“I don’t exist in this world. Maybe I’m dead calmer,” Javier explains when he remembers how he felt during the period – more than two years – that he lived on the street. He does it in the documentary What no one wants to seeProduced by actor Richard Gere and his wife Alejandra in collaboration with a non-profit entity Home Yeswith which they have been cooperating for ten years. At Monday night’s premiere in Madrid, Javier explains that when he was asked to participate in the project (funded by the Ministry of Social Rights), he saw “an opportunity to have his voice heard.” Pepe, one of the film’s heroes, says that the film gave him his voice back symbolically and literally because after many days he spent on the street without speaking to anyone, the voice went out and did not come out. In his case, he lost his job after the pandemic and spent six months sleeping rough.
It’s not that you’re invisible, it’s that people decide to look the other way, Geer tells them. When asked why it is important that a Hollywood star cannot set foot on any street in the world without anyone noticing his presence and demands an image that is close to realities completely different from his own, the actor denies the main issue. “It’s not that different. When I was looking to make the film (hidden(from 2014, where he plays a man who ends up sleeping on the street), I was in a homeless shelter in New York. I tried to go unnoticed. They (the homeless) had to arrive at seven o’clock because if they arrived late, they would not be allowed to stay the night. People started arriving and a man approached me. He looked at me and said, “Richard!” “Oh, I’ve been discovered,” I thought. Then he asked me: “You don’t remember me, do you?” I told him I’m sorry, but no. “I’m John.” We made a movie together! Oh my God, he was an actor. I asked him what happened to him and he replied: “I ran out of money and am now in a shelter.” We could all end up like this. everyone. Due to a health, mental, financial or work problem. I don’t see those differences. “We are all brothers and sisters here.” Alejandra Gere adds that during the filming of the film in which her husband played a beggar, no one stopped him on the street.
At the premiere of the documentary, at the Kalaw Cinema Theater in the capital, Mammen says that her mother “since she was 12 years old” threw her “on the street,” where she has been sleeping for more than two decades. “I saw how they set fire to a boy who was sleeping at the bus station. They poured bleach and glass on me, and treated me like I was trash… I thought I would wake up dead any day anywhere.” Now she pinches herself every time she notices the key to the house she lives in in her pocket thanks to Hogar Sí, who since 1998 has taken care of more than 10,000 people like her and who remembers that there are currently more than 37,000 homeless people in Spain.
Gere gives six minutes to EL PAÍS in a round of interviews to promote What no one wants to see Today, he does not want to talk about many of the issues that concern him. Asked if he thought that the tenure of Donald Trump – who was at the Nobel Peace Prize rallies – would mean a new “witch hunt” in the United States after actress Susan Sarandon, a similarly committed person, said that she had been blacklisted since she criticized Benjamin Netanyahu’s massacre in Gaza, he replied that he would rather talk about the documentary. But then he adds: “Everything is interconnected: Gaza, Sudan, Ukraine… We either see each other as brothers, or we don’t. We either think that others don’t matter, that they’re dangerous and should be eliminated, or we take a holistic view and see that we are social beings with stories that interact with each other. I’m one of those, and I think we’re all in this together. And when you see things from that point of view, of course you have to speak out consistently and consistently.”
Is speaking now more dangerous than before?
– In some countries, yes. In the United States people are being pulled off the streets.
Gere also doesn’t want to put a price on Tesla’s recent decision to pay $1 trillion – half the wealth Spain generates (GDP) for a year – to just one man, Elon Musk, but when asked what example of inequality he represents, he added: “It’s not about inequality. It’s the commitment and the ability to look beyond ourselves. And although we are unable, because we are selfish, to see other people’s problems, we actually make things worse for ourselves, creating problems at every corner.” The World “There is enough food for everyone; enough shelter and adequate health services…this is achievable. And of course, if these needs are met for everyone, we will all be safer and happier.”
From the cinema stage, in front of the giant screen on which he had just told his story, Mammen explains that he is happy. He doesn’t need to say it because it’s obvious, he’s smiling all the time, and even jokes with his guardian angel: “Good health, Richard Gere, you’re a few years old already, handsome.” Alongside him, Later, who spent more than 24 months on the streets after losing everything in a scam, says the Hogar project saved his life. He was diagnosed with lung cancer, but doctors told him he would not survive the treatment he needed if he continued sleeping on sidewalks. Now he has a home, health and a girlfriend whom he proudly welcomes under the spotlight before receiving rousing applause. In addition to providing him with a home, the non-profit entity helped him arrange his retirement papers, and since he now has “nothing to do,” Pepe explains, he wanders around. He often ends up in front of homeless people who live near his home. “Now I’m helping.” He brings them coffee, gives them a cigarette, and talks to them so they don’t lose their voices.