How was the shooting? What pleasantly surprised you?
I wanted to show, as authentically as possible, someone who felt at ease in how he/she is in music and who was not a professional musician like me. I found this person in a farmer’s market in San José, the capital city of Costa Rica: Mr. Heriberto Moya-Chaves (known by the nickname “Don Beto”). A farmer from the rural district Cachí, in the province of Cartago, Don Beto explores, affirms, and celebrates very interesting relationships with music when he dances in the character of the late Mexican comedian Cantinflas, to make people laugh in local schools, churches, and hospitals.
For what target group is your film?
The film was originally conceived as a tool for my own university teaching. Its target audience were faculty, students, and researchers. As I began to share my film with nonprofessional musicians and people outside academia, I witnessed that its message is quite universal and can be understood by anybody.
How would you specify your work? What characterizes your film?
I wanted to depict a little of my own itinerary and quest for answers, and to portray another real-life character’s itinerary, with depth and simplicity. That is why I chose to shoot in black and white, appealing to textures, and resorted to close-ups and unusual angles of pavement, cracks, and rocks on the streets. There is something deep and mysterious that seems to call us from underneath...
