FILMS
Independent fiction and documentary films by Massimo SalvatoSince 2005, I have made films in Wales and internationally, working across fiction, experimental cinema and intimate documentary.Available for selected screenings, education and facilitated discussionSelected films
FEATURE DOCUMENTARY · 2024
An intimate observational documentary following Jules Mallory Skinner through the everyday realities of living with cancer: music, friendship, care, and the changing texture of time.Currently unavailable pending music clearance
DOCUMENTARY · 2015 · 52 MINS
In Newport, an artist transforms industrial and consumer decay into objects, memory and personal mythology, against a changing city that has little space for him.
SHORT FICTION · 2011 · 19 MINS
A darkly comic psychological drama in which a student filmmaker enters the private worlds of two once-close writers, becoming the catalyst for their rivalry, desire and renewed creative drive.
SHORT FICTION · 2005 · 13 MINS
A poetic social drama about Carmen, a trans woman who returns to her rural southern Italian hometown to confront the family, faith and memories that once forced her to leave.
AboutI am a filmmaker, editor and educator based in Wales.For more than twenty years, I have worked across documentary, fiction, film education and community-based practice.Having grown up in southern Italy and made my home in Wales, I am drawn to stories that exist between cultures and established narratives. Whether directing, editing or teaching, I look for forms that allow people’s lived experiences to remain complex, contradictory and recognisably their own.My films are developed collaboratively, often outside conventional production structures. They combine close observation with a willingness to experiment with narrative, performance, archive and the unexpected moments that emerge during production.Current work includes the documentary Fursa, independent film editing, and curating Urban Circle's film programme in Newport. I also offer digital learning design, film education and editorial support for researchers and creative practitioners.
Selected writing and coverageA FILMMAKER BETWEEN PLACES
Profile, photographs and reflections on my films
Woody's Wax Works
READ THE PROFILETHE ODD WORLD OF DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKING
My account of developing The Shaman of Rust
Desktop Documentaries
READ THE ARTICLE
Massimo Salvato on location during Carmen, southern Italy, 2004. Photo by Anita Hummel
Services
I work with filmmakers, organisations, educators and researchers to shape films, learning and written work that are clear, purposeful and true to the people behind them.
Documentary & Community Film
Film Education, Workshops & Consultancy
Film Editing
Learning design
Academic & Editorial SupportFor researchers, students and creative practitioners developing written work.
Start a conversation
If you have a project, an idea or a piece of work that needs shaping, please get in touch.
Selected Projects
A selection of documentary, editing, education and community cinema projects developed across Wales and internationally.
INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARYThe Shaman of RustIn post-industrial Newport, an unconventional artist transforms derelict spaces and discarded objects into art, ritual and meaning. Filmed during the city’s Empty Shops project, and against the backdrop of the destruction of the Newport Chartist Mural, The Shaman of Rust follows his restless creative process and fragmented memories as he emerges from depression and reclaims a sense of purpose. An intimate portrait of resilience and imagination, the film explores how art can help both an individual and a changing city make meaning from what has been left behind.Writer, Producer, Director, Editor · Wales, 2015 · Carmarthen Bay Film Festival finalistFind out more
COMMUNITY CINEMA: URBAN CIRCLE FILM PROGRAMMEUCis20A sixteen-film community cinema programme in Newport, combining international and independent cinema with local short films, guest filmmakers and facilitated audience conversations.Curator and Programme Manager · Newport · 2026
FILM, NARRATIVE AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICEFacilitator, Lecturer and Programme DeveloperWorkshops, screenings and professional-development sessions exploring how film can support reflection, learning and conversations about lived experience.
INTERACTIVE LEARNING DESIGN
Can AI Spot a Cliché?
A 20-minute scenario-based Rise 360 learning experience exploring critical prompting, creativity and authorship.Learning Designer · Articulate Rise 360 · 2026
CONTACTLet’s talk.I welcome enquiries about learning design and digital education, documentary development, editing, film education, community screenings, workshops and academic editorial support.If you have a project, film, piece of research or early-stage idea you would like to discuss, please get in touch.Based in Newport, Wales, and available for work across the UK and internationally.
