Dopamina (2019) Movie Script
Single, living fetus, healthy, without
detectable problems through ultrasound,
36 weeks, which means you only have
three weeks left, it is properly placed,
the amount of liquid it's fine. You said
you don't want to know the sex, right?
Is it the first one?
DELIVERY ROOMS
After many attempts at getting pregnant,
my parents decided to go to "Lava Patas"
in the Huila region,
where my mother was born.
The "lava patas" is a ceremonial fountain
built by the indigenous
people in San Agustin.
There, women gave birth and water-based
healing ceremonies were performed.
A few days later, my mother got pregnant.
The last little bit...
During the gestation time,
my parents performed a nightly ritual.
My father would place his hands
cone-shaped on my mother's belly
and would tell me secrets.
They've told me that
at the beginning it was just words
then phrases and then songs.
March 15th, 1992.
Natalia at two years and two months old.
When the merry morning arrives,
and the moon escapes the river.
And the Little bull gets into the water...
I've been wondering for years
what does it mean to build a family.
DOPAMINE
Mum, how many years
have you been married?
30 years plus nine
as boyfriend and girlfriend,
it was...
quite funny, our dating years,
as he was so engaged
in the student's movement
and back then, as I've mentioned
students were associated
with other things, the leaders,
and were always thought to be involved
with the guerrillas and were persecuted.
It was very overwhelming, you see?
Because, you weren't free in your
political participation, but controlled,
let's put it that way,
so let's say that our relationship...
our relationship was a secret.
I mean, nobody could know
I was his girlfriend.
Really? And that went on for a long time?
For about two years, I think.
Wow!
So, at university we would greet each
other cordially, but nothing too special.
After two years, well, things changed
but nevertheless we were very cautious.
Of... holding hands, for example.
It was... yeah, a very
secret relationship.
Dopamine is quite mysterious
and powerful, isn't it?
Very powerful.
As the neurologist told me:
"you have to exercise every day,
and several times a day,
much better than just once a day."
High performance athletes
have to do it too,
if they stop doing it,
they lose muscle mass.
He gave me the example
of a famous heavyweight boxer
of whom he had known a story
who had stopped training for three months,
when he was back again
after three or four months,
he was a skinny guy... I mean...
It sort of deflates.
He wasn't half of the big guy he once was.
It needs to be kept up,
you cannot stop, right?
The doctor told me:
that happened to a body full of dopamine,
imagine yours,
or any other Parkinson's patient,
where there is a lack of dopamine...
An extra reason to exercise
many times a day, everyday."
But you took it very seriously!
If your mum could hear you...
You spend the whole day exercising.
As always, I exaggerated.
"I exaggerated"
I overdid it.
I don't remember very clearly the moment
I heard of my father's diagnosis.
I only know I wasn't prepared for it.
I was very afraid.
I started creating parallel realities
to escape that certainty.
That was twelve years ago,
and I am still afraid.
I dreamt I was visiting some family's
house. A family I did not recognise.
The daughter had recently passed away.
Nobody was crying.
She was about 25 years old.
A carcinogenic tumour had been removed
from her brain.
Her forehead was exposed,
and you could see her
brains through her face.
In one of the holes there was a throat.
The throat was contracting and expanding
as if trying to talk.
Or breathe.
She looked calm.
It's so early!
- Did you sleep well?
- I woke up a couple of times.
- During the night? Or in the morning?
- No, it was during the night.
And what did you do?
I went to the toilet and came back.
I played a game, bought some fruit
and came back...
- I mean, what did I have to do?
- No idea.
First, every time I wake up
I feel like going to the balcony, always.
- But you are too lazy...
- It's on the other wing of the castle...
We need to come up
with a transportation system.
To get there...
Hey dad, I've been thinking of,
all these stories that you guys tell us
about your youth and your time
at university, the political groups,
the meetings and so on.
What about grandma Julia?
You two never spoke about it?
Well, I think, in a way, she was a really
good mother,
because she never told me:
you have to quit all that!
I think she suffered a lot,
because back then we heard so many things,
missing people, or people held prisoner.
