Matteo Moretti

Gatorville will be heading to Missouri for @truefalsefilmfest this March! We are grateful to take part in such a thoughtful program and festival. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible and we hope to see you there. Director: @freddie.gluck 👋 Producers: Chloe Campion, @moretti.media , @freddie.gluck Executive Producers: @caitlyn__greene ,Tim Zaug, @freddie.gluck Cinematographer: @moretti.media Editor: @freddie.gluck Additional Editing: @moretti.media Associate Producers: @benhunter.lsm @lisalaursendesign , Chris Wirth, James Stephens Composer: @moretti_inc Assistant Camera: @benhunter.lsm George the Emu BTS Photography: @benhunter.lsm Sound Design/Mix/Master: @feltsound Color: @sderlug DCP: @dillonbrown.89 Graphic Design: @long.davis Painter/Poster: @_jordansullivan_

Gatorville will be making its premiere at @bigskydocfest on February 19th! We are very grateful and excited to be part of this festival and their thoughtful programming. To those who make it out to the fest or any Montana locals, we are excited to see you there! Director: @freddie.gluck 👋 Producers: Chloe Campion, @moretti.media , @freddie.gluck Executive Producers: @caitlyn__greene ,Tim Zaug, @freddie.gluck Cinematographer: @moretti.media Editor: @freddie.gluck Additional Editing: @moretti.media Associate Producers: @benhunter.lsm @lisalaursendesign , Chris Wirth, James Stephens Composer: @moretti_inc Assistant Camera: @benhunter.lsm George the Emu BTS Photography: @benhunter.lsm Sound Design/Mix/Master: @feltsound Color: @sderlug DCP: @dillonbrown.89 Graphic Design: @long.davis Painter/Poster: @_jordansullivan_

Stone Dead is out now on Vimeo Link in bio! Thank you for the support from @directorslibrary Journey into the enigmatic world of Rex, a self-made sculptor who engages in philosophical musings about mortality — verbalizing his abandonment of fear to headstones. Director: me DP: @moretti.media Editors: @freddie.gluck @moretti.media Composer: @jmelanson Sound Mix: @jaredblizzard Colorist: @sderlug

Gatorville will have its New York premiere at @rooftopfilms in their wonderful summer series. On June 30th at 7pm, we will screen at the Brooklyn Grange Sunset Park as part of the Farm-to-Screen Shorts program. We can't wait to share this evening with our New York friends and family. Thanks again to @rooftopfilms for their commitment to bringing together the short film community. 🐊

Gatorville by Freddie Gluck and Matteo Moretti Filmmakers: 🎥 Freddie Gluck is an American filmmaker and documentarian who blends the realms of nonfiction and narrative storytelling. 🎥 Matteo Moretti is a Greek–Italian–American filmmaker and cinematographer drawn to intimate, place-based stories at the intersection of culture, environment, and lived experience. 🍿Synopsis: As childhood memories are made and fade in the same instant, siblings Lily and Bodhi diverge at the dawn of a life beyond their home, a Colorado alligator sanctuary. Their bond, forged by the exotic nature of their remote high desert landscape, begins to change as Lily enters her teenage years. Searching inward, Bodhi contemplates the meaning of friendship and family beyond his reptilian counterparts. 🎬 Stay tuned as the shortlist soon heads to Los Angeles for an industry program led by Sony Pictures executives. ©️ Freddie Gluck and Matteo Moretti, United States, Gatorville, Shortlist, Non-Fiction, Sony Future Filmmaker Awards 2026 #SFFA2026 #sonyfuturefilmmakerawards

We are grateful to announce that Gatorville was awarded the Documentary Short Film Grand Jury Prize at this year's @iffboston Our team is excited that the film resonated with the Boston community and the festival. Within the filmmaking process, we were given the trust and opportunity to share a look into the lives of Lily and Bodhi. That is something we don't take for granted. We give many thanks to the Young family for allowing us into their world and sharing this filmmaking experience with them. Here is the statement from the @iffboston jury: We’re dropped right into the tire pit in astonishing color and light in this film. The incredibly unique setting is rendered completely usual by the sweet and precocious brother and sister duo who share their contemplations on growing up in a place most people would consider extreme, and what it might mean to leave it all behind one day.

The Gatorville festival circuit has been incredible so far. We’ve met many wonderful filmmakers and festival goers and now we are beyond excited for our next stop at DC/DOX! This festival brings many exciting and unique films year after year and we are grateful to be a part of it. Thanks to the @dcdoxfest team for having us and we look forward to June! Gatorville screens Friday, June 12th at 2:00PM at the Regal Cinemas Gallery Place - Theatre 11 We hope to see you there 🐊

Gatorville will be screening at @riverrunfilm !! We cannot wait to see you there. Our screening schedule is: April 20th at 5:30PM @ A/perture Cinema #2 April 24th at 5:30 PM @ UNCSA - Babcock Theatre Thanks again to the entire team and supporters who made this possible. Thank you to @riverrunfilm for the opportunity to screen in such an amazing program. 🐊❤️

Grateful to announce that Gatorville will make its Colorado Premiere this April at Aspen Shortsfest! Gatorville will screen on opening night, April 7th, at 4PM in the Wheeler Opera House. Thank you to @aspenfilm for the opportunity. Our team is excited to be in the valley once again for a beautiful week of films. To our friends in Carbondale and the surrounding area, we will see you there!

meet our director of photography @moretti.media 🌺

We’re excited to announce that Gatorville will be screening on April 17th at Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC !! Gatorville will be taking part in the Full Frame NEW DOCS program and we are very excited to be in attendance among many other great films. Thank you to @fullframefest for creating a program with such a thoughtful slate of films!

It’s hard not to lean into “spectacle” when you’re surrounded by alligators, but in “Gatorville,” director @freddie.gluck and I knew we wanted something different than the exotic documentaries and news segments the Young family had been a part of before. Shooting on anamorphics felt like a natural answer—a way to build a world cinematic enough to honor the whimsy of where Bodhi and Lily are growing up without tipping into sensationalism. I found that the way anamorphics rendered the landscape helped us establish that this is a place-based coming-of-age story first, and an alligator story second. Honesty was more important than something punchy. Early in production, Jay (the father) had a way of testing us. He’d ask if I trusted him before walking me into an enclosure to do something crazy, invite us onto a sketchy greenhouse roof to film repairs, or take off sprinting to see if I could keep up with my camera. Those moments forged real trust, but they also revealed one of the film’s central tensions: how do you honor how normal all of this feels to these kids? Inspired in part by an Ozu rabbit hole Freddie and I had fallen down, our answer was primarily to have the camera live on a tripod. A static, peaceful close-up of a so-called dangerous animal in between scenes. Bodhi and Lily moving through their world without urgency. Those quiet pauses were the emotional punctuation of the film, letting the place and story reveal itself slowly rather than through spectacle. Equally important was knowing when to put the camera down entirely and hang out with the Youngs. Trampoline sessions, foot races, trips to the hot springs became a part of our filmmaking process. Bodhi and Lily seeing us as people, not just a crew, is what allowed them to eventually share things their father told us he’d never heard before. Freddie and I share a love for place-based storytelling in small communities, and this slow-built, intimate trust is central to how we work. It’s this style of collaborative, unhurried, close-to-the-ground cinematography where I feel most like myself behind the camera. - DCA Affiliate Member Matteo Moretti @moretti.media on filming @gatorvillefilm