© 2026 Massimo Salvato · Filmmaker, educator and editor
Trevor Palmer in Newport, Wales
Dr Cecilia Nyagah, the Kenya-based coordinator of the Fursa initiative, outside the main Fursa office
Members of a Fursa group display their handwoven sisal baskets and bags during a community visit
THE SHAMAN OF RUST
Documentary · 52 minutes · Wales · 2015
Produced, directed and edited by Massimo SalvatoCarmarthen Bay Film Festival 2016 finalist
The Shaman of Rust is a poetic documentary about creativity, displacement and survival.Filmed in Newport, South Wales, during the Empty Shops project, it follows artist Jonathan Sherwood as he faces depression, the threat of losing his home and the disappearance of the temporary cultural spaces in which he and other local artists worked.Surrounded by rusted tools, discarded objects and recycled materials, Jonny continuously transforms what has been abandoned into art. His humour, vulnerability and restless imagination reveal creativity as a way of rebuilding purpose and identity.The film grew from a chance encounter in Newport’s empty-shop studios and was supported through a community crowdfunding campaign. Blending observational documentary, urban poetry and moments of surreal humour, it becomes both an intimate portrait of one artist and a record of a city undergoing profound change.The Shaman of Rust was a finalist at the Carmarthen Bay Film Festival in 2016.Art is the heart of a culture.
— Jonathan SherwoodA quirky yet riveting film … made with refreshing integrity.
— Taini Polypheme, Woody’s Wax Works, 2015
How the film began
The documentary began unexpectedly. I encountered Jonny in Newport town centre as he and around twenty other artists were facing eviction from the empty shop they had transformed into a communal studio. At the same time, Jonny was facing the possible loss of his own home.I began filming without a fixed structure, returning repeatedly to the studio and gradually earning the trust of the artists and other people using the space. What started as observational documentary developed into a more playful and collaborative form, incorporating music, poetry, performance and deliberately staged encounters alongside the unfolding reality.The film grew through this mixture of observation and improvisation. Its form emerged from the people, spaces and unexpected events encountered during production.
Newport in transition
The documentary also contains footage connected to the destruction of Newport’s Chartist Mural near John Frost Square. Its demolition became part of the wider context surrounding the film: a city being regenerated while many of its cultural spaces, artworks and communal histories were being displaced or erased.
Watch the trailer
Screen the film
The Shaman of Rust is available for community, educational, arts and cultural screenings. Screenings can be accompanied by an introduction or a discussion about documentary practice, mental health, community art, urban regeneration and Newport’s changing cultural landscape.
FILM EDUCATION, WORKSHOPS
AND REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
CARMENSHORT FICTION · 2005 · 13 MINS · 16MM · UK / ITALY
Written, produced and directed by Massimo Salvato
Following the death of her estranged father, Carmen returns to her southern Italian hometown as a trans woman—and to the mother from whom she has long been separated.Carmen is an intimate drama about a return. Set in Polla, southern Italy, the film follows a transgender woman as she revisits a place shaped by family expectation, religious tradition and painful childhood memories.As the present unfolds alongside fragments of the past, Carmen confronts the legacy of her father’s violence and the uncertainty of seeing her mother again. The film holds space for grief, shame and fear, but also for the possibility of recognition and tentative acceptance.
Making Carmen
Made in summer 2004 as my final MA Film project, Carmen was shot on 16mm in Polla, Salerno, with an Italian cast and production team alongside a Welsh crew.The film brings together Italian and Welsh collaborators to tell a story rooted in the tensions between private identity, family expectation and public tradition. It stars Cristina Donadio as Carmen.
WATCH THE MAKING OF CARMEN
A Film of Return
Carmen moves between present-day return and fragments of memory. Through the town's streets, religious spaces and the childhood courtyard, the film traces how a place can hold both belonging and exclusion.The washing becomes a gesture of renewal: Carmen reclaiming her body, her memory and her right to be seen on her own terms.
