Behind the Scenes of UNFAMILY

Mitchell Jaramillo and Siddharth Sharma are a Toronto-based director and producer duo and co-founders of Hold the Sauce Films production company. Their short film Unfamily has won the Emerging Incubator Filmmaker award and will be presented at DRIFF 2024 on October 26. 

Mitchell Jaramillo is an actor and producer who grew up in Whitby. After studying English Literature at the University of Toronto, he worked in management and tech sales but quickly realized his passion lies in filmmaking and producing. Siddharth Sharma is a Toronto-based actor. After graduating from film school, he got signed by the Noble Caplan Abrams agency. Siddharth has years of acting and filmmaking experience and is passionate about storytelling. 

Mitchell and Siddharth met in the acting class and soon discovered they both wanted to not only be on the big screen but also create opportunities for other independent filmmakers. In March 2023, they co-founded Hold the Sauce Films. Their different backgrounds allow them to complement each other – Mitchell is responsible for producing and Siddharth for storytelling. The creative team of Hold the Sauce Films brought five productions to life in their first year and worked together on their movie Unfamily. 

Unfamily tells a story about Sukhi who receives a deportation notice. Desperate to resolve it, he connects with his distant family member Paul. Now, Sukhi not only has to navigate around the law but also his new family obligations. With the support of his loving girlfriend, Sukhi navigates the complicated relationship with Paul while trying to remain in the city that he learned to love. 

Unfamily is a short film that a lot of people can connect to, while others will get to learn about the struggles people around them are facing and empathize with them. The movie is real and personal, and watching it feels like looking into someone’s life. Siddharth and Mitchell were able to portray the struggles that immigrants in Canada are facing in a considerate and realistic way while also showing an important role our loved ones play in our lives.

We caught up with Mitchell Jaramillo to ask what the process of making the short film was like for him and Siddharth Sharma. 

We would like to ask some questions about Unfamily and how it came to life. Could you please share how you came up with the idea for the short film?

Sid worked on a show, a Hallmark show called The Way Home, and he worked with an actor that he got along with, but they didn't really get to work closely together. So, he decided, “I want to make a movie so we can work together”.

He said to him, “Hey, we should work together”. And then the actor, Al, said “You write it, I'll be there”. And so, Sid wrote it. And then we developed that over time; it kind of came from that. And Sid just tried to figure out how to write about two brothers, and then it just sort of expanded into what it is today which became quite a personal story for him. But it is just an interesting slice of life into, I guess, a world that he's familiar with. And so that started and then that's how the first draft of the script came together. Fast forward a year, we worked on a few short films and then the DRIFF Emerging Film Incubator Program came up. And we had this script, and we thought this might actually be the perfect fit. So, then we continued developing it and then submitted it to the Incubator contest. And that's kind of how it all came together.

What was it like working with DRIFF to bring this film to life?

Working with DRIFF was great! DRIFF was super supportive. Peter Findlay especially was just our champion the whole way through. And so, from the first meeting, when we did our presentation for the grant itself, you could just tell Peter was the guy who was quite interested and we really connected with him. And it gave us a lot of confidence, you know, with the questions they were asking us of what we were thinking about, like what we needed to know for the film to do it well. And so, once we got the grant, then Peter was super supportive, just helping us out, talking through with everything. And then when it came to actually producing the film and going to production, everybody at DRIFF was incredible, just basically going out of their way to make it possible. Peter, for example, would facilitate emails and questions and communications, all this stuff. And then Eileen was super helpful in helping us navigate the permits and working in Durham. And then Barry was super helpful in terms of getting Durham College and shooting there. Everyone went out of their way to make it really easy and possible for us. The support was very, very visceral, very felt. It was really great. So, DRIFF was wonderful. We couldn't have asked for a better support team behind it and we're just really grateful for everything they provided to us to make it happen.

What was the hardest part about bringing the story from the page to the screen?

The hardest part about bringing this from script to screen I think was just making sure that we were prioritizing the right things. I think that it's easy to get caught up in the process of making a movie. I think it's easy to get caught up in how exciting and how big it looks. And it's also easy to get caught up in what you could do with it, you know, even from something as small as deciding a shot that doesn't need to be there but feels good and could be fun; it just makes it harder for everybody. So, trying to figure out how to balance that and making sure that we're only doing the things that were necessary. And then also making sure that the crew is taken care of. I think that's the other big part of it. We didn't have a big budget and because of that, all of our crew were, you know, to some degree lending their time. They weren’t necessarily being paid their union rates for this. But they were all super gracious and excited to be a part of it. And so, making sure that we were not just accepting that gift and saying “thanks” and running away, moving on with it, but trying to make sure that we actually showed our gratitude for that. We wanted to make sure that everybody felt taken care of, that everybody felt that they had ownership over the film. We wanted to make sure they felt that they were a part of it, that even if they weren't being paid fully, that they still got something out of it themselves. That was another huge priority for us, and it was definitely a challenge when you have limited resources, but it was something that we really focused on and wanted to make clear. 

