Rudy Mancuso moves to his own beat. he doesn’t exactly have a choice. Born with musical synesthesia—a neurological condition in which the stimulation of sound leads to the automatic, involuntary experience of rhythm and melody—the millennial internet personality, musician, actor, and director has made a career from listening to the rhythms only he can hear. Channeling his internal soundtrack with the help of his longtime creative partner—Diego, his puppet—Mancuso’s quirky musicality soon made him an internet star. As Mancuso currently transitions from creating content to directing feature films, it’s clear that his distinct gift is still at the center of his vision. And now, the rest of us can hear it too.

Música, Mancuso’s new autobiographical debut feature from Amazon Prime Video that debuted at SXSW Film Festival, is a heartfelt tribute to his Brazilian-American upbringing in New Jersey. It’s a story that only he could tell, a unique perspective on the relationship between music and sound. As Mancuso shares, “I’ve always wanted to explore the Brazilian-American perspective and showcase Brazilian culture... It’s really a story that only I could tell, and that’s what I wanted for my first feature.”

Set in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, a multi-cultural pocket that defined the director’s formative years, Mancuso chose to shoot the pivotal settings of Música on-location in the actual buildings from his past, from the fish market to the Brazilian Grill restaurant to his mother’s house. Speaking of his mother, Maria Mancuso’s performance as herself—a doting, pushy, and very Brazilian mom—steals the show in each of her scenes, grounding the story in an unteachable reality and love between mother and son: “That nonactor in her is what made her shine,” Mancuso shares, “and I just had to take advantage of that.” J.B. Smoove’s patently off-the-cuff performance as a social chameleon street vendor brings a spontaneous levity to the story while embodying the good-natured, hard-working characters Mancuso’s met in Ironbound over the years.

In its central budding romance between Rudy and Isabella—a Brazilian girl-next-door played masterfully by Camila Mendes—Música has the unfair rom-com cheat code of depicting two people falling for each other, whose real life chemistry led to them dating as co-stars. Mancuso discusses how the two hit it off immediately. “The park scene, where we’re getting asked each other’s questions and getting as deep as we can into each other’s psyches, was the first two days of shooting. So, we quickly realized that chemistry was brutal and palpable, which is a very special experience.”

While the film’s romantic chemistry and authentic core are enough to carry Música as a rewarding coming-of-age rom-com, its creative depiction of synesthesia brings an extraordinary level of depth to the project. The film brings an obscured, internal soundtrack to life through masterful choreography, dynamic production design, and innovative sound mixing, offering a glimpse into his unique perspective. Mancuso explains how the musical numbers were pivotal to Música’s conception: “I composed a lot of the music before the script had been finished. I had ideas for how the music would sound and would be choreographed.”

Taking inspiration from 2000s blockbuster dance movies like Stomp the Yard and Step Up, Música reimagines a film set on a musical stage while remaining grounded in an authentic reality. Working with Rhythm Supervisor, Marivaldo Dos Santos, and Executive Music Producer, Jamie Rise, to recreate the songs live on set by staging background actors like an orchestra, Mancuso pulls off sequences that immerse the viewer in his condition. This is exemplified by the quotidian sounds of a diner in the opening scene slowly building into a cacophony that blots out the conversation Rudy’s girlfriend is trying to have with him. Mancuso explains the detailed recording process in that diner scene: “Even though I had a template of what I wanted musically, we were recording everything live—from a broom sweep to a pan hitting a table [everything] had its own respective microphone. At one point, we had 99 microphones in the diners so we could capture the room—capture all the objects as it was happening... it really helped depict this type of synesthesia where nonmusical miscellaneous objects could turn into instruments.”

Bookending that opening diner scene towards the film’s climax is a spell-binding, near 5-minute “unorthodox theatrical montage” that manifests the rising conflicts in Rudy’s life by throwing up and taking down the different sets in real-time, like a sped-up stage play. Discussing why he took this difficult approach, Mancuso says, “I wanted the chaos of that challenge to reflect what the character was going through. It’s like his whole life feels like one long day. He’s trying to keep up with the rhythm of lies, and how better to demonstrate that than creating these moveable assembling and disassembling sets that fly in and out of his life?”

Música dazzles through its theatricality, but ultimately expresses a humble message of being honest about your dreams, even if it seems foolish to the people around you. Through rib-tickling back-and-forths with Diego that reveal Rudy’s unfiltered consciousness, Mancuso depicts the moving self-belief that has defined his career with enough self-aware silliness that it never feels didactic. As he looks forward to his next film in the works, which Mancuso states will be “vastly different,” he shares one common denominator he knows will define whatever he does next: “Music will always be a character in my films.” 

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Photographed by Naoki Fukuda

Styled by Anissa Silvas and Fausti

Written by Oliver Heffron

Grooming: Evy Drew for Exclusive Artists using Koh Gen Do

Photo Assistants: Takeki Yasuda and Keely Whipple

Styling Assistant: Sophia Yanez