‘Our first baby!’: Husbands Marco Pigossi and Marco Calvani on creating gay romantic film High Tide together (EXCLUSIVE)

High Tide‘s IMDB synopsis

Heartbroken and adrift, undocumented Brazilian immigrant Lourenço searches for purpose in the queer mecca of Provincetown. As the summer season comes to a fade, he sparks an intense and unexpected romance with Maurice. Together, the two reconcile the pasts they’ve left behind and their uncertain futures.

Does Lourenço’s story reflect yours a little?

Marco Pigossi: In some ways, yes. I really had this great, great desire to play a character who spoke about the experiences, joys, and pains of a gay man in the world today, and especially a Latino immigrant in the United States where I’m currently based. High Tide has a clear LGBT theme, because we are talking about a romance between two men, but it also has a thousand other layers. I think everyone identifies in some way with Lourenço. The film is an internal journey of discovery. It talks about belonging — to a country, to a community, to another person — but, above all, to oneself. For me, it’s a super optimistic film, because Lourenço understands that at the end of it. And when you realise that you belong to yourself, anything becomes possible. He can go to Angola, stay in the US, return to Brazil… It doesn’t matter. At a certain point, he says: “I’m not going back, but I don’t know where I’m going either.” But now he knows how to move forward in the world.

Marco Calvan: The film is not autobiographical at all, but many elements of Lourenço’s life are close to mine too, especially when I started to conceive it. It was the beginning of the pandemic, and I was living in some sort of limbo. I was blessed with good health, and with that came a lot of time to write and reflect on things in a different way, in a deeper way. I was living in a very isolated space, at the same time that the world was changing so rapidly around me. The biggest question in my mind and heart was: ‘Where am I going now? What am I doing here?’ And these are questions that are always present if you are an immigrant, if you are a person who lives abroad, who carries memories and ties, you remain in constant flux and movement. Sometimes, you don’t even know which direction you are going. When I started to conceive High Tide, I was exactly in that place, I didn’t know what was going to be of me. But I am an artist and all I can do is transcend and translate the reality in which I live, inside and outside of myself, into some kind of material. 

The movie brings several religious images: Maurice (James Bland), Lourenço’s boyfriend, dresses up as Jesus in a club; Lourenço himself has an image of Jesus at his head; and his family is evangelical. How important are these signs in the movie?

MC: This is one of the central themes for Lourenço. He seeks to free himself from the evangelical family and, at the same time, as a gay man. Personally, I grew up in Italy, in a conservative, traditional and Catholic family, so this issue has always been present in my life, as well as internalised homophobia. It was something close to both the character and my own trajectory, and I wanted to bring this organically into the movie. High Tide has several layers, in addition to the protagonist’s search for freedom – of spirit, heart and body. Religions usually separate the body from the spirit, and my goal was to rescue precisely the divinity of the body, something that society fears and rejects. We all grew up in a patriarchal system, where this subject is rarely addressed, and I wanted to provoke this conversation. There is a scene in the film where Maurice and Lourenço are hanging at the beach at night, and that is the precise moment when they start to fall in love, to desire each other. While we hear them talking about Jesus and their religious upbringing, I put the camera extremely close to their body parts.

MP: Both Brazil and Italy are deeply Catholic countries, and in the case of Brazil, they are also evangelical. Understanding your place in the world as a gay man is a process that I went through — and I believe that the entire LGBTQIA+ community also had to go through. Since we were little, we are formatted to see homosexuality as a great sin, something to be condemned. Freeing ourselves from this mindset is difficult because we grow up within it. This is my character’s journey. Lourenço comes from a religion that operates on guilt and oppression, and High Tide is about his encounter with freedom. At one point, Maurice asks him: “What are you most afraid of?” And he answers: “God”. For someone who grows up in this environment, it is a dead end. Lourenço needs to lie to survive, to be accepted and to fit into society, but lying is also a sin — a cycle of guilt that has imprisoned him.

How was your approach to the character? What made you want to play Lourenço?

MP: I was able to bring a lot of myself to the character. The experience as an immigrant, the search for understanding oneself as a gay man in a new place, the process of coming out of the closet. The film is personal, but not autobiographical. We migrated in completely different situations, but there are points in common. I have lived in different cities around the world, such as Spain and Australia, and this experience gave me more tools to deal with challenges, fears, loves and pain. Lourenço, on the other hand, does not have this experience. My biggest challenge as an actor was to portray this internalisation. He is an implosion. In Brazil, because of the language used in telenovelas, we are used to expressing our emotions in a more passionate or exacerbated way. We are Latinos, and the telenovelas reflects this: we cry, scream, and dance alone in the living room. But Lourenço is trying to fit into a more restrained society, like the American one. He doesn’t find room to let it out. Tears come, but he holds them back. It’s a more subtle, restrained, and sensitive performance, which was a big challenge for me. 

MC: High Tide was intentionally built to resemble Lourenço as much as possible, in its structure and sensitivity. Lacking courage and experience, Lourenço floats on the surface of his own life, while people and things and feelings – like waves and tides – come and wash him and go, as quickly and randomly as human existence sometimes can be. The accumulation of those waves and the repetition of those tides will eventually create a new level of consciousness for him and hopefully for the audience as well.

