"A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints" director Dito Montiel

DECEMBER 4, 2006—Dito Montiel wasn’t a saint while growing in the New York neighborhood of Astoria, Queens.

But he’s matured into a true Renaissance man.

He served as the lead singer of Gutterboy, a punk band that Geffen Records signed in 1989 for a cool $1 million. He paraded around in his underwear during his stint as a Calvin Klein model. He penned 2003’s “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” which fictionalized his troubled childhood in 1980s Astoria.

Now he can add “director” to his resume.

Montiel, who's of Nicaraguan and Irish descent, originally intended for his film version of “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints” to be a low-budget affair shot on videotape to show to friends and family. Then Robert Downey Jr.—an acquaintance of an acquaintance—agreed to star in Montiel’s gritty street opera. Naturally, everything changed overnight for Montiel. What started as a labor of love soon became a moody Sundance Film Festival award winner with Sting and his wife, Trudy Styler, among its producers.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints jumps from the past and present to chronicle the events leading up to Montiel’s departure and eventual return to Astoria. Montiel pulls no punches in depicting the violence that follows his younger self, portrayed by Holes’ Shia LaBeouf, and his self-destructive pals. Downey stars as an older and wiser Montiel, who returns home after a 15-year-old absence to reunite with his loving mother (Diane Wiest) and sick father (Chazz Palminteri). The film is as much a study in contrasts between Astoria of yesteryear and today as it a heartfelt examination of the rocky relationship between a wayward son and his stern but caring father.

Having received its South Florida in October during the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints receives an encore run at the FLIFF’s Cinema Paradiso through Tuesday, Dec. 5. The film also screens through Thursday, Dec. 7 at the Lake Worth Playhouse.

Film South Florida spoke with Montiel during his FLIFF visit about his directorial debut, Downey’s significant role in getting the film made, and the liberties he took turning his life into a movie.

Film South Florida: The FLIFF screening was not the first time you have watched the film with an audience. How do you feel sitting through your filmwith an audience?

Dito Monteil: That’s always hardest part, watching the film with an audience. If the audience laughs at something that’s not supposed to be funny, you sit there and wonder why they’re laughing. But it’s a nice feeling when someone stands up and tells you they are touched by your film.

Film South Florida: How did Robert Downey Jr. boarding the film change your plans?

Montiel: I had already decided to make the movie with my editor—on video and with a tape recorder. When Robert became involved, I spent a night with my editor congratulating ourselves that we had got a big movie star. Reality set in the next morning. We couldn’t shoot the film on videotape. We needed money. And I feared they would now get a real writer and director and cameraman, and it would become one of those bad movies. Luckily, with Robert, he was more than just a movie star showing up and doing us a big favor. He was willing to take the ride with us. He suggested I direct, which I secretly hoped would happen. He said he would talk to [executive producer] Sting and [his wife, producer] Trudy Styler about it. [Styler] told me to make a short over the weekend, and if they liked it, I could direct the film. So I made a ridiculous little short that impressed her.

Film South Florida: The film is a fictionalized account of your teen-age years in Astoria, Queens. How much of you is in the film version of Dito played, at different ages, by Robert Downey Jr. and Shia LaBeouf?

Monteil: I was a tough kid, a nervous kid. I got into more trouble than Dito does [in the film]. But God, [Downey and LaBeouf] captured exactly how I felt. They knew if I looked at someone the wrong way I would get killed.

Film South Florida: For the film, you created composite characters based on your childhood friends.Where did real life end and reel life begin?

Monteil: The way I went about it was to pick five kids I knew and use the language I remember them using.I took stories that were true, and once I went through the process of letting go of writing an autobiography … I had to at least make a film that was emotionally true.

Film South Florida: The film partly follows the older Dito’s return to Astoria—to see him ailing father—15 years after he found himself in trouble with the law and fled for L.A. How long were you away from Astoria? And how did you feel about going back?

Monteil: My story’s a little different. I was gone for about 10 straight years. I felt a lot like Robert [as the older Dito]. It was harder going away than coming back. I read somewhere that in America, 75 percent of people live within five miles of where they were born. I remember once saying to myself that was not going to be me. Now I love five blocks from where I lived. And I might still be there when it come times for me to die.

Film South Florida: Did you go back with the purpose of seeing your father?

Monteil: I had not seen my father for a while. And I missed the people. I loved living in L.A., but I’m at home where I’m from.

Film South Florida: Your film neither glorifies nor demonizes your father. What does he think of the film?

Monteil: He’s not seen the film. He wouldn’t want to see it. He’s very sick. He’s not much for movies. I brought him a VCR when they first came out. I put on The Untouchables. He’s sitting there, watching the show, and soon asked, “Where are the commercials?” I told him it was playing on a machine. He walked away. I made a record. I put it on for him. I asked him he though it was any good. He said, “I don’t listen to music.”

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