- Yeah, sure.
- Regularly at university...
And well...
she was very respectful of our activities
even with the meetings I would held
at home with people from University.
And well, what she did was really nice.
But did she ever,
at any point confront you?
Or even said:
"Ricardo I don't like what you're doing"?
Wait, I'll help you dry.
Okay. Ready.
What did you remember?
Well the fact that she did suffer a lot.
Granny?
But did she ever get upset?
No, there was a time that...
We were detained and they weren't...
they didn't reveal our whereabouts
our family was looking for us,
no one knew where we were.
We were at the F2,
the National Police intelligence service.
But it was a place... that night
they held us there in secret.
The other one who was tortured
was Gloria's brother, William.
- Was he with you?
- Yes, that night, or those nights.
I mean, the three of you who were taken.
Yeah, one was William, myself
and another guy.
And William had it worst
with the torture, he was tortured.
He was the one in the restroom?
With the toilet?
But he practised karate,
I mean he practised Judo,
so he held his breath a little.
But violent, very violent!
That's called 'the submarine',
it was called like that in the lessons
on interrogation techniques given
by the Southern Command
of the United States in Panam.
But he was killed anyway, wasn't he?
After that he was killed from
asphyxiation, he died, suffocated,
the forensic report concluded that
he died from mechanical-asphyxia.
What does that mean?
That he was suffocated
with a plastic bag.
And then thrown into the river,
and the Cauca river
threw him out at the "Hormiguero"...
And there he was found together
with the other guys...
Those news arrived a few days
before your sister was born.
I cannot imagine that, hard times...
Really hard. Your mum took it very bad.
At the end only will force
helped her coping with it,
made her able to breathe
and cope with that hard time.
Fifteen days after your uncle's death,
Laura was born.
When we stare closely at the
light and vertiginous eyes of death.
Tell each other the truth,
the terrible barbarities.
Loving cruelty
Loving cruelty.
I curse the poetry conceived
as a cultural luxury by neutral people.
Who wash their hands
ignore and evade.
I curse the poetry of those
who don't take a side.
Takes a side until getting stained.
Agony, the missing,
I feel for those who suffer.
And breathing I sing
Singing higher than sadness.
My personal pain I widen I widen.
I want to give you life,
to provoke new acts.
I feel like an engineer of the verse
and a workman who works with
others their homeland
their homeland made of steel
because we live beaten up,
and we're not allowed to say who we are
our singing cannot be without sin,
an ornament
we are hitting the bottom
we are hitting the bottom.
- You've got no voice?
- What?
- Have you or have you not?
- Have I got a voice?
What a horrible tongue!
- And how do you say eight?
- Eight.
During a school break,
we went away on holidays.
We were travelling
by car to a small town.
The three siblings
were sitting in the back seat.
My sister and I always picked the windows,
our brother being the youngest one,
had to sit in the middle.
My mum played a Silvio Rodriguez tape,
which we always listened to
when we were in the car.
She'd turn the volume up
and we all sang to it happily.
I remember the wind in my face,
the ever-changing landscape...
My parents on the front seats
singing their hearts out.
The dream I was falling into
as I listened to those songs,
the happiness,
the longing, the utopia.
Daddy when you finish filming
can I see it?
Okay, Sebas, that's enough!
Mother... when the thing
with your brother William had happened,
you two decided to step out of all that,
I mean it was because
of the situation of insecurity, right?
Or how did you decide that?
Well, honey...
There were two very important reasons:
Let's say that the first one,
which was before what happened to William,
was that, you were born,
Lauris was on the way.
And the leftist people,
who were committed,
were taking on so many responsibilities,
and at the same time so many risks...
They even decided that their children,
well, not everyone decided that, right?
But well, the children were left with
the grandmothers, or an aunt...
So they wouldn't be at risk
while the parents
engaged completely with the activities
they had to do.
And the truth is that
we never even considered leaving you,
it was unthinkable,
not even with grandma or aunty, who loved
you dearly, that was too much for us.
We thought... that we had to set
an example, right?
That, educating the new man, it was...
It was a commitment from the gestation.
