Riverdale production company Dendera Studios expands from apartment office to new Bronx space

A Riverdale production company is moving up — from the home office of a Johnson Avenue apartment into a studio at 2735 Henry Hudson Parkway.

Dendera Studios was named by Head of Design and Co-Founder Christina Shrewsbury as a reference to the Dendera Temple complex in Egypt, known as an ancient creative and cultural hub. The Riverdale-based production company has clients ranging from local cafe Artizen to Princess Diana’s personal tailor Andrew Ramroop.

In a collaboration between Shrewsbury,  Co-Founder and Creative Director Vito Di Maio, and Director of Client Relations and bespoke tailoring enthusiast Kevin Nipal, the studio creates video content for brands. The trio leans on their backgrounds in film to take what they say is a  storytelling approach to their work.

So far, they’ve done promotional videos for gluten-free Riverdale bakery 3x3 Kitchen and Riverdale Y Sunday Market. They also provided coverage of Bronx Day in Albany and the Kingsbridge Armory revitalization.

Business has been on the rise recently, but there was a time just over a year ago when Dendera was confined to Shrewsbury and Di Maio’s Johnson Avenue apartment. The two were unknowingly neighbors growing up in Riverdale, but became close friends in high school. In college, their relationship found a romantic spark that’s still alive today.

Shrewsbury worked as a production and set designer, and Di Maio as a video editor. They launched the first iteration of Dendera in 2022 with the vision of creating an affordable space for filmmakers, but the timing wasn’t right. Described by Di Maio as a “perfect storm” of the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, an unwise investment in a warehouse and the death of Di Maio’s father and aunt, the studio went under before it could really start.

But last April, after losing his job, Di Maio hit a turning point.

“I got into my home office, I sat at my desk, and I was like ‘Alright, let’s do this,’” Di Maio said. “I knew that there was a way.”

It didn’t come easy. The market was oversaturated and businesses were skeptical, Di Maio explained. But after uploading a couple reels of high-profile tailor Leonard Logsdail to Instagram — drawing 21,000 and 59,000 likes — Dendera started getting more attention.

Nipal, who also teaches at a juvenile detention center, had been a longtime collaborator. Shrewsbury and Nipal go back to their days as students at Manhattan University. In 2019, Nipal had an idea for a film, and Shrewsbury introduced him to Di Maio — who is now set to be the best man at his upcoming wedding.

“We all had a drink at An Beal Bocht,” Shrewsbury recalled. “And that was history. We’ve just been together ever since.”

Nipal’s fashion interests have also factored into the studio’s evolution. Always in a suit, Nipal said his interest in the bespoke stems from his tailor great-grandfather and his seamstress grandmother. Nipal was drawn to icons from Hollywood’s Golden Age, like Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney, always donning a high-quality suit. He would even bring home suits from off-price stores for his grandmother to hem. There was something attractive about dressing up, Nipal said, and being taken seriously.

Meeting Ramroop was like “meeting Michael Jordan,” Nipal joked. The three started filming with Ramroop in 2022, and are now in the post-production stages of the project.

Navigating these projects and launching a studio together while still maintaining their friendship hasn’t resulted in as much conflict as expected, the trio shared. Shrewsbury explained the three have a strong foundation, and prioritize honesty with one another. Still, in the throes of getting Dendera off the ground, they can struggle to find the balance between their professional and personal lives.

Nipal takes calls day and night. Shrewsbury and Di Maio often take work home with them. For Di Maio in particular, hard work is a familial trait, and it isn’t easy to separate work from leisure.

“I’ve been in survival mode for the last year,” he said. “Building this business has not been easy.”

Di Maio said there was a three-month stretch where he was unable to pay his own rent, as he had to focus on paying the rest of the team — which has grown from just the three of them, and now includes video editors Graham Hubner and Kate Megaw, Content Strategist Briana Umpenhour, Director of Partnerships and Business Development Edwin Torres, and Lead Web Strategist Andy Persaud. 

At the core of the studio is a love for the arts, and an investment in the neighborhood that Di Maio and Shrewsbury said they’ve “talked about getting out of forever, but something keeps pulling” them back in. For small businesses especially, Di Maio said uplifting them with publicity is like turning the lights on, asking “‘Where have you been?’”

“We’re trained in the art of storytelling,” Shrewsbury said. “We know how to get to the heart of the story, and we know how to bring out a spark in somebody.”