Miguel Ortiz talks getting past the block with ‘Bloqué’

Miguel Ortiz has always wanted to be a storyteller. In fact, he told his mom he would be a filmmaker when he was just 8 years old. 

“I loved dialogue,” the New York-based filmmaker said in a recent interview with Rough Draft Atlanta. “Which is funny, because ‘Bloqué’ has like, no dialogue.” 

“Bloqué” is Ortiz’s short film about a drummer, played by Malick Koly, struggling to push through a creative block of sorts. The film is playing in the Black Boy Fly shorts block at this year’s Atlanta Film Festival on May 3 at the Plaza Theatre. 

Up until around he turned 30, Ortiz – who is also the co-founder of TheTelly, the production company behind his film – had been working in video production, making music videos, commercials and the like. But after seeing “The Fabelmans,” Steven Spielberg’s lightly fictionalized movie about his own life, Ortiz decided he wanted to make the jump back into the narrative space. The process of trying to write eventually became the inspiration for “Bloqué.” 

“I sat in front of my desk, and I started trying to write something so that we could shoot,” he said. “I was having such a struggle writing these things out, because my mother and I had kept going over conversations about me only remembering the negative aspects of my childhood, and not remembering the good stuff. I think that was sitting with me.”

“Bloqué” is about a drummer trying to find creative inspiration, and the ways in which he finds that inspiration make up the meat of the film. Over the course of seven minutes, Malick reflects on his parents, both their relationship with each other and his relationship to them when he was a child. He reflects on the bad, but also the good, the rhythmic beat of his drumming paralleling the emotions that his memories conjure. 

“‘Bloqué’ is really an apology letter to my parents,” Ortiz said. “[It’s] acknowledging hey – there were difficult moments there, but if I take a moment, if I take a breath, if I’m reminded, then I know there are moments that I cherish as well.” 

Part of the appeal of “Bloqué” is how it connects the language of music to the language of cinema. Initially, the film was about a writer suffering from writer’s block, but Ortiz determined that a drummer would provide the film with more action and more movement. 

As you watch Malick drumming his way through his past, you’ll notice that the film’s editing style doesn’t always line up with the beat of the music. Ortiz comes from a music video background, and, with the help of editor Danni Juhl, was able to switch up the rhythmic patterns of the film to keep the audience engaged. 

“With ‘Bloqué,’ we were very specific on when we want to cut to the beat, and when we actually want moments to be off beat, in terms of cutting – just to keep emphasizing the chaos that’s happening within Malik and everything,” he said. 

Getting someone like Malick Koly signed onto the film helped bring a level of authenticity to the drumming. Ortiz originally met Koly – whose other film credit includes playing folk musician Bruce Langhorne in James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown” last year – at an art gallery. The two exchanged numbers, and when the time came to cast “Bloqué,” Ortiz immediately thought of Koly. 

“I said, if someone doesn’t put this man in front of a camera soon, that’ll be the worst thing anyone could do,” Ortiz said. “He’s a magnet when you see him onscreen.” 

Ortiz said that he hopes “Bloqué” can serve as a template for the type of independent filmmaking he hopes to help put forward through TheTelly – not just for his own work, but for other artists as well. 

“I’m excited for more people to finish writing their pieces, so that we can continue to keep moving that process forward,” he said.