We haven't changed
in the essential things,
in what we think we should aim for,
building a better, different society
and we still strive for that,
because doing is not as easy as saying.
Of course.
And life is full of incoherence,
and inconsistencies
and many times we found ourselves
confronted with that,
everything that happened in our lives,
many times we found ourselves
being inconsistent,
I think that is the biggest challenge,
the coherence in our own life.
And that's where we're at, isn't it?
It's not easy...
What happened, mum...?
My parents didn't like you very much.
- They don't like me.
- Well, yeah...
That's the only feeling that remains,
just kidding... but your father,
he does like me.
Yeah, my dad's cooler.
But I do remember when Laura graduated
or something like that,
it was at your school,
was it Laura's graduation?
When she was doing
something like the circus,
- what was that?
- Oh, yeah.
- Wasn't it her graduation?
- Yes, I think so.
That... I remember your aunt
was giving me money to buy beer.
'Go and get some beers!'
And your mum was there,
I remember that something happened to her,
right?
Yeah, I think she couldn't handle it.
And I remember that your dad told me
not to worry.
But I couldn't understand much,
I don't know...
Well, it was very... I mean,
the whole thing wasn't easy for my mum...
But why does she like Enrica then?
Yeah well,
I think what was hard for my mum,
back then, when we were together was,
well dude, I don't know, like...
we were out a lot,
the thing with the drinking, smoking
and the other substances...
don't you think?
But anyway, you did that
with other people too, didn't you?
- Other people?
- Yeah, I mean other friends,
- Yeah, but I feel that...
- But you need a guilty man.
- No way!
- A guilty woman.
No way, I don't see it like that.
What I feel is like,
one seeks what to find, right?
I do feel like back then it was a time
for exploring a lot of things...
I mean...
At least now, I think it's different,
but back then the feeling
of doing something that's forbidden,
I liked it.
And also because being with a woman
is a very different thing
than being with a man,
at least in my experience.
With a man is more organised thing,
more established...
We could think that Queer emerges,
as a sexually transmitted disease.
In an orgy where the radical feminism,
usually known as post-structural thinking,
certain social movements,
certain anti-identity policies
and deserters
of the gay and lesbian
movements were fucking.
And from that emerged this mutant thing
called Queer, which understands
what happens within a house,
what happens between two people
and how they influence each other,
how they relate to each other,
how they engage, or...
how should I put it? 'Cause I don't wanna
use the word love, which I hate,
and don't wanna use the word
affect that much, anyway...
Which strategies
can weave that net of friendships?
How can you share your body, food,
your capital, your money,
your possibilities?
That too is political!"
What I understand of
what they are putting
forward, and all that
about the Queer theory,
is basically that romantic love
should not exist
and that sort of love is a product
of Capitalism.
- So, what sort of love should exist?
- They just come and slap you in the face!
Yeah, I feel like for these women things
are more...
Political.
Yeah, how can I say it?
More material, as in materialistic.
It's like: two people meet up
to fuck because...
- To satisfy a desire...
- Exactly, it's a biological need.
And we are animals and so forth,
like love and those things
are not real, it's like they are fake.
Plus, it's something you build up to,
like, I don't know...
to get a family, economy,
to establish oneself
as a socially accepted individual,
someone with a
family, with a car, with a
house, someone who
has a job, don't you think?
I don't get it, to me, in such cases,
my conservative soul comes up:
in order to survive you need, water, food,
in certain places,
and if you are lucky enough to
work from home, you need a house
if you don't need to work,
you can live without doing anything
for as long as you please,
but if you need to work you have
to get out, not simply going out,
you need a road,
at least some infrastructure, right?
Is this on? Yes...
I mean you can be an anarchist,
a subversive,
a revolutionary anything you please;
But finally, to keep on living,
you'll fall within some rules
set by a government,
an economy, the capitalism...
blah, blah...
Then okay, let's be critical
about what we do,
I love it, perfect.
If we all were more critical on this
earth, we would live in a better world.
But there has to be
something that makes
you somehow happy
without making you angry,
which belongs to society, about that:
You and I are cooking together,
it is an act of love.
