NEWSByZack Eaton
THU DEC 11Brooklyn Brewery Supports: AJ MattioliThis year, we’re proud to launch Brooklyn Brewery Supports, a new initiative created in partnership with actor, model, LGBTQ+ activist, and The Stonewall Inn Gives Back Initiative board member Angelica Christina. Instead of a Pride campaign, we’ve taken direct action by sending $1,000 each to twenty-five trans, non-binary, and two-spirit New Yorkers in need, while uplifting their stories throughout 2025. At a time when these communities are facing escalating discrimination, anti-trans legislation, and even violence across the country, we believe the most impactful way to stand in solidarity is by sharing resources and amplifying voices that deserve to be heard.
AJ Mattioli is a filmmaker and producer whose work centers queer stories and community. He founded Mattioli Productions in 2012 with a mission to create authentic queer cinema and foster more inclusive sets. He has since produced more than 20 films across features and shorts. Deeply committed to uplifting his community, AJ hires queer talent, reinvests in queer-owned platforms, and uses his work to amplify marginalized voices. In our conversation, we explore his path into filmmaking, his community-first approach, and his hopes for greater support of trans and queer creatives.
Brooklyn Brewery: What’s been your journey as a filmmaker?
AJ Mattioli: When I was younger, I was not a student at all. I did not excel academically in any way. I was working at Blockbuster—I could’ve worked at Blockbuster for the rest of my life and been happy. But my parents begged me to go to college for two years, and while in college, when I finally said, “hey, you’re always watching movies, why don’t you take a filmmaking class?” I took that class and then became an academic.
BB: What made you want to get into film production?
AJ: The reason I started a queer film production company was because I was on set with someone who was pretty toxic, and I looked around and said, “I could do this better and nicer” than this person. And then I said, “I could just make queer movies, movies that I care about.” So, I wouldn’t say someone influenced me in a positive way necessarily, but they showed me what I don’t want to do any of.
It’s just as important knowing what you want to do as it is knowing what you don’t want to do. And I don’t want to treat people poorly. I want people to come to work excited and see me and smile. And that’s why I produced movies, you know?
M production company, Mattioli Productions, focuses on queer cinema. We’ve been involved in cinema since 2012 and have made over 20 movies within features and shorts. We’re lucky enough to be all over the place on queer owned platforms. Most excitingly, I’ve worked on my latest film, Glitter Baited, which is a serial, divergent queer reimagining. It’s very cute. It’s coming out next year. And it’s adorable.
BB: Tell us about a project that you have worked on that you really enjoyed.
AJ: My favorite film that I’ve ever worked on was a movie called Killing Unicorn, which is about a very fit man running around in a unicorn mask and booty shorts, attacking drag queens around Brooklyn written by Alvarez—he is an amazing filmmaker. What’s great about the film is we cast all drag queens from Brooklyn. If you’re from Brooklyn, you can go and you can see any of the drag queens in the movie live in Brooklyn.
BB: How did the Brooklyn Brewery Support fund help you?
AJ: I was really excited to get these funds—I was able to put a large portion of it towards my next film called Try to Remember, which is a movie about a trans man that goes home to Long Island to deal with his mother who has dementia, and how that would look in real life. I was also able to give a little bit of money forward to five people that needed a meal. I was really happy to do that.
BB: How do you stay connected to your community?
AJ: So a lot of what I do, both in my filmmaking career and in my advocacy work, is I keep my money rainbow. So my money’s isn’t green, it’s rainbow: I keep it within the community. I try to hire people within the community. We are a marginalized group, so I try to do what I can to keep us employed.
BB: Why is it so critical for brands to support trans people?
AJ: In today’s world, we’re seeing more and more companies pull away from the queer community and pull away their funding. And to have Brooklyn Brewery give money to trans people directly is amazing and makes us feel included, welcomed and makes us feel safe.BB: What do you do to celebrate yourself?
AJ: Everything I do is work related—I am a workaholic. And the problem is, my friends always tell me to get a hobby, but all I want to do is make movies. So when I need a weekend to myself, I tend to watch films from the 90s that center around queer characters and kind of zone in on why I do what I do. Remembering that we only had a handful of movies to watch back in the 90s, and now we have so many, and I love that I’m a part of that.
One of the movies that inspired me when I was younger was Kissing Jessica Stein. It is a movie about a woman exploring her sexuality who decides not to date another woman. It’s the fluctuation of going back and forth within that is very real. And finding your sexuality isn’t A to B, it’s a. A1 A2 A3, A4, B step process. So by the time you get there, you know, it’s not a clear line for most people. So watching those movies really helped me reflect on my life.
BB: What advice would you give trans folks who are trying to hold it all together?
AJ: It’s been incredibly hard for trans people in the United States for the last year or so. What I would say is, talk to your friends, join Facebook groups, join Instagram groups, join Discords, just talk with people within the community and you’ll find your people.
And finding other people is so important right now. We are here for each other. And that’s the most beautiful thing about the queer community is we are here for each other.
BB: What’s something you want more people to understand, or hold care for, in the trans community?
AJ: One thing I ask people to remember is don’t only be our advocate when we’re in the room. Don’t just advocate in front of me. Advocate all the time. We need you.
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