By Alexander Rivero

Staff Writer

  All it takes for some individuals to discover their life’s path is the lingering memories of some magical moments in their childhood. For Joe Gawalis, those moments came via his TV. 

The writer, editor, producer, and Roxbury native sites Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—Kevin Reynold’s 1991 rendition of the Robin Hood legend starring Kevin Costner, Alan Rickman, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, and Morgan Freeman—as a movie that enraptured him as a child. It was big, he remembers, it was epic, had a rousing soundtrack, and oozed wonder and adventure. Unbeknownst to Gawalis, he was hooked on the medium, and it was only a matter of time before he then took the initiative to make films himself. 

The decisive moment came during his senior year at Roxbury High School, where he was required to make his own films for a legal studies class and had a blast doing it. He took what the school offered in terms of film studies and, after graduating, went on to DeSales University to graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Television and Film. Now, Gawalis, with a full repertoire of projects behind him and running operations in both the New York metropolitan area and Los Angeles, is a seasoned veteran of the business, and has much to share with anyone interested in what goes into making a successful film.

One cannot practice an art without first becoming a student of it, and—aside from his academic preparation—Gawalis has cut his teeth in the film industry in part by watching tons of movies. His enthusiasm on the profession is fresh and alive, and he seems ready to jump into a lengthy discussion on any one of the hundreds of different arts that go into making a movie. Like acting, for instance.

“People think that acting is make-believing,” says Gawalis, speaking to some of the misconceptions on the profession that audiences often take for granted. “But acting is, in fact, making your circumstance a reality. It’s not pretending at all. When actors are on the screen, they’re in that moment, and it’s a truly surreal thing to behold and to go through because they become that person. Full immersion into that person. And there’s a lot of pressure, even if the actor is only assigned one line of dialogue, to ignore the light setups, the crew running around, the director shouting orders. You have to ignore all of that and just be that character. It’s not an easy thing to do at all, even at the level where it seems like it’s really easy. I give a ton of props to anyone trying to make it as an actor.” 

Gawalis says his proudest achievement of his career thus far came in his film Around Every Corner (2015). The film, starring and directed by Gawalis, follows a drug-addicted writer holding onto his life as he tries to reconnect with his estranged family three years after the death of his parents. Gawalis did a deep dive into his character, researching the day-to-day lives of individuals addicted to drugs, and hoping to channel a level of realism that would translate onto the screen. 

“We did a lot with rehab clinics that had to do with addiction,” says Gawalis. “We spoke to a lot of people and went from clinic to clinic when the film was done, screening it for them. We’d speak to them and focus on what happened to family members around the addicted person. Theses addicts are ashamed of themselves and don’t want to be a burden to their families, which is why they don’t want to approach them in the first place.”  

Gawalis and IDC Entertainment have a Christmas movie coming out in November called Uninvited for the Holidays starring John Bianco, formerly of HBO’s The Sopranos, and Louis Vanaria of Robert De Niro’s classic, A Bronx Tale. 

“Both John and Louis are absolute class acts and it’s been a pleasure to work with them,” Gawalis says. “This movie was something our company did during the pandemic to lift some spirits. I didn’t think it’d become what it eventually grew into, but it did, thankfully, and now it’s going to be released on every major streaming platform in a couple of weeks.”

Gawalis and company will also be releasing another film—this one a female-led comedy about a chocolate cake that makes people lose weight when they eat it. The movie is called Cocoa, and it was filmed in Morristown. It is due for release in the first quarter of 2023.

For more information on Gawalis, please visit his website at www.joegawalis.com, or find him on Twitter @joegawalis.