I don't see it that sad anti-capitalism
and "whatever or what else".
Yeah.
I mean, in that way I am a romantic, and
I don't care if I am not a revolutionary.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we agree on that.
- To be honest, I quite like this patio.
- It is very beautiful.
Yes, it is. We should get more plants,
It's a bit empty.
But I quite like it like this. Remember
the other day we did yoga in here?
True, we don't need
to fill it up as it was a zoo...
A zoo?! Way off, I meant a forest...
Have you told your parents
that you are visiting for a long time?
My mum was like 'really?
Twenty-four days and half!?' ...So mum...
I sent her confirmation half an hour ago.
'Twenty-four days and half of a day.
Twenty-four and a half days...'
- How sweet!
- She is happy.
Better?
- Did you get in well?
- Yeah.
Hello, hello!
I think Angelita hates
doing this Spaghetti thing.
I feel like making hair...
- Making what?
- Hair.
- Hairs?
- With plasticine.
No way! Making hair.
- Why don't you say "I want cucumber".
- No, no, just no more papaya.
So, add some cucumber!
Don't ask, feel free.
But can I suggest something?
Try doing it from the top to the bottom
of the papaya,
so the spaghetti will be longer.
- That's it, I mean peal it like this.
- We are annoying as hell, really...
Do that this way, add that like this...
My mother, I am my mother!
- She's gone mad.
- What?
We all are our mothers!
This sauce goes on top...
Have you heard the parrot
at Fundadores talk?
The Fundadores parrot,
and it whistles too.
- The parrot at Fundadores?
- There's a man who has this parrot,
and they go everyday to the swimming pool
he gets there around 3:30 or 4:00pm
and leaves at 6:00.
That parrot is so funny!
It speaks pretty well, it says Roberto!
Roberto do you want cocoa?
And says it very clearly!
When Nati or Laura or well, Sebas now,
because now is Sebas...
Would you advise him
to join a political movement?
To be really active?
Just asking, sorry!
I've been long wondering about that.
Well, listen... I would say.
It depends, I'd say,
that is a very personal decision.
But... what one should do is,
not to grow so distant from the world,
I mean from the context and to
have an active social participation.
To militate, well, that's another thing.
But at least not to be indifferent,
Not to get separated
of his moment or by his time.
Not to be indifferent from the conflicts,
the debates, the flow of ideas...
But not militating...
Well I tell you, that's an individual
decision, and it depends...
A lot on the circumstances,
which vary along with the times.
I think we all militate, won't you agree?
To some extent, against a lot of things.
Yeah, I think some militate more
so we can militate in lighter things.
They aren't lighter,
they are just different.
I mean,
us now, three women can vote
because some other people
went out on demonstrations
until it was possible!
Not lighter, it's not that one thing
is more important than the other,
there are certain fundamental rights,
and there were other people in the past,
who fought so we can now benefit
from them.
I think that each one of us militates
in what one feels...
But... well, I don't know,
I think there's more I could do.
Right.
There are other people who are in,
let's put it this way, in the first row.
And we are in the tenth, tenth?
Tenth or eleventh, don't know
doing other things
contributing nevertheless.
But I think we shall acknowledge
the people in the front row,
people who risk, human rights defenders,
people's defenders.
Who are risking
things in a different way...
In a more protagonist way,
risking their lives, their safety.
- Exactly! That's what I meant,
- Right.
One has to be able to give value
to each one of the fronts,
I mean the social fight
is not only an outwardly thing.
A lot of people concentrate on external
fights or with certain communities
but inside, with the family for instance,
There's not much of a fight...
- It's neglected.
- And that is very hard to work on.
Quite painful, as painful as any
other great pain one might suffer from,
Okay, you are right,
good you've convinced me.
I was about to
answer you but then I
thought better to let
you state your point.
In fact, each individual
has to transform him or herself,
one has to self-analyse too.
As I was saying, we were saying once,
with Nati,
in one of many discussions that...
In one of many discussions!
Is that, what has happened,
in my opinin, right?
Is that today's youth, has immersed
so much in self-analysis, right?
