Timothy Mendonça ’13

Right now, Timothy Mendonça is wrapping up a production coordinator job for what he calls a “small” film: First Reformed. It stars Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried, and is written and directed by Paul Schrader, the screenwriter who gave us Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

It’s small compared to, say, the Amazon original series Sneaky Pete, which premiered in January and was created by Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston. Needless to say, that was a big production, and so was the M. Night Shyamalan film Split, another 2016 production gig for Mendonça. He’s moved up the ladder quickly since, as a film/media major, he juggled jobs at newportFILM and on any movie set in R.I. he could talk his way on to, including Moonrise Kingdom.

The Newport native lives in New York City now, where his job means he serves as “nervous system” to each production, aware of every detail on set and off. He’s incubating more filmmaking dreams—he has written a screenplay and worked on-camera—but he’s biding his time. Life is good. “It’s such a rewarding experience to be able to move out of a small town, and start a life and career that you can really be happy with.”

By Pippa Jack