Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
Chances are you’ve seen the work of Matías Vásquez, but you’ve never seen his face.
Better known by his pseudonym, Stillz, the multifaceted Colombian American artist has directed two dozen music videos for Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny, including those for hit tracks “Tití Me Preguntó,” “Yo Perreo Sola,” “Ojitos Lindos” and “Moscow Mule.”
But while his collaborators — among them Rosalía, Katy Perry and Rauw Alejandro — live their lives in the spotlight, Stillz, 27, goes to great lengths to preserve his privacy.
A bandanna covers his face for any public appearances, and if an interview isn’t happening in person, he avoids phone or video calls. Our exchange takes place over text messages.
“Being around celebrities all the time makes me want to hide myself even more,” he says (or better said, types). “It’s always been about the craft first for me. I started doing this very young, so I’ve seen how ego can kill someone inside out, even the most talented people.”
Stillz prefers to “stick to the art,” and now he’s channeled the experience gained from working around the world into his bold and entrancing first feature “Barrio Triste,” now in theaters, which follows a group of marginalized young men in 1980s Medellín. They commit crimes with recklessness and forge a brotherhood from shared rage and despair.
“It’s very different from my commercial work,” he says. “On a feature film, I’m 100% in control and I can be more vulnerable.”
American provocateur Harmony Korine (“Gummo,” “Spring Breakers”) served as executive producer through his EDGLRD company.
“We weren’t looking for people who just wanted to make a very clean three-act drama or comedy, but people who really felt like they were working in the vernacular of the newer generation of storytellers, and Stillz was a perfect fit for that,” says EDGLRD producer Eric Kohn, also of Colombian descent, on Zoom.
Korine influenced Stillz to go back to his roots in Colombia, after the first-time feature director initially considered making a project in his hometown of Miami.
“I spent months visiting the slums of Medellín, near my family’s old workplaces and looking for a story within this context of real people with real stories to connect it to my fictional world,” he recalls.
It was in the 1980s that Stillz’s family left Medellín and escaped to Cartagena due to violence. Though he prefers not to go into details, he says he thinks of “Barrio Triste” as a mystical manifestation of that intergenerational trauma.
“The movie to me is what a nightmare feels like when you grow up listening to the murders and kidnappings of Colombia. It’s the feeling of walking down an empty hallway in your house, there’s no noises and each step you take the wooden floor creeks,” he explains. “That’s what the film is to me. It’s very close to my heart.”
Conceived as found footage filmed from a first-person perspective, “Barrio Triste” opens with the teens stealing a camera from a TV reporter in order to capture their antics. As if he were one of the kids, Stillz filmed the entire movie himself serving as cinematographer.
“Conceptually, it comes down to my beginning as a skate filmer when I was 12,” Stillz says. [In the film] I operated everything myself and was able to become one with the character.”
After months of preproduction, “Barrio Triste” was shot over five days in the barrio of El Paraíso, an often-maligned informal settlement. The production had to engage with local criminal organizations in order to obtain permission to work there unbothered.
There are no trained actors in the film, the young men on screen were found through extensive street casting around Medellín, and their performances reflect a combination of their lived experiences and scripted material.
“There was a very important philosophy we stuck to, we needed to create worlds for them to enjoy and give them situations and guidance for how they would truly react. There’s an incredible realness to all their performances, it’s really who they are,” Stillz explains.
Stillz admits he worried that some of the uninterrupted takes that comprise “Barrio Triste” might feel too long, but to him those silent moments walking around Medellín’s hills allow the audience space to let their minds roam.
“I hate movies that don’t give you time to think,” he says. “Same as music, I always gravitate to music that helps you think. We live in a world filled with millions of distractions and a combination of things that block your thinking.”
That music that accompanied him during the making of the film was that of Venezuelan electronic artist Arca, who created original tracks for “Barrio Triste.”
“I’m so used to having music guide my visuals, so I just did the same thinking for the film. Her first album guided me throughout the film,” he says. “Then I had to find a way for her to align with me to score it, and that was another cross-world adventure, but we got it done in Tokyo.”
Now that “Barrio Triste” is being unleashed, after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last year, Stillz wants to submerge himself in its synths more than its pixels.
“I want to exercise watching the film in a theater next week with my eyes closed as well, since I’ve seen it 1,000 times already,” he says. “There must be different ways to experience it. Hopefully no one notices me. I’ll be trying the late-night screenings in a hoodie,” he types, ending with an “Lol.”
Bad Bunny has also already watched the film. The production rented a theater in San Juan to screen it for the Grammy-winning artist a few months ago.
“It was particularly special for me that he was able to see a different and more personal side of my work,” Stillz says about his über-famous friend watching his first film. “It’s more experimental but I’m sure he can tell how deeply personal it is.”
Their ongoing creative alliance is the result of a genuine friendship between them that started in 2018 when Stillz was first hired as Bad Bunny’s tour photographer.
“I’ve seen him grow up; he’s seen me grow up. He’s my big brother in everything I do creatively and also in real life,” Stillz says about his bond with Bad Bunny. “We grew up together and like a lot of the same things, as well as disagree [on] a lot of things.”
Stillz even directed the teaser for Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime show.
Born and raised in Miami, Stillz didn’t grow up around art, “just paintings of Jesus Christ.” His interest in image-making and cameras came from documenting skateboarding (not unlike filmmakers he admires, like Spike Jonze or Korine himself).
“I never knew I wanted to work in this. I don’t care about being a great film director, I never did,” he says. “I love the opportunity of learning new mediums and being able to explore my feelings and my history through my work.”
His identity, he says, feels at times more Colombian and others more American. Though having visited Cartagena every year growing up, it’s Colombia that speaks to him spiritually.
“I’m from Miami, and to me Miami is not like the rest of the U.S.,” he says. “My first language is Spanish, my second is English. All my friends and everyone in my public schools grew up trying to learn English.”
All of these aspects of who he is, including not showing his face and existing publicly as Stillz, play a role in the instinctual rawness or “realness” that has defined his career thus far.
“I like the balance between meeting incredible people around the world and then being able to do whatever I feel like as just a regular person, no one bothers you,” he explains. “Sometimes they even treat you like shit when they don’t know who you are, then someone tells them and people make a full 180, it’s pretty funny. But I’m very shy, low-key.”
If you want to know who he is, look only at what he shares in his creative output. The answers, he says, are always there. “The world is a weird place, and I want people to focus on what I make, not me,” Stillz adds. “You can see me through my work. Just study that.”
