The Founders

Writer-Director Lucia Mauro and her husband, producer Joe Orlandino, founded In My Brother's Shoes, Inc., in 2014. It's named after their first film, In My Brother's Shoes. Their goal is to tell meaningful and uplifting stories in film and to share them with communities via screenings that prompt energized and healing discussions. Lucia's 2014 short film, In My Brother’s Shoes, starring Danny McCarthy (Boardwalk Empire, Blue Bloods, Elvis & Nixon) as a man who honors his fallen U.S. Marine Corps brother by taking a pilgrimage to Rome in his sibling’s combat boots, was awarded Best Short Film at the 2015 Mirabile Dictu International Catholic Film Festival at the Vatican. It also was featured in the 2015 International Cannes Film Festival’s Short Film Corner. Her 2016 feature, One Year Later, tells the story of an American woman who takes a cathartic trip to the Italian Alps one year after completing cancer treatment. It screened at Montreal’s Views of the World Film & Music Festival, where it was nominated for Best Original Score. The film is shown throughout the medical community for cancer support groups.  Frances Xavier Cabrini: The People’s Saint is a poetic 2017 documentary honoring the Patron Saint of Immigrants' Centenary Year. It was an Official Selection of the 2018 Catholic Film Festival in Seoul, South Korea. All of her films explore the idea of healing, resilience and human connection. In 2020, she premiered Voci del diario (Entries), a short film about the life cycle told through one man and his journals (a Best Drama Finalist at the 2020 Fotofilm International Short Film Festival in Istanbul); and I Have a Name, a documentary that addresses homelessness in Chicago and the organizations that nourish the whole person. I Have a Name won Best Documentary at the 2020 Mirabile Dictu International Catholic Film Festival at the Vatican and the Silver Award at the 2020 Spotlight Documentary Film Festival in Atlanta. In Summer 2021, she completed production on her documentary, The Loneliest Road, inspired by Silvio Manno's book, Charcoal and Blood, about a little-known 1879 massacre of Italian-immigrant charcoal burners striking for better wages on the Nevada mining frontier. It is in post-production. Her latest completed films are the 2023 documentary, Ovarian Cancer & Early Detection: The Story of a Northwoods Community Making a Difference, which celebrates the work of Ovarian Cancer Symptom Awareness toward finding an early-detection test via a unique collaboration with Penn Vet's Canine Scent Detection Program; and the 2023 short film, Inverno (Winter), which follows a day in the life of a man who resides in the Italian town of Fiumefreddo Bruzio, Calabria, where he sets upon his daily routine close to the locals, his environment and the natural path of his existence. 

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Lucia is a seasoned public speaker and former arts journalist with many years' experience leading sensitive and inspiring pre- and post-show discussions. She was voted one of 100 Women Making a Difference by Today’s Chicago Woman magazine and awarded the Impresa Award by the Women’s Division of the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans and the Leonardo da Vinci Award of Excellence by the Order Sons of Italy in America. Her lifelong work in the arts is now part of the permanent collection of Chicago's Newberry Library.