SELECTED FRAMES
Screen the film
Finalist at the Cardiff International Screen Festival and the Lucania International Film Festival.Carmen is available for curated screenings, LGBTQ+ film programmes, educational discussion and archive events.
Buy institutional licence
Documentary & Community Film
I work with charities, community organisations, artists and socially engaged projects to develop documentary films shaped with the people at their centre.From a first conversation to research, filming and editorial development, I bring structure, visual storytelling and a patient, collaborative approach to work that needs to be clear, purposeful and true to the people and ideas behind it.How I can help- Documentary research, development and treatments- Story, character and interview strategy- Community and charity film projects- Field production, filming and creative direction- Teasers, case studies and editorial development- Ethical approaches to consent, representation and collaboration
Selected project: Fursa-Cyfle-Opportunity
A Wales-Kenya documentary collaboration in development.
With members of the Fursa community project during filming in Kibwezi, Makueni County, Kenya, July 2024.
Fursa began through my involvement with ResponsABLE Assistance, a Newport-based charity working alongside disabled people’s groups in Kenya. During two weeks of filming in 2024, I followed community members whose businesses, skills and ambitions challenge familiar assumptions about disability and dependence. The developing documentary now follows the community as it completes and brings the borehole into use, a shared effort towards reliable water, income and greater independence.The video below was created in 2024 as a funders/context film for the Fursa Initiative of ResponsABLE assistance. The footage was filmed by myself and Josemarie Nyagah during our time with the community groups in Kenya, and later edited by Metfield Films Ltd. It introduces the charity partnership, the disabled people’s groups, and the borehole project that has become central to the developing documentary Fursa.
Context video for the Fursa Initiative · Footage by Massimo Salvato and Josemarie Nyagah · Edited by Metfield Films Ltd, 2024
Fursa is a documentary project connecting Wales and Kenya through the work of disability activist Trevor Palmer BEM and the disabled artisans and entrepreneurs supported by the Fursa initiative in Makueni County.The film follows people building businesses through rope-making, basketry, farming and micro-loans while confronting one fundamental obstacle: reliable access to water.At the centre of the developing story is a borehole drilled 200 metres beneath donated land. Water ha now been brought to the surface through solar power, as the community completes the final stage of a long shared effort.
Follow and support the Fursa initiative on Crowdfunder
The project grew from the long-term partnership between Newport charity ResponsABLE Assistance and disabled people’s organisations in Kenya. What began with three groups has developed into a wider network of community initiatives involving hundreds of members.The documentary follows relationships that have developed over time, between Wales and Kenya, between community organisers and participants, and between individual ambition and collective support.
The people at the centre
Trevor Palmer BEM
A Newport-based disability activist and the founder of ResponsABLE Assistance. A wheelchair user himself, he has spent many years building relationships with disabled people and community groups in Kenya, helping the Fursa initiative grow into a wide network supporting hundreds of members. His belief in practical, community-led empowerment connects the Welsh and Kenyan strands of the documentary. The strength of these relationships is reflected in Francis and Jacinta naming their young son Trevor after him.
Dr Cecilia Nyagah
The Kenya-based coordinator of the Fursa initiative and the principal link between the participating community groups and ResponsABLE Assistance in Wales. She supports members in developing enterprises, organising community activities and strengthening local leadership, working particularly closely with Francis Mutuku. Cecilia empowers disabled members of the Fursa community to support themselves and their families, while developing practical skills that they can share with other disabled people in their communities.
Nzembi Musuvuli
A wheelchair user, entrepreneur and community organiser, Nzembi has developed activities including water-tank sales and vegetable growing. Land connected to her family became central to the borehole project.
Jacinta and Francis Mutuku
Francis, who is blind, makes sisal ropes by hand and also tends livestock and a garden. Over time, he has become one of Fursa’s key leaders, working closely with Kenya-based coordinator Dr Cecilia Nyagah and emerging as a respected community advocate for disability empowerment. Jacinta supports the initiative through bookkeeping and administration and now trains other women in basic accountancy and beadwork. Together, they reflect the practical skills, leadership and mutual support at the heart of the Fursa community. Their family also includes little Trevor, named after ResponsABLE Assistance founder Trevor Palmer BEM.
