shots Unsigned: Jack Cotlevski

Jack Cotlevski is a Brazilian film director, cinematographer and founder of Chroma Films. 

Cotlevski has more than twelve years of experience, and has directed music videos, branded films, commercial productions and independent narrative work for artists and companies in Brazil and the US. 

 His narrative music video for Brazilian artist Mauro Henrique - The Little Ones (Pequeninos), won Best Music Video at the New York International Film Awards. We chat to Cotlevski to find out more...

Can you tell us a little about your background and your route into directing?

My route into directing started through music. I was a guitarist and songwriter in a rock band in Curitiba, Brazil, and we wanted to document what we were doing but did not have the budget to hire a production team. We started borrowing a friend’s camera and doing things ourselves. 

I became the person who was most curious about what happened after the shoot, so I would take the files, edit them, choose the shots and try to understand why one image worked better than another. Somewhere in that process I realised I was as excited by building images as I was by writing music. That became the bridge into filmmaking. 

I later founded Chroma Films in 2014 and, over the years, moved between music videos, commercials, branded work and narrative projects, often working as both director and cinematographer.

Did you study filmmaking? How did you learn your craft?

My training was a combination of formal courses and a great deal of practical work rather than one traditional film degree. I studied cinema at Hollywood Film Academy Brasil and cinematography at PUCPR, and I also completed courses in short-film production, photography, post-production and recording bands with DSLR cameras. 

But the biggest part of my education came from making real projects, editing my own mistakes and then going back to set with a clearer idea of what I needed to do differently. Working across directing, cinematography and editing was especially important because it taught me to think about a film as one continuous process rather than separate departments. 

Even now, I still feel that every production teaches me something I could not have learned in a classroom.

Even now, I still feel that every production teaches me something I could not have learned in a classroom.

Above: The camera monitor on the helipad.

Would you say you have a directing style? How did you arrive at it?

I would describe it as narrative-first and emotion-led. Even when I am making a music video or a commercial, I do not want the images to exist only because they are beautiful. I want to understand what the audience should feel and why each shot is there. 

My background as a musician has a lot to do with that. When I direct music, I listen to the structure almost like a musician on stage. I feel where the song is building, where it needs space, where the image should become more intimate or more expansive. I also spend a lot of time understanding the artist, their message and the way their audience already sees them.

Over time that became part of my process: visual ambition is important, but it has to serve performance, meaning and the identity of the person in front of the camera.

What was the inspiration behind your music video?

The Little Ones, originally Pequeninos, came directly from the meaning of Mauro Henrique’s song. It is about people who are pushed to the margins and about recognising Christ in the person who is ignored or forgotten. Mauro already had a strong sense of what the song meant visually, and the concept developed through a real collaboration between us.

What makes the story unusual is that we actually made the video twice. The first version centred on the band and a choir of nearly forty children inside an abandoned factory. Technically, it worked. The images looked good and everyone had done their job. But when we watched the edit, both Mauro and I felt that the images were too polished for what the song was saying. The lyrics spoke about the street, poverty, forgotten communities and real human contact, while the film felt controlled and distant from that reality.

So we made the difficult decision to start again. The definitive version was filmed in real locations across Paraná and São Paulo, including working-class neighbourhoods, city streets, a church, the Serra da Graciosa mountains and a helipad in Jundiaí. The second film had more truth in it, and that became far more important than simply making something visually polished.

What other directors’ work do you admire, and why?

The work that had the earliest and most lasting impact on me was Michael Jackson’s Thriller, directed by John Landis. I saw it as a child and did not understand the language of filmmaking yet, but I understood the feeling. It was the first time I realised a music video could contain a complete cinematic world, with character, atmosphere, transformation, tension and performance all working together. That idea stayed with me long before I ever touched a camera. 

More generally, I am drawn to directors who make strong visual choices without losing the human centre of the piece. I admire work where style is not decoration, where the image, performance, sound and story feel inseparable.

Where do you find the motivation for your projects?

Usually in the moment when an idea stops being abstract and starts becoming something you can almost see. Music is still one of my strongest sources of motivation because I spent years on the other side of the camera as a musician. I know what it feels like to care deeply about a song and then hand that song to someone else to translate visually. That creates a responsibility I take very seriously. I am also motivated by problems. 

Some of my favourite creative decisions have come from asking, “How do we make this work with the time, location or resources we actually have?” Constraints can force you to find an idea that is more specific and more personal than the obvious solution.

How do we make this work with the time, location or resources we actually have?

Above: Setting up the camera in the church.

What were some of the difficulties you faced in pulling this project together?

The biggest difficulty was not technical. It was deciding to discard the entire first version after everybody had already given their time and energy to it. Nearly forty children had rehearsed, arrived excited and performed for the camera. The band, crew and production had all worked through a long day. Then, after the edit, Mauro and I had to admit that the film was not serving the song in the way it needed to.

The biggest difficulty was not technical. It was deciding to discard the entire first version after everybody had already given their time and energy to it.

There is a strong temptation in filmmaking to protect what you have already spent, whether that is money, time or ego. Starting again feels irrational because you are throwing away something that is technically finished. The hardest part for me was having to explain that decision to people who had done nothing wrong. But that experience taught me that a director’s responsibility is not simply to protect the work already done. It is to protect the truth of the final film.

How long was the shoot and what was the most challenging aspect of the project?

It was not one continuous shoot in the usual sense because, in practice, we made two different versions of the film. The first version was completed during a long production day inside an abandoned factory in Curitiba. After deciding not to use it, we rebuilt the project and filmed the definitive version across several different locations in Paraná and São Paulo rather than trying to force everything into a single setting.

That geographic spread created the usual logistical challenges, but the hardest aspect remained the creative decision behind it. We had to accept that efficiency was no longer the priority. If we wanted the images to feel connected to the reality described in the song, we needed to go to places that carried that reality rather than simply dressing one convenient location to represent everything.