Special Report: Luger (2025)

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Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I am talking with Mario Mayo, Bruno Martin, and Santiago Toboado all about their new film Luger. It is currently on the first Will circuit. It is a crime film and it is fantastic. Mister Martin and mister Mayo are both actors in it. Mister Martin is also the director of the film and he co wrote it along with mister Tobolato.

When I watch a Chile I love football and I love acting, and I have done twice awards. I played football many years ago, like a football professional player, and now I I decided to play like to REGOs.

I love I love films. I love this this job.

It's brook it's in the blood. It's in the blab that is in the blood. When when when we were in the at the school and me. We were partners in at the at the school, we decided to film short films and then many years later we can film this this movie.

Our first shirt was when we were was fourteen fourteen. We shot in in video we wanna a little festival.

I see yes of a small town.

I think this is our first job. You can't see the shirt is a fucking ship with a video camera, home video camera with a lot of.

With a lot of block.

An adaptation of a shirt short writing of do you know Ruben Dario?

I do not know?

A writer from the end of nineteenth century.

It was a history for of vampires A vampires in Madrid in the and at the fall of the twentieth century.

It was very creepy. But now we are going to make an addition of Blu Ray.

Of the of our fish film I will curse you, the film who started by Mario and that we produce. I produce and in the extras of the Blu Ray, it's going to be that shirt like a like a golden piece for the fans for see the beginning of of our reps, of our professional relationship.

How did you guys get connected? Like how did you know that Mario wanted to be an actor, and how did he know that you wanted to be a director.

Well, we were partners at the school, at the high school with fourteen I know Mario and he was always a smart and.

Cute guy, tall, handsome you anyway, I was. I was a rocker. He was a.

Rude old rocker and I was a camp Maybe we were very different, but like a white gypsy.

Yeah, and we and we start to start af our relationship, our friendship, that short start because in our literature little at the class, our professor, our future, our teacher or there as a job that was an adaptation of if we weren't and we were the only ones who catch shirt. Yeah, we we choose. We choose to film as our field. And I say to Mario, okay, you do you want to play the principal role. And that was the beginning. But Bruno is a good a great actor too, thank

Who are of your biggest influences when you were coming up as a filmmakers and like, oh, this film is fantastic. I want to be like this guy, or you know, I'm a fan of this person. Who are some of those influences for you?

It's very typical to say Quentin Tarantino obviously, but I am working now on cinema because people like Alex, like Lesia. I don't know if you if you know that the Spanish director Robert Rodriguez, Walter Hill, some peking Path, Fabian Berlinski from It's a It's an Argentine director maybe obviously obviously Quentin Tarantino, and I think that that was the Those are the more important influence in in Luger. To save you some direct some congreted directors. Okay, Santiago, Yes, I.

Hear, I'm here.

I'm really really, I'm really really sorry, because you know I would say my elder job and the story.

I am going to say that in in Spain okay, Mike too, and English Mike, you look not okay and are you in the moment?

Okay? Understood, understood, Mike.

What we are going to do in order to get the most fluent conversation possible is that Bruno and Mario will try to speak in English, you know, as much as they can, and if they commit some mistake or if they get a start, then I will help them or I will correct them.

Okay, So I was just.

Asking Bruno and Mario kind of how they got their start, and I want to ask the same of you, Santiago as well. How did you decide that you want to be a screenwriter?

When I was little, you know, I thought that the director of a movie lived in the real world of the movie with me that you know, for example, the director of The Good Is lived in the real world and he was just with the camera filming what happened in the reality.

Right.

That was when I was five years old. And then I decided, like, okay, I tually, I.

Want to live in the same world as the movie makers, you know, so I want to be a filmmaker. And then, of course I learned that was not true. Actually, but I really loved the feeling of being engaged by a story and tell a story with images or you know. So, Mike, that's when I decided to become a filmmaker, and seen I was little, I got it very clear in my mind. So I just focused on my studies you know, to

One was for a director and the other on was for writer. And that moment of my life.

I have directed some music videos on my own, some scot phones and I got into the screenwriting you know degree in that film school. And then I discovered a work that I really loved because it had the whole creativity. But at the same time, I didn't have any stress

And I asked Bruno and Mariodus as well, But who were some of your influences coming up?

