Meet Ernesto Santisteban | Film Director & Writer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ernesto Santisteban and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ernesto, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
In the field of art, many times the most valuable scenario is found in the experience that the viewer will have with the work, that is, that communion with the artist’s vision. However, the material process of the work is very important since it turns it into something real
and many times the public can have control over what they want to appreciate, thus generating demand for the digital industry. However, I have always tried to maintain the original proposal as an author and possibly that makes a difference. In the business model, it is very important for me to humanize the brand with my production team, that is, to share the purpose of an artistic work and its transformative impact on the community. When that mission is understood by those who accompany you, that business makes more sense, because you dimension their talents towards a more transcendental purpose. Santisteban Media is a film company whose motto is “The Film is the Limit”, we place the artistic work as the highest.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
We would love to know what sets you apart from others, what makes you most proud or excited.

The details are of great relevance to me. In the writing, pre-production and filming process, the details are key. From the preparation of characters, whether protagonists or extras, to the set, costumes, lighting, etc., everything that is finally seen on the screen will be important to take care of until the final edition. That’s what I aim to always achieve in a project and surpass it in the next.

How did you get to where you are today professionally?

Before having my film production company in the United States, I lived through many stages committed to the arts in Peru and Latin America. I started with illustration and painting at the age of 7, then cartoons at 15 years old. At the age of 18 I learned to play guitar and started writing songs. Although I had written scripts for comics, I had not taken my writing to the subjectivity of a song, with more complex rhymes and emotions. Then I experienced what journalism is up close thanks to my beloved father and poet Uriel Santisteban and his brother, my uncle César, a great visionary of telecommunications in South America. Both were producers of a prestigious news channel in Peru and that is how I understood the power of a camera in giving a social and commercial dimension to images worldwide, since they distributed news to various broadcasters on all continents. Murals are also part of my career as a pictorial artist. Techniques such as Oil and Watercolor helped me understand today how chromatics work in the color correction of a post-edit. But at that time flat surfaces seemed routine to me
and that was when I also carried out the Body Paint technique and digital art.

I also had a ska-core musical band and composed a pop album for Michelle Cordero, a emerging singerfrom Ecuador, the country where I lived for 14 years. I started making music videos until I managed to get on the MTV International and HTV signal, an important Latin music channel. However, my goal was always to make films until one day it happened; I wrote and directed my first feature film “Verano no miente” (Summer doesn’t lie) of the romance and comedy genre. I had the opportunity to work with the Spanish actress Pilar Tordera, the renowned Peruvian actor Juan Carlos Rey de Castro and the Ecuadorian actress Pamela Sánchez. They, together with a great casting from seven countries, gave life to a story that is framed in two eras within the mountains of Ecuador. The film finally premiered in 2024 on Amazon Prime among other streaming platforms thanks to my friend, Atlanta-based Producer and Director Taylor R’Ichard. With that film I was invited in 2018 by the Consul of Ecuador in the State of Georgia Jose Luis Jacome for an avant premiere at a Latin film festival and that’s how we started traveling more to the United States until we decided to live and have our base in Atlanta, one of the most important cities in the film industry.
Studios such as Taylor Perry, Assembly Atlanta, Third Rail Studios, EUE / Screen Gems, Trilith among others, motivated us to continue with our vision of the film industry from the state of Georgia. After winning a Southeast Emmy Award and some Telly Awards, I have directed the film “The Border Baby” in the drama genre, together with partner Omar Soto, which will be released this year in 2025, as well as my short film “Reflejo” in the horror genre recorded in Ecuador in 2020. I am also developing other feature film projects and series such as “The Cartel Lawyer” with my friend, actor and producer Tony Guerrero along with a top-notch cast. Without a doubt it is a year of a lot of work.

Was it easy?

Coming to the United States was not easy, because it is a country that invites you to start a new cycle of life, a turning of the page where you inevitably have to write with another cultural pen.

If not, how did you overcome the challenges?

I overcame the challenges by having a lot of confidence in my experience, which is not only the talent of creating but of surrounding yourself with people who trust you, because you are generating the correct environment for your vision. Perhaps also something that helped me move forward is feeling that outside of flags and anthems, we are actually citizens of the planet. Borders give order, yes, but finally the dimension of a personal obstacle is regulated when you identify a collective obstacle and in this regard, we still have a lot to evolve.