Filming for Fursa doc at Nzembi's compound in Makueni County.
Visiting Francis and Jacinta's vegetable garden
With Nzembi
At the Fursa office
Group photo with Fursa women beadwork workshop
Explaining the film project with Cecilia to a Fursa group at their monthly financial meeting
Group photo with Francis Fursa group
With Fursa members at their vegetable stall
filming a scene with Esther, a Fursa business woman
Film Editing
I edit documentary, short-form and independent film work with close attention to structure, character, narrative, pacing and emotional truth.Whether you are starting with rushes, a rough cut or a film that has lost its way, I help identify the strongest story in the material and shape it into a coherent, engaging film. I can work remotely or in person, contributing a full edit, a period of story development or a fresh editorial perspective at a crucial stage.How I can help- Assembly and rough-cut editing
- Story, structure and sequence development
- Interview-led and observational narrative construction
- Fine-cut refinement and editorial feedback
- Trailers, teasers and short-form editsIn-person editing sessions can be arranged in Newport. For longer working days, tea, coffee and access to kitchen facilities are available.
Selected workAs editor on Newport: Rebels & Renaissance, directed by Keefa Chan, I helped shape a documentary about culture, identity and social history in Newport.My wider editing work spans character-led documentary, arts projects and independent film, with particular attention to the relationship between image, sound, performance and story.Start a conversation
If you have footage, a rough cut or a film that needs a clearer shape, I would be glad to hear about it.
Film Education, Workshops & Consultancy
Practical, film-centred learning for students, educators and creative communities
I design and facilitate film workshops, screening programmes and professional-development sessions that use moving-image storytelling to support learning, reflection and meaningful conversation.Drawing on more than twenty years as a filmmaker teaching film studies, media and creative practice, I combine close film analysis with practical creative work. Sessions can be developed for students, arts organisations, educators, community groups, health professionals, researchers and creative practitioners.My approach is collaborative and adaptable. I shape each session around the participants, the setting and the questions the organisation wants to explore.How I can help- Film Studies and media education
- Documentary filmmaking and editing workshops
- Film analysis, storytelling and script development
- Screening introductions and facilitated discussions
- Reflective practice and creative learning workshops
- Support with course, workshop and curriculum development
CURATED SCREENINGS AND FACILITATED DISCUSSIONFilm screenings accompanied by introductions, guided discussion and reflective activities.Programmes can be developed around social, cultural, political or personal themes, helping audiences continue the conversation beyond the film itself.
FILM WORKSHOPS AND SHORT COURSESPractical and analytical sessions exploring visual storytelling, documentary, screenwriting, directing, editing and mobile filmmaking.Workshops can introduce new skills, develop an existing project or help participants understand how meaning is created through image, sound and narrative.
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE THROUGH FILM AND STORYTELLINGBespoke sessions using film, narrative and creative exercises to support reflection on professional experience, communication, identity and lived experience.This work can be adapted for health professionals, educators, community workers and multidisciplinary teams.
CURRICULUM AND PROGRAMME DEVELOPMENTSupport with designing film courses, workshop programmes, learning materials and community-cinema projects—from initial concept and film selection through to delivery and evaluation.
Current project
Through Urban Circle Newport, I curate independent and international film screenings, introduce films and facilitate conversations with community audiences.This work brings together film education, access and discussion: using cinema as a way for people to reflect, exchange ideas and connect stories on screen with their own lives.
The Circle, 6 market Street, Newport. Urban Circle’s vibrant new venue attached to the historic Market Arcade. The venue features an intimate micro cinema for film screenings and special events.
On 16 September 2026, I hosted a special Urban Circle Community Cinema screening of the documentary Life Support at The Circle, in partnership with Newport Palestine Solidarity Campaign.The evening opened with a recorded introduction from director Daniele Rugo and was followed by a conversation and audience Q&A with Professor Nick Maynard, consultant surgeon and one of the doctors featured in the film.The discussion created space to reflect on medical testimony, care under extreme pressure, public responsibility and the role documentary can play in helping audiences confront difficult realities. It was an example of how a carefully facilitated screening can support listening, reflection and meaningful conversation around urgent social issues.