And what did you enjoy most about making the film?

Just learning the whole process, I think. I mean, obviously we've made a few movies before, but this one was at a bigger scale. And so, learning how to do this at the scale that we did was really fun. You know, working with Sid to develop it creatively, working with our team, our trusted collaborators, co-director Paul and our DP, Alex. Working with everyone to bring it to life was really probably the most rewarding part of it. I think it was about figuring out how to leverage everybody's skill set, how to leverage what everybody's good at. I mean, obviously, as the producer, I'm kind of coordinating things and I'm trying to champion, get people in a place where they can work their best. And so, that starts with Sid, trying to figure out where he works his best and how to bring the best out of him; I think that was a big part for me. And then me and Sid together working with the rest of the crew: the camera team, the art team, the producers, the writers, the director, working with everybody to bring the best out of them. That was really rewarding because you learn about people, you learn about how people work, you learn about what people need. I think when it comes down to learning the process, that's kind of like the crux of it. Making a movie now that we know how to work with people and how to try and bring the best out of them, we just take that to any films that we go to and suddenly it becomes a process that you can repeat. You know, all the processes kind of remain the same, but the part that becomes the most important is just learning how to bring out the best in people. So that was definitely a lot of fun. 

What do you hope the audiences take away from this short film?

What do I hope they take away? I think Sid and I both just want this film to be, more than anything, a window into a world that maybe we don't get to see all that often. I think it's a slice of life for an individual that represents a lot of people. I think it's a very timely topic. There's a lot of conversation around immigration, a lot of conversation around Indian immigration. And this individual that is the center of the movie is in that world. So, just to see what someone like that is going through, it says nothing more than just, you know, this is what it looks like, and I think that's really what we want, what we want the takeaway to be. And we also want people to be entertained. I mean, at the end of the day, these movies could be about really interesting things and very timely topics and everything, but we're trying to entertain. So, we want people to watch this movie, get invested in it, appreciate it, and just walk away, you know, maybe having just thought about something they haven't thought about before.

-What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers out there?

Aspiring filmmakers . . . I feel like I'm still an aspiring filmmaker (laughing). So, giving advice on this is funny, but I think Sid and I both talk about this a lot. We talk about how there is a lot that goes into making movies and there's a lot that you can think about. I think at the end of the day, our philosophy is to really just focus on what really matters. That's kind of the essence of our production company too. It's called Hold the Sauce Films. All the sauce being that there's a lot of extra stuff to put on top, right? There's a lot of extra stuff, but that doesn't matter. None of that matters unless you have the core of the thing. And so, for us, for a film, that means the story. The story is the core of everything so if there’s something in making the movie that doesn't serve the story, we don't need it. And then that also applies to just making the movie in general. If you're bringing together a crew of people, if you're bringing together a bunch of people to do a lot of work, essentially for your vision, then we need to all remember that making the movie is the most important thing. Nothing else really matters in terms of, you know, ego, in terms of how good people are at things, in terms of what you're trying to do. It really just comes down to remembering what matters – staying humble and grateful and recognizing the situation and trying to focus on what's most important. That's pretty vague, but I guess at the concrete level of it, you know, if you want to make a movie, just make a movie. Don't wait. We didn't wait for grants. We didn't wait for any of this. The only reason we were eligible for the DRIFF grant is because we just made movies for no money. It's the only reason we were eligible, the only reason we were actually qualified, and able to prove to DRIFF that we could make this movie. You just make movies. Just don't even think about it. Treat people with respect and then you'll slowly make your way up. You'll slowly find your way. You'll slowly make the projects that you really care about. So, I think it's just a matter of getting moving and staying humble.

Thank you to Mitchell Jaramillo for taking the time to share his insight and experiences in the making oof Unfamily.

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Alina Mitrofanova is a Creative Writing and English student from Toronto with a passion for film and literature.

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If you’re interested in becoming part of a local film community or attending a film festival near you, the Durham Region International Film Festival’s events are for you! DRIFF presents an annual fall film festival in Durham Region, summer drive-in movie screenings in Whitby and DRIFF in a Jiff short film screenings in Oshawa. Visit driff.ca, become a DRIFF insider or follow us on social media at @catchthedriff for all the details.