The first one will be some rainy you know for me, like ever since I watched an Army of Dark, which is my favorite movie ever, wanted to do something like what he does, you know, like I really really love because I'm I love horror, and I love the whole horror general. But at the same time, I love comedy and I feel I love when I'm watching a movie that makes me laugh but also makes me feel scared.

And you know, my biggest influence was Sam REMI by that that means.

When did you meet up with Bruno and Mario? How when was that with Mario?

Was because we had some friends in common in Not Turn Nothing festival back in Madrid some years ago, so I knew him for other friends and I think we got a drink in a bar after the film festival ended, and he was very very nice with me and with Bruno. It was funny because I met him in an event from movie Star series. He just won an award or the Sun Dance Sudance a shorts competition, right, Bruno was Sandance, then.

TV shirts, Mike Spain. Everybody knows in a bar drinking, So in my gea, I knew the case of Sandy that that that thatesn't doesn't great.

That's true, that's true.

Anyway, I knew Bruno in Thatdance TV short event and the funny thing was that Bruno was my neighbor. Actually he lived very very close to my house, so it drove me home after that event, and then he told me, like, we have to meet one day.

So I wrote him and he invited me to his house. And then when I went.

Into his house, there were a whole group of people, and Mario was amongst that group of people.

So I felt like, okay, that's a small world, right.

How did you guys decide to start working together?

From my point of view and in my in my case, was that Bruno proposed me to do something with him.

I admired his work before I have seen it, and.

I participated a little bit in the second season of Other Rio, which was his web series. I just helped him a little bit and he gave me a small tamil and I knew his previous job. I admired that job, and when Bruno proposed me to work with him, I feel very flattered. You know, I of course wanted to join because he told me one thing that I still remember that was I don't know how, but I'm going to.

Make this movie.

And you know, I knew he was going to make it because other people, you know, they can promise and they don't do. But I knew Bruno was able to make it, so you know, I just trusted him.

Santello as he told you, was my neighbor, was writer and we were recording and shooting website, Yes for many years. We want to upgrade to do something more professional live internet, the two Vimeo and to make a film, a long film. I say, okay, I'm going to try to work with Santiago, see if our relationship works or not.

And and it works. We were writing Looker for two years more or less.

We started knowing each other better during that process and also learning from each other.

We learned a lot from each other.

Yes, writing with Santiago wars a school there of learning. And then we clear the idea that that role will be played by Mario and we will write for him because Mario is our actor.

Do not always have have come with me? And we know together he had me. He always called me with my with my person, and okay, I'm very grateful of it.

Where did the idea where Luger come from?

I think the first idea is the luger inside uh safe box.

Then we try to tell friendship, story of sacrifice or second chances. Really, the Luger is the background of the of the movie. It's not important in the in the movie, the mcgoffin or the movie.

I just want to add that when you write a movie and actually Brune and I relationship it was so great, you know, and that sometimes there's one would think about this project and of course it will be in the future.

That is that you don't know where one writer ends and the other starts, because there are many things that I don't remember if it was Bruno who proposed that or me who proposed that.

You know, there were many things.

So actually the starting point I remember it was about two sucks that they needed to get something back for, I say, a gangster who had a restrain in order he had to stay at Pomp. He was arrested at Pomp, and then everything started changing, so you know, we polished the script, we changed the script. But I remember that actually the element of the luger was Bruno's idea because I didn't knew what a luber was before the writing the strip, so I he knew it and keep probing.

But I love that rich backstory that you give it. The whole story of the Nazi and the suicides and all that. I mean, it just adds so much texture to the film.

It's a fake story, I said, or not true a story.

There are many many Nazis to run away and were hiding here in Spain and escape from Berlin in the last moment, and many of them arrives to Spain in a in a in a plane, in a little airplane and const and landing, landed, they escaped from the plane and they run away around Spain, and many of them were wanted many many years, and many of them I think whenever I found there is a friend of mine that is an expert on Nazi things. He's very weird

I'm very very interesting for me. And so one day I.

Asked to him, I am writing a story about Nazis. Can you explain me so details or some kind of way of forms the models.