What are the lessons you have learned along the way?

Along this path I have learned to develop intuition, because on the one hand you can have a plan but on the other there is the plan of destiny, and this is the result of our own actions! If an actor or camera operator does not see the detail that I see as a director, everything that can happen next is predictable, whether for better or worse… but intuition helps you foresee what the next step could be. Cinema is seen and sometimes explained, but the most important thing is what will remain on that screen and only practice will lead you to trial and error.

What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?

Mainly, if someone finds in me a story that helps them direct their talent towards their own goals, I would like them to know that there is nothing more important than discovering what their purpose or mission is on this plane of life. That’s why it didn’t take me long to understand Astrology or more precisely Cosmobiology, which is my second profession through which I can see someone’s potential and and enhance it through calculation and mathematics. In my casting processes with actors and actresses I apply the study of the birth chart, a tool that I have been using for many years. Being vegan also reflects that I choose to consider the life of animals, who have a brain-nervous system that is not only subject to feeling, but also to create in a more complex way a reasoning regarding life as a right to exist and evolve. When this is seen from the outside, when one observes the earth as just another point in the galaxy, my words probably make sense to some. Santisteban Media has a commitment to all of this and will gain greater exposure as it brings together producers who see at least part of that path, it would be extraordinary for it to happen.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
For those who like cinema and production processes, in Atlanta there are several tourist tours of the places where Stranger Things and Walking Dead were filmed, among others. Also watching a movie at the Plaza Theater or seeing a Show at Buckhead Theater is fantastic, it transports you to the origin of the artistic call. It is also exciting to see the studios of Tylor Perry or Assembly Atlanta, seeing so many recording studios is electrifying. If you want to take a break to try vegan food, I recommend Planta and Flower Child, one of the best vegan burgers you can enjoy at True Food. If you like art as a whole, perhaps Little Five Point will be a place that you will want to know, it has a lot of artistic community, walks, concerts… it is interesting. But when it comes to creating or writing as a Film Director, Buckhead is a very special place, in the middle of the city of Atlanta full of vertical life through its glass buildings.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The starting point of my career in Lima, Peru was surrounded since I was a child by inspirations in the field of cartoons, authors such as Mort Druker from New York, Quino from Argentina, or Francisco Ibañez from Spain, without realizing it, promoted my experience with story boards, so necessary to define shots and sequences in the field of cinema. One day when I was 15 years old, the Peruvian writer Nicolas Yerovi saw my talent and invited me to be part of his magazine making political cartoons. Every week I illustrated with other authors older than me and their opinions on national and international politics made me observe how aspirations for power could become just a dangerous attempt to search for acceptance where the error is finally assumed by society. But I would like to go further, and I am referring to my instinct for mission as an artist; I found that inspiration thanks to the French Scientist and Humanist Dr. Serge Raynud de la Ferrière and his book “Art in the New Era”, a book that invites us to deepen the mission of artists from the perspective of synthesis of all arts and cultures over time. It reveals to us the same correspondence between music, painting, architecture, etc. I think that cinema is the synthesis of all the arts.
Is it a complete art? possibly not yet. It was thanks to my beloved mother Nelly Podio Jordán, that with her wise observation and spiritual formation I was able to learn about the life and work of Dr. Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière and his direct disciple Dr. David Juan Ferriz Olivares, whom I had the privilege of meeting during his spiritual mission visiting Perú. Once there is a starting point and a sense of mission, there are those who accompany you along the way. I want to give special and spiritual thanks to my Venerable Teachers; José Miguel Esborronda and María Nilda Cerf Arbulú. Also with much love to my wife, graduate in design, María Elisa Vintimilla, president of Santisteban Media and to my children Américo and Franchesca, who are my inspiration and learning every day. My brother Gabriel is my co-pilot despite the distances, or perhaps I am his, which is why he also has my respect and gratitude for always being with me.

Website: https://www.santistebanmedia.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ernesto_santisteban/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/santistebanmedia/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ernesto.santisteban

Other: https://vimeo.com/santistebanmedia

Image Credits
Blind Trust (Behind) Pics: Flowwerz
Other Photos: Santisteban Media