Director makes the cut

Ryan Gatt shares many affinities with Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar (of The Others fame). He is the same age as the director when he started working on films and strives to make it in the film world on his own merit, having started from nothing, just like Amenábar.

The link between the two continues since it was the Spanish director who encouraged Gatt to pursue a career in film having seen his script. "Go for it, you can make a difference," Amenábar told Gatt, adding that he didn't need to go to film school since he had the natural talent to be a film maker.

Although the young director, small in frame, may come across as humble and unassuming, he has a burning passion to create, tell stories and make a difference. Eyes glistening, he gestures to explain his ideas.

Gatt has just completed the filming of a five-minute promo of a film tentatively titled Control which he plans to take to Universal Studios, Dreamworks, 20th Century Fox, and the like, to try and tap funding to produce a longer film.

It is an open secret that the film industry is all about contacts and Gatt admits he is lucky to have as a business partner and friend Kenneth Cassar, who has contacts abroad.

Cassar is Ryan's mentor, producer and the person working hard to make his dream come true. "He is my right hand, and he will go wherever I go," says Gatt.

What is fascinating about Gatt's dream is that in an industry infamous for the rat race for fame, the director's aim is to put the Maltese on the map as capable of creating a film.

"We can do it from scratch. I want to show (the film directors) that any artist with faith, courage and potential will lead the way, no matter his age or country he lives in... My dream is to keep Malta as my base. I'll get funds but I will work with a Maltese film crew. We're perfectly capable," he says.

While there, Cassar will introduce Gatt to his friend, special effects supervisor Allen Hall (of Forrest Gump and Pirates of the Caribbean fame), who will put him in touch with the big names.

Gatt's high expectations are motivating. But perhaps even more fascinating is how the whole film crew has so much faith in this young director, that they are offering their services for free.

Gatt never had any experience of working on films until a few years ago. He had studied IT although he has been a fan of anything to do with film practically all his life. "My room looks like Disneyworld," he jokes.

Cassar believed in his potential and "as a gift", offered to help him create the promo. Cassar also made a big step in his career as he went from a special effects supervisor to producing a film production.

Gatt's film, which revolves around the theme of corruption and the economic crisis, was entirely his idea. With the help of his sister, Analise, and Bernadine Sciberras, he wrote the script.

Gatt's venture in the film world started in 2007 when he met Mark Doneo, a local director, when he was filming Miriana Coljerò. Doneo invited him over to get a taste of the film industry, sceptically, and wrongly, saying Gatt would give up. "That's where it all started," he recalls vividly.

Although Gatt was given a minor role, he ended up taking on a producing role in Coljerò.

He continued to go from strength to strength, working on his first foreign production: a Russian production of a film called Man of East and then Amenábar's Agora.

Gatt allows me to watch a scene of Control being rehearsed. Some well-built men are practising a shoot-out. One shoots at another and they polish their falls in a dilapidated room in the set.

The room is bare save for a cheap-looking sofa and tattered curtains hanging from above the wooden door. Faded paint peels from the walls.

The story is intriguing. One day we might see the entire film, which would be better still.