Usually the way that the Nazis were doing things. You know there there said there are ways to do things normally. Actually he found out how they commit suicide, because that's the true part of the story that Bruno said that some Nazis actually they killed themselves because they couldn't stand with the feet. That's that's why they killed themselves, because it was a shame for them that defeated the army that they were living, you know, in that moment.

That that the fitting situations. Sorry.

And also some of them skated to Spain or to even Latin American countries. Some of them were never found. Some of them were found, but with other names. You know, they changed their names, they changed their lives. So that's the true beneath the whole story.

The cool idea of that point of the film is that eight guys with an only gun and he has to to commit suicide the way that he has to to do that at the end, it's only one on foot, and that guy stays, Okay, I'm gonna get out. I'm gonna escape right away, and he say I want to live at the end. That that's the cool of that. That's the grandfather of our of our tough guy of the film. And and that ballot that has his name at the end go to her grandson. That ballot has destiny.

Mario.

I know you've spent in a lot of movies and TV shows. How is it for you when you get a role that is written specifically for you? When it when it comes to something that Bruno and Santiago are working.

On previously, when we when Bruno decided to to write this this character for me, we work together the character many months before. And Okay, I know perfectly that what Bruno wants to do in this character, and he knows that I am strong, I am clever, but the cutter is not clever. The clever the clever personally is David the other, the other main actor, and we will work it a lot.

I think the result is good. It's very good.

How did you and David work together to make it feel like you had been friends for so long?

They did on me, he knows many years ago, and we are afraid, but this movie has picked more and more relationship to he and me.

Now.

Oh, I think they very good friend like a brother, like Bruno, like Sandy. We are a great team and I think that a should of the movie is for that.

As we wrote the Tony role for Mario, we wrote the rock par role for the Bid.

We're friends of mine and they were friends together.

The result on the on the screen that you see and the the audience can see that truth in in the in the interpretations, in the comic, in.

The performance perform.

Very very very that was the result.

There are so many strong characters and so many great actors and this I mean, I can't remember the name of the gentleman who plays the I guess it's the nephew of the main gangster, the Italian. That scene in the bar when he's trying to get back the luger from the person that pought it.

The nexcuse Bruno then nothing the bars.

Daniel North is the actors and I seeing the bar that is even in the back to us when we talk with him.

I really love that scene and I love you in that scene.

He's a great actor. He's very very good at all and he had to short a parish in the at the movie, but.

It's a scary as kat in those eis.

Dani's awesome. And the sequence.

We love that sequence because it's in the middle. It's in the middle point of the film, and and I was trying to.

We we were trying to make this sequence very intense, you know, because it was the mid point of the movie. So we needed an intense sequence to do this point, because we want to make the audience think that this is going to explode.

In La premia version, the give on explode.

Actually, in the first verson, the first draft of the screenplay, that a scene ended up with a very big fight. So it exploded and there were dead people that were plowed everywhere.

And the producer read the scene and say to us, we can make that, guys, to do that, it's they that you want to shoot.

It's very expensive, very expensive. And he said, okay, we are going to do another version.

We are going to kild some some roles and to clean that sequence, and we make the second version. And when at the beginning there was fifteen characters in that scene and at the end there are four characters and the and the two and the two good guys and I and I think the sequence is better than the first version.

It's more simply, it's more organic.

It's a more is darker actually, it's kind of darker, kind of hadie. It's a more how to say, subtle, right, Like, it's not so explicit, it's subtle.

Less elements in the scene. Is more a smarter Bruno.

Your character is fantastic and you play him so well, so calm, menace and just you seem to be the only person that's really kind of using their head.

Charlie is a role that it's not a bad guy, is not a good guy. It's an element. It's a character that is an element to help the main character. In the second act of the movie when Mario, when when Tony disappears, Tony is the lucky, the lucky amulet Rafa and it's very nice to see Rafa with his part.

Crying like a dog in silence in the movie for that point.

From that moment, you know, the rest of the movie from now, Rafa will be alone with you know, Charline in that moment. Charlie atually replaced as Tony in that moment because Raffa feels comfortable and safe with Tony by his side, because as Bruno said, he's the lucky hotem, He's lucky amulet, you know. And then once Tony disappears.

He's kind of a shape shifter character.

But then when you start feeling comfortable with Charlie, when you started empathizing with him, then suddenly Charlie disappears to let's let's put it like this, okay. So Rafa finds himself alone again and then doesn't feel safe anymore.

