Interview with the screenwriter Jose Raul Acosta, Award Winner for the Screenplay ‘Zaccheus’
Hi Jose Raul! ‘Zaccheus’ has been recently awarded Best 1st Time Screenwriter at the New York International Film Awards. Could you tell us more about this project?
Zaccheus is the story of a girl who loses her certainty about what is real and what isn’t. To find the truth, she embarks on a journey where her love for a stranger anchors her to a life that has lost all meaning—surrounded by loved ones who can harm her to the point of near death, and all set within an atmosphere built from my personal obsessions: the 80s, the threat of a world about to split in two because of the Cold War, adolescence, and the psychological horror of not knowing what will happen next. With Zaccheus, I wanted to approach terror from the perspective of teenage love. I used the mirror—a very common object—but as the vehicle for a human being, not a monster. Or maybe a monster but not drawn that way. Technology merges with supernatural horror, the viewer doesn’t fully understand what’s happening…until the end.
Tell us a bit about your background. When did you decide you wanted to work in the film industry?
I started writing when I was 9 years old and acting since I was 8. While it’s true that as an actor, I did a lot of theater and very little film and TV, my passion for those latter two always drove me to dream and push myself in both professions—acting and writing. I studied Acting in high school, writing in college, and in my master’s degree I studied artistic education, which is another one of my passions. I did all these things—had a son, got married—and I’m still working as a teacher, but I never stopped writing. I made some short films that I directed and produced with my wife, but it wasn’t until 2025 that I threw myself into writing my first feature film. So yes, I’ve wanted to work in this industry since I was a child—but it was only recently that I wrote my first short films and feature-length script.
Where did you get the inspiration from for creating your story?
Inspiration comes to me in different forms—sometimes it’s people, other times real life, my own or others’ experiences, or objects. In this case, it was an object I saw in an antique store, a mirror, and places I have visited. I let the places “speak” to me, and I let the words flow onto the page. Towns like Eureka Springs (which I haven’t visited but have researched thoroughly) and Salem were the major sources of inspiration; the mystery they emanate profoundly fed the story and atmosphere of Zaccheus. Series such as like Stranger Things, films like Insidious and Malignant, were especially inspiring when it came to approaching genres and themes, and above all, the theme of teenage love was inspired by my experience as a drama teacher to students between 11 and 17 years old.
The Award Winner screenwriter Jose Raul Acosta
What did you enjoy the most about writing your script?
Writing Zaccheus was a completely revelatory journey. Like any screenplay, the writer must put on the page all the visual and environmental details that theater doesn’t require, and this gives you the possibility of being the director of the project. I enjoyed the research enormously, because I got to know the slang of the 80s, the news that circulated during the Cold War, and my narrative focuses on the United States’ side in its fight against spies. I also loved imagining that I was living in those days when technology and screens didn’t distance us from other human beings, when we could walk anywhere safely, and when love could happen so easily, regardless of distance, through a phone without a screen or letters.
What keeps you inspired to continue working as a writer?
To make others dream, to know that another person can read my work or see the film and enjoy the journey as much as I did when writing it. It inspires me to know that someone can learn something new through my writing, maybe a technique, or develop a feeling, a concept, an idea, or simply absorb a poetic image. Because that’s what art is about: an artist who has a need, a wound, a feeling that moves them to create—but may that art serve some purpose for someone—whether I know them or not: to pull them out of an oppressive reality, make them laugh, provoke a necessary catharsis, or simply to inspire them.
What is the message that ‘Zaccheus’ conveys?
That we all have a mirror. A place where we hide the things we can’t face. A person we talk to when no one else is listening. A story we tell ourselves to survive. Zaccheus is about a girl who would rather believe in a ghost than accept that she might be alone. And honestly? Most of us would do the same. The message is simple: the line between sanity and madness is thinner than we think—and sometimes, the people who love you are the ones holding the knife… or the broken shards of your mirror.
Do you have a dream project or someone you would like to work with one day?
I would love to focus on writing series and feature films. My dream is for Blumhouse to produce my work—I think their indie horror is very powerful—but of course, any production company would be great for me. I also admire companies like: Fantastic Films, Logical Pictures, Myriad, and directors like Ari Aster, Mike Flanagan, Robert Eggers, and Karyn Kusama.
What’s next for you? What are you working on right now?
I am now finishing writing another feature film, with far more horror than Zaccheus, a real nightmare. This new script is about my personal experiences when I was in my twenties, when my mother died, which triggered a series of events that led me back to certain religious practices after having been an atheist for years. This new script is based on my supernatural experiences from that period, with some fictional elements to make it work as a film.
Connecting to Jose Raul Acosta:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/joseraulwriter
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Joseraulacostawriter
