When it comes to art, we all know the saying that it’s in the eyes of the beholder. While some people marvel at a single brush stroke or at times even what is seemingly a blank canvas. Others may look at other forms of artistic expression as plain and simple vandalism. This is the case with graffiti art. Overnight in cities around the world, there are new pieces put up by a variety of artists. Unfortunately, in most cases, these are also acts of vandalism and they are painted over fairly quickly. Today is the release of Vandal, the feature film by Jose Daniel Freixas.

In Vandal, we see the story of a young leader of an infamous graffiti crew played by Daniel Zovatto. The film starts off with Damage (Zovatto) experiencing the loss of another artist that he considered a close friend and mentor. During that time he also develops a relationship with a young lady called Silk, played by Otmara Marrero. The emotional toll of everything happening around him leads him down a dangerous confrontation with his biggest rival. 

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What Vandal accomplishes is telling a believable story from a graffiti artists’ perspective. The way that you see some of the actors portray these characters shows that they spent some time understanding the life of some of these artists. Specifically, I liked the way they showed them expressing their emotions through their artwork. 

With the release of Vandal this week from 1091 Studios, Emmanuel Gomez spoke with writer and director, Jose Daniel Freixas. He explains to us why this was such an important film to make as his directorial debut. We also talk about the culture behind graffiti artists and how the community helped Freixas to make his film. It was a great conversation that you can check out down below!

1091 Pictures’ Vandal is now available to own!