Alum's Horror Feature Secures Highly Competitive $1 Million California Tax Credit
Daniel Pico '02 (left) now has the much-needed tax credit to turn his next film into a reality. Screenwriter, director, and producer Daniel Pico ’02 is excited. His film project “Whispers the Walls” recently secured a $1 million California tax credit, a competitive and selective incentive designed to bring film and television production jobs back to the state.
Tax credits directly lower the cost of production, making projects more financially viable and helping filmmakers stay within or even under budget. This is often the deciding factor of whether a film gets made and where it is filmed.
For Pico, the tax credit marks a turning point for a project he has been working to bring to the screen for more than a decade.
“Now that we have this credit,” Pico says, “the project finally has legs and can actually get made.”
As the project advances toward production, Pico is drawing on the creative foundation he built in filmmaking at Columbia College Chicago, where he learned the fundamentals of visual storytelling and formed professional relationships that continue to play an important role in his work.
Why Columbia
Pico grew up in the Chicago suburbs, where movies were a family ritual, and a camcorder sparked an early fascination with storytelling. He was introduced to Columbia through its high school summer program, where he made his first short film.
In the summer program, Pico gained both technical and artistic grounding, learning how images, editing, and performances work together to tell a story.
“That summer program was where it all started,” he says. It was so transformative that he decided to attend Columbia as an undergraduate.
About “Whispers the Walls”
Pico describes “Whispers the Walls” as a film that begins like a haunted-house story before revealing a deeper examination of class division and social power.
The film follows an American family who relocates to the Dominican Republic and moves into a deteriorating home, unaware that another family of Haitian decent — forced underground by economic hardship — secretly lives beneath them.
“What you think at first is a haunted house movie is really about social divides,” Pico says.
The story explores unequal consequences, he says, in terms of who is able to recover from failure and who is pushed into survival mode.
“The family below and above are desperate,” he says. “Any misstep becomes a long, fast stumble down.”
Moving Toward Production
With the $1 million tax credit secured, Pico says the timeline for the project accelerates. The team is now finalizing financing and casting, with plans to enter production by March.
“To look at a list of actors and recognize all of them, it’s kind of a dream to be at this stage,” he says.
While Pico serves as a screenwriter and co-producer on “Whispers,” he directed another feature called “The Withering,” which is on its way in summer of 2026.
Columbia Connections That Endure
“The Withering,” which will be released through Cleopatra Entertainment and was shot over two weeks last August, has a definitive Columbia presence.
“My director of photography on that film, Jeff Siljenberg ’02, went to Columbia,” Pico says. “We’ve been working together now for over two decades, and he was my best man at my wedding.”
Also part of the Columbia team on that film project: Alum Matthew M. Jones ’02 who served as producer and the film’s lead actress Amelia Mahrie, a current Columbia student who will be graduating this spring.
“There are always Columbia people showing up in the work,” Pico says. “That never really stops.”