(3 minutes reading time)
Two weeks ago, I was invited to speak at a Yale University roundtable as part of the congress “Spanish Actors in Exile.” While waiting to start, I listened to a few of the papers presented. Mar Díaz’s caught my attention. It was about the rise, struggle, and adaptation of the Hollywood star Antonio Moreno, an actor from Spain who became a sex icon in the silent cinema era. One of his acting traits was to deliver his lines in Spanish to connect deeper with what he was saying. In the end, no audience would listen to his voice. Side note: to prove it, Maria put together an occurrent and funny montage with a Spanish-speaking voice actor who dubbed Moreno.
With the coming of the sound cinema, his accent got in the way. He was fired from some sets because he was not able to pronounce a word the way the director wanted to. Ouch. He had to adapt.
Pressured also by the new generations of actors taking over his leading roles, he transitioned to character actor accepting roles with, let’s say, an ethnic flavor: as a Native American, Mexican, or the bad guy coming from a foreign land. He also started working behind the camera, directing and producing, where he found more success. Moreno was key when Hollywood produced Multiple-language versions of their first sound movies for the Latin American market, where he was still a big name. This solution blew my mind.
If you are unfamiliar with the Multiple-Language versions, language was not a barrier when distributing silent films worldwide. The studios only had to translate some title cards. Sound cinema brought the actors’ voices and, you guessed well, a big distribution headache when selling to non-English-speaking markets.
With still rudimentary dubbing or subtitling technologies, what Hollywood and some European studios did was produce Multiple-language versions. They hired screenwriters, directors, and actors who spoke the targeted language. They briefly adapted the scripts and shot a new version with those new actors in the same sets and wardrobe in no time. The studios abandoned this strategy due to the high costs and the development of dubbing and subtitling solutions.
End of the history note. Let’s get back to April 2025. The same weekend I learned about the creative reinvention of Antonio Moreno, Poppy Jasper Int’l Film Festival, one of the top indie festivals, screened Los Sandy’s. Life has extraordinary coincidences. Antonio Moreno and Los Sandy’s share a similar story: Immigrants in the US becoming artists to make a living in their new homeland. Los Sandy’s, the short doc we have in festivals, follows the Mexican Jackson Five case in California. A Mexican folk band formed by five siblings between 17 and 8 years old. While struggling, they are forced to move from the home where they lived all their life to another house they cannot afford. The truth is that they get the spotlight, but the heart of the band is actually Julia, the mom, who glues the family together with overwhelming love and sacrifice.
The film dignifies and elevates the efforts of an immigrant family that, dispossessed of any privilege, moves forward by playing music. The film was very well received and got, I am humbled and honored to say, the Best Documentary Short and Director’s Circle awards. Another coincidence: the gala took place at the Granada Theater in Morgan Hill, CA, and, you know, I am originally from Granada, Spain.
Today, telling a story like Los Sandy’s is a political act of resistance. A recurrent conversation I hear is: what can we do here now? My answer is: we are artists; we are storytellers. We need to tell these stories, and we need to tell them now. The film needs to be seen. The story needs to be shared. For this reason, and even when we are still in the festival run, I want to share the film with you. It’s 28min. I hope you enjoy it.
Here is Los Sandy’s:
Recommendations:
To watch: Conclave. Live from The Vatican. The story unfolds.
Overrated: Holland. I don’t know where to start.
Discovery: Chano Pozo. Master “conguero” and his delicious Afro-Cuban Jazz. Spotify. Wikipedia
PS: Another coincidence at PJIFF. The festival screened the short doc Way of the Shepherd by our friend Matt Boyd in our same block. Matt and I also shared a block at AmDocs’24, where Los Sandy’s premiered.