Audience gathering at The Circle for the special screening of Life Support
Professor Nick Maynard in conversation with the audience after the film
Learning Design & Digital Courses
I design engaging and concise digital learning experiences for educational, creative and community settings.
My approach combines clear structure with visual storytelling, active learner participation and meaningful feedback.
The aim is to create learning that invites people to think, make connections and apply what they have learned.
Drawing on more than twenty years in further and higher education alongside my work as a filmmaker and editor, I create learning that makes complex ideas accessible, practical and visually engaging.How I can help
- Short digital learning modules and courses
- Scenario-based activities and interactive choices
- Learning content for creative and educational projects
- Course structure, tone and learner experience
- Film, storytelling and visual material for learning
- Review and development of existing learning content
Selected work
Can AI spot a cliché?
Critical prompting, creativity and authorship in filmmaking
How can creative media learners use AI without losing critical judgement or originality?
Interactive learning experience
A short, scenario-based digital learning experience exploring how generative AI can be used critically within the filmmaking process.
Designed for creative-media learners, the course moves from recognising cinematic clichés to constructing more purposeful prompts, evaluating AI-generated alternatives, and questioning assumptions around character and representation. Throughout, learners are encouraged to retain authorship and make their own creative decisions.
AUDIENCE: Level 3/4 creative-media learners
DURATION: Full course: approx. 20 minutes · Portfolio demo: 8 minutes
TOOLS & TECHNICAL DELIVERY: Built in Articulate Rise 360; published as a responsive web course and available as a SCORM 1.2 package for LMS delivery
MY ROLE: Learning design · Content development · Interaction design · Visual development
DESIGN APPROACH: The experience is structured around a progression from recognition to application. Learners first identify familiar cinematic clichés, then examine how generative AI can reinforce them before learning a five-part prompting framework: Context, Task, Constraints, Output and Authorship.Scenario-based activities and formative questions allow learners to test the framework, evaluate AI-generated suggestions and consider issues of stereotype and representation. The final activity asks learners to apply these ideas to their own creative practice.Throughout the course, AI is positioned as a tool for exploration rather than a substitute for creative judgement: AI proposes. The filmmaker decides.
Documentary: Truth, Form and Filmmaking
An interactive course for sixth-form, further-education and introductory higher-education learners.It explores questions of evidence, construction and ethics in documentary through case studies, dialogue choices and formative quizzes, combining film education with active learning.
From Vague to Useful
Workplace feedback microlearningA 15-18 minute interactive microlearning course for new managers and team leaders who need to turn vague feedback into constructive, actionable conversations.Learners use the OBSERVE → EXPLAIN → ACTION → CHECK framework to identify behaviour, explain its impact, agree a practical next step and invite the other person’s perspective.Available as a 12-month institutional licence for secure LMS/VLE delivery. Includes a SCORM 1.2 course package, a downloadable Giving Useful Feedback Job Aid, and an LMS installation and licence guide.This project demonstrates performance-focused instructional design, scenario writing, formative feedback and responsive e-learning development in Articulate Rise 360.
Start a conversationIf you have expertise, resources or a course idea that needs shaping into engaging digital learning, I would be glad to hear from you.
Academic & Editorial Support
I work with researchers, postgraduate students and creative practitioners who need to clarify a complex argument, shape a draft or present their ideas with greater confidence.
My approach is developmental and collaborative. I focus on structure, clarity and flow while protecting the writer’s voice and ownership of the work.How I can help
- Essay, chapter and research proposal structure
- Developmental feedback on argument and coherence
- Editing for clarity, flow and academic expression
- Presentations, applications and project documents
- Artists’ statements, treatments and creative proposals
- One-to-one support with research and writing processes
Recent work has included support with doctoral research, academic writing, presentations and creative-project materials.
This is supportive editorial and educational work. I do not write assessed work on a student’s behalf or guarantee grades.
Start a conversationIf you have a piece of writing, research or project material that needs clearer structure and confident expression, I would be glad to discuss it.