How was the actual shoot?

How is it?

Shooting in Madrid?

It isn't the better city to shoot in Spain because taxes are high and you don't get a revenue from them. You know, everybody wants to shoot in Madrid or Barcelona, because there are both our famous cities.

But it's not a problem because we know the city very well.

I know the industrial area that is shoot the lugger is never from my home, but it's not in the in the movie.

It's not a real industrial area. Because we need to.

Make more biggest or biggest. That doesn't sist in Madrid. Shooting Madrid. It's comfortable, but it's not the best. The better the better city in Spain. The better cities in Spain is Basque Country and the Canary Ipen.

There is no many helps in Marid to shooting in there.

Many American productions are shooting right now Wonder Woman, for example, was shooting in in Cana, not the Better, not the World.

When was your premiere and how was that seeing this movie with an audience for the first time.

The premiere actually was in Fantastic Excess.

But they were premier.

The world premier was in in Eptin, and the European the European in Strasbourg.

I was seeing that with an audience, and especially in an audience who doesn't speak your language.

Necessarily the American Award when when they watched the movie, they understand perfectly the movie.

Because they love the club.

They asked to ask many questions. In the Q and A, they congratulations for us. I think it was successful.

I was seeing the field near of Mario and near of the producer, and I know where are the points that the audience has to a loud, The audience has to scream, the audience has to clap. I think the nineteen percent of the of the moments the audience responds as we want.

There is there is some points that lost in translation.

It's seemed able to be the perfect translation of the perfect but really nice, really nice poet of the of the audience.

The audience was hooked. The audience was excited.

They were inside the movie actually, so you know, of course we were a little bit scared, at least me because it was an audience from a different convers so with it and knew if they were going to respond good or maybe they won't get anything. And then suddenly they responded, well, they loved the movie. They let us know that they loved the movie. So you know, we are very very thankful, and you know, it was good

There's one scene where something bad happens to Mario, and I have to tell you that I gasped out loud in my house watching that scene.

I think many people cry, but men don't have to.

No, no, I don't cry. I am a man.

There was a reaction, there was a reaction definitely to that scene.

I I gree I.

Hope that it caused a lot of screaming in the theater where you guys saw.

It's a main movie, but it's a one a movie too. It's everybody cries with the with this part. What's the first time? I pray in Austin watching that sting because it was the first time that the movie went to the public. It's the first time that the audience, the audience see the movie and it's a very special moment. For for that reason, you've.

Got your European premiere coming up. What's next for the movie? And do you guys have plans for your next film? Already?

We went from Starsbourg.

We have won the Grand Prix, the Grand Prix for our nection Cross the cross it's like the section of orbita in sea chest and our next party is check is the is the final boss of the video game. We will have the opportunity to show the movie to one thousand and four hundred people. At the same time. I am very afraid, afraid and nerviews, but I think this was it will be a.

Good stage for our movie, right because they will eat you know, we will have all our lights on us, so everybody will see.

We make that movie for do the second movie and try to make that third movie.

And for that reason it such is very important because that the stage gives us an opportunity to know another producers, another.

Ways to do the next movie.

Santiago and I have another thriller and a horror movie, but we don't talk about with more details with a lot of the tales because we are working on it right now.

Yes, exactly, we are working on a couple of projects right now. As Bruno said, when is a thriller, when it's a horror movie. What they can assure you is that you will see our say, our seal in the next movie. This movie Luger has our seal, our soul. You know, you can see that we wrote it like it couldn't be written by an Ai, couldn't be written by anyone else. And this one will have also our seal,

Well. I can't see you guys having anything but fantastic success because Luger was wonderful and I really look forward to more people being able to see it.

Thank you also for giving us this space to you know, promote the movie, and I just hope that your own audience will love it. If they don't know it, you know, go watch it whenever you can, because did you get the chance to watch it in Cinema's VODs festivals?

You know, give us a chance. We just want you to enjoy this movie.

Thanks hello, Mike, and I hope to see you in person with you very soon. Be very much.

Well, it sounds like we'll be meeting at a bar.

It's the same language a bear here and in USA.

Sounds great, well, Mario Bruno Santi. Thank you so much for your time. Classes.

Thank you very much, Mike.

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