You guys are married, and this film also marked your first collaboration. How did that go?

MC: I met Marco when I was almost done with the first draft of High Tide. Lourenço was already a Latino character. Initially he was Italian, for obvious reasons [laughs]. The day we met, we had such a wonderful conversation about coming out and what it means to be a queer man in a foreign country – the topics that we address in the film. I remember looking him in the eye when he was telling me these things and thinking, “Oh, wow. Maybe Lourenço is Brazilian.” Of course, I was also falling in love with him. I changed the background of the character and adapted the whole script without telling him. I am very protective of what I write, but when I finally finished the script, I gave it to him. It was like a gift that he wasn’t expecting. From that moment on, my script became our film, our first baby!

MP: By the time we went on set, there was complete trust, respect and confidence. It had been two years of us basically raising this child of ours, trying to find a producer and financing. Everyone was so scared for us, but it was actually such a fantastic experience. If anything, it actually deepened our relationship and our commitment to each other. I mean, he proposed to me the last day of production! How romantic is that?! [laughs]

Marisa Tomei, Oscar-winner for My Cousin Vinny (1993), is incredible in the film. How did she get involved in this project?

MC: We have collaborated a lot in recent years. We met in 2018, working on a play on Broadway. When I was writing the film, I thought of her for the role of Miriam right away. I invited her without much hope that she would accept, since she was not the lead and her schedule is always so packed! But, to my surprise, she accepted right away and embraced the project, which made production easier and attracted other collaborators. It was wonderful working with her.

MP: In English, in cinema, acting is about playing. And you can’t play alone, you need someone else. Marisa brings freshness and intelligence. It was incredible to act with her. I had to be always alert, because she never did a scene the same way. She hates repetition and is always bringing something new. As an actor, this keeps you alive on set, makes you present and makes everything more natural. It was a wonderful experience to work with her, a great pleasure to have her in the film. And having a name like hers helps open doors for the project.

The film is set in Provincetown, a place known for its LGBTQ+ community and natural beauty. How did the setting influence your performance and the film’s overall tone?

MP: I think Provincetown is the lead character in the film [laughs.] I absolutely adore that place. I had so many beautiful and personal moments there. I remember the first time I visited P-town and felt the sense of community. It’s the only place in the world where we – queer people – get to be majority instead of minority, and it might seem little, but it’s actually a big thing. It’s a very powerful feeling. There’s no other place for a story about belonging and self-acceptance better than Provincetown, with its wonders and its flaws. It’s one of my favorite places on earth. It’s also stunning visually; you’re surrounded by nature no matter where you point the camera. 

MC: P-Town is so special. It’s so beautiful, vibrant, so full of complexities. The landscape, the light, and it’s at the end of the world, really! It is very hard to get there. The isolation of that thin two-mile piece of land facing the Boston Bay immediately spoke volumes to me about the desolation Lourenço feels. That landscape embodies so perfectly his inner turmoil, especially when the summer seasons fades. I am so happy that we were able to shoot everything on location. Actually, we are the very first film crew to be allowed to shoot on the Cape Cod National Seashore in Provincetown, the locals are protective of their own land and history, but everyone was so open. The only way we were able to get this film to work was the community of Provincetown. Plenty of locals donated their artistry, their time, their spaces to the film. And we ended up, of course, giving back to those who helped us. There’s plenty of locals we used as extras or that ended up being part of the crew; some local actors are even in the main cast. I was so happy to have included all in the film, since lived-in authenticity is fundamental for me and it always reveals itself in the details. 

Do you believe in the transformative power of art and cinema? Is High Tide a form of resistance?

MC: Absolutely! I’m so happy that the film exists at this particular time. It’s helped me navigate important radical transformations. I started writing the script in 2020, amid the pandemic and during Trump’s first term – which further revealed all the systemic racism that is at the base of American society – the Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd. All of this is reflected in some way in High Tide. It was my way of dealing with these issues. I’m happy that the film is reaching so many people around the world. I don’t expect to change Trump’s way of thinking, but if I can touch a few people’s hearts, that’s a good step forward, no? That’s how change happens. At the root of fear is ignorance. And its opposite is love. This is a film about many things ≠ immigration, racism, queer values – but its most relevant political element is probably the celebration of intimacy, patience, connection. These are values that I feel are not defended enough in our communities and societies, and now more than ever – with the world so fragmented – we should promote and spread them as loud and as fast as we can. 

MP: Art does indeed have the power to transform. When we read that at least 5,000 people disappeared during the dictatorship in Brazil or that 5,000 immigrants were expelled from the US, it shocks us. But cinema and art create empathy, they make us feel what these people went through. When we learn about the story of the family in I’m Still Here, just to quote a very successful recent Brazilian film, we feel that loss. And it is at that moment that we understand what they went through, generating empathy. The same thing happens with Lourenço: the audience feels his pain, his difficulties, and, from that, they can look at others with more compassion — including the immigrant next to him. So, yes, art transforms. And cinema has that power.

High Tide plays at BFI Flare: London LGBTQIA+ Film Festival now.