Mean Streets, produce growers and Abruzzese: Josh Massarotti and Indigo Parer write about their short, Imperium

Josh Massarotti as Lucio in Imperium.

A Father stuck in the past. A son searching for an escape. And a family business caught right in the middle, inching ever closer toward oblivion.

Here, writer, actor and executive producer, Josh Massarotti, and director, editor and executive producer Indigo Parer white about the personal history, passion and determination that went into their new short, Imperium.

Francesa Arena as Angela in Imperium.

Josh Massarotti

Writer, actor, executive producer

Josh Massarotti is a Welsh/Italian actor and filmmaker based in Melbourne. He made his directorial debut in 2022 with Land of Nod (2022), which went on to win best faith based film at the Wales International Film Festival. Josh recently starred alongside Sal Galofaro in Mr Gypsie (2023), followed by a starring role in Hano Vivaldoran’s debut film Why Can’t We Have Nice Things? (2023). Following on from the completion of Land of Nod (2022), Josh returned to finish writing Imperium (2024) before pushing it through to pre production in early 2023. Currently, Josh is writing and seeking funding for a feature length version of the Italian-Australian period drama, which he plans to put into pre-production in the foreseeable future. Joshua’s passion for history, philosophy and linguistics is heavily reflected in the stories he tells.

I have wanted to tell this story for a long time, and as always, I once again found it to be the personal stories that end up being the most arduous to write.

The initial spark of what would later be called Imperium began in 2016 when I watched Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets for the first time.

The opening sequence: a montage of super-8 footage set to Be my Baby by the Ronettes depicting Italian Americans and their day to day life in 1970’s Manhattan, triggered a warm sense of familiarity for me.

I recall many a Christmas and Easter spent at my Italian grandparents house; Uncles, Aunties and cousins would gather and dust off old worn down polaroids and video tapes, depicting birthdays, holidays and candid moments at the family farm. These viewings, along with the exclamation, “Fuck look how skinny I was!” became a yearly ritual.

I tried many times over the past seven years to craft an original story in the style of Mean Streets but each time I struggled to create something original, a story that isn’t just another cliche Italian crime drama with an Australian paint job. This predicament lead me to abandon this project time after time.

After reflecting on this for a while I decided to change my approach to telling this story, I chose to explore two topics that are near and dear to my heart, the first being addiction and how it manifests across generations, the second being the fall of the Roman Empire.

This completely changed how I viewed Imperium, all of a sudden it became something more than just another film about Italians, it became a film about a chaotic family of flawed individuals each coping with the slow collapse of their livelihood.

Growing up on a farm in the Yarra Valley I also wanted to to share a part of Australian culture that I feel hasn’t been explored much in film, that being the life of produce growers in rural Australia.

Something else that I am really proud of is that there are only five lines of English in the entire film. Not only that but we didn’t settle for having the actors speak Italian, but instead we had the actors learn their lines in Abruzzese, a regional language spoken in the southern Italian Provence of Abruzzo.

This detail was incredibly important for me as growing up around my grandparents this was the only language I heard (standardised Italian only became widespread in Italy post World War II), this is a shared experience for many other descendants of southern Italian migrants as well.

To achieve this we enlisted the help of a resident of Abruzzo and a speaker of the now endangered language, Claudio Di Domenico. Claudio translated the script into Abruzzese and also helped the actors perfect their pronunciation, It truly was a joy hearing the language again years after the passing of my grandparents.

I am extremely proud of the work everyone has done in helping me bring this very personal story to life.

Josh Massarotti on the set of Imperium.

Indigo Parer

Director, editor, executive producer

Since graduating in 2015 from the New York Film Academy (Gold Coast) with a Diploma in Screen and Media, Indigo has relocated to Melbourne where he made his theatre debut as Gately, in the stage play PVT Wars (2018), before co-founding Exodus Films in early 2020. In 2021 he gained experience as a First Assistant Director, working on award winning films such as Land of Nod and I Wanted to be a Butterfly, the latter of which he won Best Editing at the Rome Independent Film Awards. Recently, Indigo has appeared in the Slovenian-Australian feature film Moja Vesna (2022), before shifting his full attention to producing Imperium (2024), with which he will also make his directorial debut.

I’ve been a teller of stories for as long as I can remember.

There was me when I was five, playing in the backyard with nothing but a broomstick, pretending I was a wizard and believing it utterly and entirely.

Or me when I was fourteen, in school and discovering drama class for the first time, eyes all wide with ideas and curiosity.

For a long time acting is what was at the core of me, but we grow older and our sensibilities and interests change, naturally.

When Josh (Massarotti, writer and executive producer) first came to me with the proposal that I direct our next film Imperium, I recall a sense of excitement sinking in, shortly followed by a heightened sense of fear.

Throughout the pre-production, that never went away. The fear of the unknown. And the self critiquing of course, things like,”you’re not right for this. You don’t speak Italian.” It went on and on.

And so soon enough, it’s time to block out the noise and take a step back and say, “you’re a story teller. You always have been.” For me, that was the switch that needed to be flicked. Back to basics.

Let’s talk character, let’s talk place and let’s sit with these people for a moment, to be a fly on the wall. In another time and another place. That’s the beauty of cinema isn’t it? To sit in a theatre, lights going down, popcorn in hand. To be transported, if only for a moment, to a new world. To people watch. To ask questions and forget about your own life for a while. That’s story telling and that’s why I love films.

Josh wrote a wonderful screenplay with Imperium. It explores addiction, inter-generational trauma, family and touches on the hardships of immigration. But the script doesn’t bother itself to throw these things in your face. They’re layered in there for you to find.

I hope we’ve gone some ways to realising the script that Josh entrusted me with. We had an amazing cast on this film, coupled with a brilliant crew who were working at the top of their game. I’m proud of each and every one of them. And I’m eternally grateful that I was able to be a part of it.