Making Largo with care, empathy, and shared responsibility

Art, at its most powerful, holds up a mirror and asks us to look. In a year marked by a worsening refugee crisis, increasingly hostile immigration rhetoric, and communities fractured by fear and misinformation, writer/director duo Salvatore Scarpa and Max Burgoyne-Moore set out to make something that would rouse empathy in a way words alone couldn’t.

A short film that demands care, compassion and empathy, Largo follows Musa, a young Syrian refugee living in foster care in the UK.

Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying “write hard and clear about what hurts” and that’s exactly what Max and Salvatore did. Feeling angered and shocked by what they were hearing around them, much of Largo’s dialogue comes directly from overheard conversations. “Most of the stuff we’d call offensive or racist is stuff we’ve overheard,” Max explains. “A lot of it is verbatim.” This really, is where the idea started.  

As they progressed, having written the script, they started looking for someone to visually bring the story to life; someone who was technically astute, but emotionally in-tune too. Cue cinematographer Rick Joaquim. 

"I'm not a refugee, but I'm a foreigner in this country,” says Rick, “and I've definitely felt like an outsider often. I think that’s why I'm so drawn to stories of otherness. This was a special story, and it hit home immediately." 

Salv and Max knew almost instantly after meeting and speaking with Rick that he was the right fit. Beyond shared taste, there was an alignment in values: story first, ampathic and egoless always. 

One of the most important considerations throughout the process was authenticity. Rather than asking “can we do this”, they spent a lot of time asking “should we do this”. The team worked closely with the Refugee Council to ensure they had their facts straight. They also involved people with lived experience both in front of and behind the camera. From language and signage, to costume and behaviour, everything was checked to make sure it made sense. They even went as far as to correct a simple mistake in the scene where Musa is reading a letter from his parents. After filming, they realised that the actor was reading English so his eyes were moving left to right, whereas if he were reading Arabic, they’d be moving right to left. “Anybody who reads Arabic would have known,” said Salv. “We had to fix it. It mattered.”  

That same sensitivity informed the film’s visual approach. One of the clearest rules the team set was how the camera related to Musa, keeping the camera on his level. “We never wanted to look down on him,” explains Rick. “We wanted to experience the world from his point of view.” 

This rule even resulted in a scene being removed as the directors realised it gave the audience information Musa himself didn’t have. This decision to lead with empathy runs through every layer of the film and its production.  

Max and Salv brought complementary expertise to the process: Max has a background working with children in education, while Salv comes from a strong visual and performance-led sensibility. This dynamic proved invaluable during the more chaotic moments of the shoot, particularly scenes involving multiple children. “I remember looking over and seeing Salv just like, at the end of his tether,” says Max, “and I'm like, it's cool, I got this, we're switching to teacher mode!”  

“Kids can be tricky on camera,” adds Rick. “They often look into the lens or they can pep each other up and they can also lose concentration very quickly.” Though he adds that this was not a problem for Zach, who was focused and professional the whole time. 

“That scene with all the kids together was tricky technically,” says Rick. “The sun kept going in and out of the clouds, which Karol balanced beautifully.” Max, too, reflects on the unpredictable UK weather; “the lighting is completely different from shot to shot. And then when you watch it back, somehow Karol completely balanced it.” “You made magic with those scenes” assures Rick.  

What becomes increasingly clear when listening to the team talk isn’t technical bravado, but gratitude. Compliments are offered freely and redirected just as fast. 

Rick and Karol have a long-established relationship that goes back years, whereas this was the first time Max and Salv had worked with Rick or Karol, though you wouldn’t know it. 

They all describe this sense of already knowing each other, citing an ease when talking and of shared references. “We put this inspo reel together at the beginning, to capture Rick” laughs Salv, “and when you watch the film now, it’s exactly what we wanted. It’s just a testament to Rick and his abilities.”  

“I try to be as bold and brave as I can,” says Rick. “But with this one, I didn’t feel I had to be.” Trying to just serve the story, Rick says he chose simplicity to make sure the performances and story were able to sing. 

It took everyone, individually and together, to make it work, and they’re careful to name check as many of the crew as possible. “We should also mention Roy,” says Rick when talk turns to the most challenging scene. 

The film’s most harrowing sequence - Musa alone at sea - was also its most logistically complex. Shot in open water, the sequence relied on stunt coordinator Roy Taylor and an extraordinary second unit team, many of whom had just come off major studio productions. 

