Marco Santiago, Co-Producer of the Water & Power Film Featured at the Phoenix Film Festival Talks Inspiration

Co-Producer Marco Santiago

By: Taylor Pineda

Marco Santiago, co-producer of the film Water & Power has seen his life come full circle, as he has expanded on a career in film making.

A screening of his film was presented on April 5^th as part of the Phoenix Film Festival.

His passion first struck as young man, when his father saw that his son had an eye for the arts.

Over the years, he has found a passion for highlighting the important political impact Latinos have in this country. His first featured film, Water & Power encompasses these beliefs through a dramatic noir-style film.

“The film deals with the prospective of what are the influences of Latino in political structures,” he said.

The film caught Santiago’s attention for its uniqueness, he says it was a world unfamiliar to him that allowed him to explore.

“I read a lot of scripts. I didn’t feel that any – including my own – were ready. The script spoke to me. It had universal appeal about brothers that love each other and go to bat for each other,” he said.

With this new challenge, Santiago saw a vision. After finding support through his partner at the Scottsdale Film Company, the film was shot over a 12-day period in the evenings of L.A.

The film has been recognized at festivals such as the Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, where Edgar James Olmos presented the film, and it has stayed thematically a tribute to the themes of many Latinos.

“(It is a) redemption, paying remarks to the Cesar Chavez mentality,” he said.

Santiago believes in the ideologies of such a film, and highlights that in order to be successful in such a realm, one must focus on what’s in the mind and heart.

 “If you have a distinct point of view, the best thing to do is to grab on to something that has a hook in your heart and try to find a way to communicate that in an engaging way that resonates with people.  If you stay true to that, eventually you can find a career rather than doing what just the industry want,” he said.