Honor guest: NY
Before cinema existed to capture fictional or real imaginaries, we had migrations and the search for dreams in the real world, not in parallel universes. And the dream was called “American.” An anonymous Dominican known as the unknown soldier of war conflicts embarked on an adventure, under the most common pseudonym in the Dominican Republic: Juan Rodriguez. They were different times. Today he would be a safe prey even with his documents in order from an immigration agent, who would take him to the dreaded “little room” for investigation and put him in check. Allowed or denied entry. Deported before seeing what a certain Fellito told him. Today she may be an inspector. (Women can be more intimidating) And she could even have an actress's name. What do you think of Laura Gomez? The same teenager who was complicit in recreating on stage with Arturo and some other members of the Lumiere film club, a cinema in which it was impossible for her to exist.
But cinema defies all challenges and finally finds its way and the Dominican from his first steps focused on the immigration issue. Some took a trip to nowhere, like those on the Regina Express, in the “One Way Passage” by Agliberto Melendez (The Lord of the Cinematheque) where figures from theater and television appeared who would not die of asphyxiation in their utopia of the eye. and the ear(Sounds like a man with enormous wings) but this time with Dominican ingredients and seasonings. After his first desperate cry, Franklin Dominguez planned to do so by sitting in his chair, but always cultivating his passion for theater.
And without caring how much the show is worth, a young man straight out of television would adopt another television character with a distinctive comb and prepare his suitcases for his “Crossover Dream.” And that was when Dominican fiction began to travel and the destination could not be other than New York, Nueba Yol or the Nuebayores, because there the green ballots are found like lettuce leaves.
We had a production between the Dominican Republic and New York, which connected so much the public that broke the windows of the movie theaters desperate to enter the Dominican capital, with the towns without cinema that used improvised projections in open spaces if the theaters and the who waited in long lines under the cold of the snow, full of nostalgia for their land on the streets of 180 street. Good 'ol times.
Balbuena, candid and innocent, will charm even those at the New York Times and someone will capture it in his review when he said he discovered the other side of Woody Allen's Manhattan. He was like a ripiao parakeet with a saxophone. From Upper Manhattan to Central Park. Balbuena was daring and rested on the Twin Towers with the Statue of Liberty in the background, while a plane flew over. They were different times.
The hope of Dominican cinema multiplied here and there, even though the New Law came and without thinking that second parts were never good. While Chea was crossing his dreams with Ichaso, a group of young people were looking for their own dream with the enthusiasm of Adrian Agramonte and a team of names that are better known today: Joseph Medina, Freddy Vargas, Victor Checo, Elvis Nolasco, Rafael Decena, Mateo Gomez , Jessy Terrero, among others. Some are there even though they don't look like Caridad Ravelo, others don't look like Illka Tanya Payan.
And we could go from comedy, to violence to darker corners, entering that vicious circle from which there was no escape, much less when you are registered with a red passport (Before the color blue comes). The Dominican was the object of outside gaze from that Washington Heights that discovered Manny Perez, our most New York actor but with a Baitoa identity. Our current queen of the universe of the seventh art, Zoe herself would try “Fame” and Victor Vargas would show us the most independent side of our identity in cinema. Rewind, it was once forbidden to love in New York, Charityn and Freddy would say.
And like nothing else, a Dominican wins the Pulitzer even if we would rather have an Oscar. And Oscar Wao sows hope. Miramax is the ultimate in cinema and Weinstein has not yet fallen into misfortune. But it was not. It could not be. The story became complicated and we even have a story about cinema that has not been made like in the great cinemas: the Dominican-York one.
We go to the barbershop, or to put on Pinchos and Rolos or to conjure up Papi from the montra who comes with a loaded suitcase and to distribute some pesos. Suddenly everyone wants to film in New York, but at the same time they close the theaters in Washington Heights as a symbol of the change in the industry before, first AIDS and then the pandemic, or 911 or Trump, I don't know.
Today we see a cycle in the Film Forum that reminds us of Chea, we think of Pericles in the Moviola looking for a One Way Passage, they continue marching unexpectedly like the Puerto Rican actor who was looking for a dream, as the Twin did before. And we ask ourselves, where has all that imported dream gone, what are we doing to not stay stuck in La Silla, who treasures the films of the dead or what has happened to the dead films in the hands of the living. Attention men and women of cinema, three or more or less, seekers of sleep or of one-way tickets with or without a red passport to Nueba Yol, entangled in vicious circles, whether they are mine or not, let's move on and keep the memory, no Let us never allow celluloid to be stored in a coffin, here or in New York.
