his Jewish girlfriend to meet the family?

If you’re from Vaughan, you may already know.

The City of Vaughan is known for its large Jewish and Italian-Canadian populations so it seems fitting that Pizza Bagel, the most recent short film by Vaughan-based Roulette Pictures, centres around these two backgrounds.

“It’s culture clash,” said director and founder of Roulette Pictures, Joe Mari.

In addition to big names such as Gino Cafarelli, from Big Fan and The Sopranos, and Canadian comedian Carla Collins, the movie also features Maple’s very own Michael Pillarella.

Pillarella co-wrote the script along with Mari. However, until last year the 21-year-old’s acting experience had been limited to high school drama class and an independent documentary. He landed his first major role last year when he was cast as the lead in Mari’s directorial debut, Stealin’ Home.

“I was pretty much like a fresh face, almost like a rookie, in Stealin’ Home,” Pillarella said. “I was learning on set. It was my first time being on set with cameras, lighting, make-up.”

Although they later discovered part of Pillarella’s family knew Mari from the North Toronto area where he grew up, the duo had not met before auditions. Still, their dynamic on set worked and their first film found almost immediate success.
The short film Stealin’ Home, which essentially pits a greaser-style street-gang against

an invading group and extra-terrestrials, earned Mari an invitation to the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France and landed Pillarella a role at Roulette Pictures as project manager and creative consultant.

Actors in the industry took notice of the pair’s talents as well. After taking Stealin’ Home on the festival circuit, Roulette Pictures kept rolling. They filmed another short, Brain Freeze, which sees Pillarella on screen with local talents Rick Campanelli, Carla Collins, and the Rezza Brothers, a couple of up and coming producers from Vaughan.
In October, the Rezza’s called Roulette saying Cafarelli wanted to get on board their next project.

“Getting a call out of nowhere saying Gino wants to work with you guys we were just like ‘we got to do something here,’ ” Mari said. “So Mike and I put our heads together and that’s when we came up with Pizza Bagel.”

The film follows what happens when Pillarella’s character brings his Jewish girlfriend and her mother over to his Italian-Canadian household. Despite his son’s pleas, the Italian father, played by Cafarelli, cannot resist going all out to impress the girlfriend and her mom, played by Collins.

“Vaughan has a very, very strong Italian community,” Pillarella said. “If you go over to any of their houses the first thing they’re going to do is have that big, big spread for you and go over the top and make you feel welcome like you’re part of the family.
“This film is really a showcase of what a traditional Italian family will do when guests come into their house.”

Despite playing the role of Pillarella’s seducer in Brain Freeze, Collins is quite comfortable playing the mother of his girlfriend in Pizza Bagel, according to Mari.

“Carla jokes about that a lot when she does her stand up,” he said. “She calls it ‘versatility’.”

Although post-production on the Pizza Bagel short is still in its final stages, Mari and Pillarella are already preparing to shoot the feature length film.

“We were hoping to start in July of this year to coincide with the Euro Cup that will be going on,” Mari said. “We’ll try and get some of that footage there to use for the film.”
Roulette’s moviemakers said they will likely upload the short version to Youtube after it finishes its turn on the film festival circuit. They said they’re hoping to show festivalgoers how far they both have come in the past year.

“Our goal this year is to really make an impact in New York,” Mari said. “Gino, last year he won best actor for the short film he was in in the New York International Film Festival so coming back now this year with their best actor in our film, it’s really exciting for us.”