“Art is the reason we must live”

The Spanish actress and now also director looks at the ins and outs of this project born from a truth that Dudamel knew when she studied at El Sistema and which she is now trying to show to the world. “Music saves and I say this knowingly. For them, it is a real salvation. It is true that deaf people are very reluctant towards music because socially they have been unfairly deprived of something, and I understand their suffering. But it is true that in the case of the Manos Blancas Choir, it is the way to be seen, to have a future, to have an inspiration, to have a reality and a present, and I saw it with my own eyes and that is the story that I tell,” the actress admits to ABC.

Initially, the documentary was going to retrace Dudamel’s steps to learn how an opera like “Fidelio” develops in sign language, but throughout the project, Valverde realized that the focus should be on the boys in the choir, on the closeness to Gustavo’s heart and the mission these boys had to be there, but above all on the lives of Jennifer, Gabriel and José. “I was impressed that for all three of them, their mother’s absence meant that they had the courage and fortitude to be able to lead their lives with dignity as deaf people.», Recognizes the actress.

The lives of these three boys had to be told for themselves, because no one better than them could tell what the needs of deaf people in society are, in terms of health, education, work and even language. “In this process of discovering where the story was, I realized that a documentary is alive. “We didn’t know what was going to happen, everything was a constant surprise.” In fact, it was in Venezuela that they discovered upon their arrival that Gabriel, one of the protagonists, was going to be a father in two weeks.

It’s not easy to find a tone to tell these stories. It is easy to fall into the infantilization of their deafness, a common thing and which irritates many of them, we could easily resort to an overly sentimental tone. For Valverde it hasn’t been easy, but he considers it “a question of principles”. “He had the desire to make their lives dignified. This is what made me make the decision not to use certain moments that we live and that we record and which are obviously in our memories, but which belong to them and their experiences. As a filmmaker, I know there were things that maybe I could have done differently, but the human part and having principles helped me.“, admits Valverde.

When María Valverde talks about the project, she has a special look that shines. Perhaps it’s because music gradually transformed his life. Her acting career exploded after winning a Goya with “La flqueza del bolshevik” (2003) at the age of 16. Life overwhelmed him after the “boom” of “Three Meters Above the Sky”, he had no choice but to “disappear” and settle in London. His life changed when he met Gustavo Dudamel, a man he repeatedly admits he continues to admire and from whom he continues to learn. Reconciling her life with that of her husband, her acting career, her commitments to the Dudamel Foundation and now her directorial debut is not easy. “My life is a lot of “rock and roll”. It’s not easy, the truth is. Doing a lot of things you love is complicated. There were also a lot of sacrifices, and I think it is also important to value the projects that I had the opportunity to do – and I had to refuse them, to my great regret – because in the end I was struggling and I wanted to realize my documentary project whatever it was,” he says.

The actress admits that the project was a leap into the void, a big gamble. “I never knew, and I never really knew, what it would become.. But at the end of the day, I think you have to trust in what you’re doing and your principles, and believe in what you’re doing. And yes, I was able to combine it throughout the last four years that the project took me on, but it’s true that my acting career was also affected, obviously. But I find it fascinating to understand that life has its ups and downs, and ultimately to take it all with humility,” he admits with maturity and honesty.

“Art is food for the soul. Because that’s what we have to live for. I think ultimately it’s like health: having access to art should be something that suits everyone, whatever form it takes. I would like it to also be a tool for conversation, to ask ourselves what else we need to do, what different points of view we have and, perhaps, stop learning to focus from another place and see things through other prisms. In this case, they sing with their hand, with their body, with their face, with their gestures, with their energy. It’s another way of understanding music. Music really goes beyond sound. So yes: art is also an education, not just entertainment, it is the foundation of a person,” he says with conviction.

If there is one thing that the documentary demonstrates, it is that music does not belong to anyone, neither to the upper social classes, nor to those who know, nor to those who have a voice or an ear. It belongs to everyone who wants to be a part of it. “Music, and in particular classical music, was imposed on us as something privileged, of good condition. And it’s true: on many occasions, not all of us have access to concerts or these opportunities,” he says. In a time when tensions undermine coexistence, music has the power to create communion. “This is the space where we all find ourselves, it is a safe space, it is a space of beauty, of possibility, of union.. I always thought that, even before meeting Gustavo, although having the opportunity to experience music through him made me understand it on a deeper level. Ultimately, it’s about surrounding yourself with people who inspire you and make you a better person through what truly unites us all.

If El Sistema, who formed Dudamel and created the Manos Blancas choir, tried to promote anything, it is music as a true tool for transformation. Dudamel is an example, but so is the documentary. “The greatest pride is that Jennifer studies at university. She and nine other people in the choir, who are deaf; That they can have access to college, that they can cover those expenses through the work that they do, that’s the biggest accomplishment. Now I think there are 40 deaf people in the choir, which has increased the number of members,” she says enthusiastically. Jennifer, in addition to doing theater at the university, teaches deaf children. “The responsibility that they have taken through the way the ‘Fidelio’ project has changed their lives, that is the real exercise of visibility, of making visible what they have achieved.”