“We were so lucky to catch Roy at a good time when he was available,” says Max. “He also loved the script though!” adds Rick. “He really connected with the story.” Luckily that experience meant Roy was able to advise on the logistics of filming a child pretending to drown in a boat in the middle of the sea - which would usually be shot in a controlled tank environment. Between him and production designer Joanne, they realised they needed multiple boats due to scheduling and as contingency. “We only had one boat, which we knew worked because we had tested it on a Hackney canal,” says Max, “but once we had all three boats made and on location, we realised we’d only tested the first one. So our producers took the boats out to sea. There's some amazing BTS of them stripped down to their underwear” he laughs.  

The duo credit Roy for the success of that scene. Having studied films like Castaway and Where The Wild Things Are to understand how scenes like that are shot - and with a very clear picture in their heads of what they wanted to achieve - Roy managed to get every shot they requested, exactly as they requested it. “Roy was very much a mentor for us,” says Max. “He talked us through how we needed to plan it and how we needed to shoot it. It was amazing.”

“That bit where Zach’s bobbing in the water is some of my favourite footage,” says Rick. “Everything else is controlled until he goes into the water. That’s the gear shift in our visual language.” 

“And Zach did a lot of that stunt work himself” adds Salv.  

“There’s a scene on the beach where Zach flings himself into the water,” begins Rick as Max and Salv start laughing. “That happened on the first take! He wasn’t meant to do that.” Zach had been told specifically by Roy to stop before he reached the water. However, as soon as he was in the boat, “we all just keep shooting”, says Rick. “We were like, it’s working, just keep going!”  

Talk turns to the weather again. Despite meticulous planning, nature refused to cooperate. “Obviously that scene is supposed to be set in a storm,” says Max. “But when we turned up that morning, it was the nicest day of the year!”  

Through grading, sound design, and cinematography, the team managed to transform that stillness into a viscerally arresting scene. 

The look 

Inspired by E.T (also shot at ET’s height), Ken Loach’s social realism, and Italian Neorealist cinema from the ‘40s, the team repeated returned to the word ‘gritty’, visualised by muted greens and browns, punctuated by carefully chosen blues. 

Production designer Joanna and costume designer Sally played a crucial role in building a restrained, intentional palette that colourist Karol gently refined. “I was calming down certain colours and squeezing things in once we found the world we wanted,” adds Karol. “But really I was just looking after something as carefully as I could, like a delicate vase. I didn’t want to do anything heavy.” Rick echoes this: “Some colourists can really get their fingerprints on it and try to add more of a ‘look’. Karol never does. She does what’s best for the footage and the project.” Max remembers the initial conversations for the visual treatment of the dream sequence revolved around trying to push it in a weirder direction. “And then at some point, Karol was like, “how about this?” And then sort of went back to the original and did a very subtle little tweak. And suddenly we were like, “this is amazing. What have you done?” And she just said it’s the most natural version.” 

Impact beyond the screen 

From the very beginning, Largo was meant to create a social impact. “It was part of the film’s DNA” says Salv.  

Working with organisations like Slick Films, Good Chance, and the Refugee Council, the team were conscious that the film needed to function as more than a festival piece. It needed to be a tool for conversation, education, and empathy. 

One of the most meaningful outcomes of that thinking is the film’s rollout into schools across the UK as part of Refugee Week. From the beginning, Max and Salv discussed the idea of Largo being used in educational settings, initially unsure whether that ambition was realistic. “We threw it out there really early thinking there’s no way we can do that,” Max recalls. “And then our producers just went away and made it happen.” 

It was also screened at the Houses of Parliament in December to a room full of MPs, journalists, charity leaders and filmmakers, sparking a discussion around the media’s role in shaping public perception and the responsibility storytellers hold in challenging that. 

A shared act of care 

Something that really stuck after speaking with Max, Salv, Rick and Karol is the care and gratitude the team has for each other, and that nobody in the conversation took credit without immediately handing some of it to someone else. It’s obvious that the film is what it is because of the multitude of people on and off camera that carefully guided it along. They present as a team putting egos aside to do what’s best for the story. There’s a shared care and responsibility to make a real and emotive depiction of the realities faced by those seeking refuge. 

That sense of shared purpose - extending from script to set to schools - reinforces what Largo ultimately stands for: that empathy is a series of choices. Choices about how stories are told, who gets centered, and what responsibility filmmakers take on once the camera stops rolling. 

“It was such a pleasure making this film,” says Rick. “It’s such an important, serious topic but we had so much fun making it. It was such a special time for me. It’s a special film and I’m craving that feeling again. It’ll be hard to beat, that’s for sure.” 

Find out more about Largo, here.