But they went far too deep in themselves
for an individual transformation,
that they grew apart
from everyone else
from the social sphere, right?
So it's a movement, you can't compare,
with a broad political movement,
I mean one which has a social impact too.
Back in my days
the thing was the other way around,
more outwardly a bit less to self growth.
It's the way it is,
right? It's a cyclic thing.
Yes!
These dynamics, I mean.
We shall suppress from the soul,
all the fear future could bring to mankind
we shall acquire serenity in every single
feeling and emotion regarding the future
we shall look with equanimity
anything that might come
and we shall only think
that anything which might come
would be given to us by a universal
direction, which is full of wisdom.
It was great, I was really drunk.
I got married wasted.
And did you put a ring on
and did the whole thing?
Of course I did. We bought it.
But I don't know.
I feel like everything was a fiction film.
We both had lied.
We saw each other after
like three or four months.
We had only been together
for like two months.
I don't know, it was weird.
You've been going out for
two months before the wedding?
Gosh Angela... but well,
you had a nice party didn't you?
Yes, we had alcohol
from all around the world.
Where did you get married?
- It was in Xochimilco. By a lake.
- Wow!
It was wonderful, really really nice.
But... I don't know.
And how was the show?
Well, the guests were weird,
they all were like from a movie,
well, from the movie I had worked on.
So we had the designer, costume designer,
the art coordinator.
And I think everyone was
acting out of their bodies.
Everything was a big performance.
I was very happy.
I drank everything I was given.
There was Polish alcohol,
Bolivian alcohol. We drank and drank
and we arrived on an island called
"The Island of the Dolls".
There are some huts
to which old dolls were attached to,
and we arrived at the magic hour.
- Wow! How cool!
- And the fireworks started.
Everyone had fireworks.
- Wow, pretty!
- There was a guy who had a sound system
and I think Juliana had a playlist.
- What kind of music?
- I don't remember.
- Did it have salsa on the list?
- Yeah, A song she wanted.
The whole time they played only one song?
- Nooo!!
- Yes!
- So it was a movie set.
- It was on a loop...
it was a movie, like a set,
and everyone was from the movie.
Everyone knew what
to do. It was like... We
got there and chop-chop.
Everything ready.
The designer had a devil doll
filled with fireworks hanging
from the top of a tree, like three,
two, one... they got married!!
And we started to walk
and I was given away by the designer,
and the guy who married us was fake too.
He was dressed like a Hawaiian
with white trousers
and a flowery shirt and he was saying
sort of legal things that were fake,
like by the Mexican resolution such
and such I pronounce you wife and wife,
and everybody cheered.
The only missing thing
was someone shouting: Cut!!
Dad do you remember our
first conversations
about the fact I like women?
Yeah...
there are changes coming in the future
in many ways, for example
one asks oneself,
would I have grandchildren or not?
How would that be? Have you asked yourself
something about our home?
Something in particular
that may have induced you or led you?
No, not really,
I think those are choices
that one might go for
as one starts to discover them.
But there's nothing in particular
about our family that could
have led me to make this decision.
What sort of questions
did you ask yourself about this?
There were many.
I wondered whether I failed
as the masculine figure,
your mum also questioned herself and me.
Many, many, I questioned the school,
the pedagogy,
if anything happened
with something or someone.
I remember those, out of many.
And one does not end liking it,
but can understand it
as something that...
depends on you, not on us.
It's not us who decide
how things should be,
because it's your life,
It's your life.
That's how it is.
Got it.
For example during the first years,
When it was all new,
about eight years ago,
I was very upset, obviously it
had to do with the age too,
with adolescence and everything,
but I was really angry at you guys.
Were you? Why?
Because you didn't accept it,
although it wasn't so much
because you didn't accept it,
it was more because
you didn't understand it.
Because one may not accept something
but may try to understand it.
But now things are different.
Well, all of us have changed
regarding that matter.
I remember the conversation
we had in the studio.
You told me that hearing that
was as hard as it was when you heard
about your brother William's death.
I remember clearly.
Yes, it was like that...
and many years went by,
as painful as that was.
And we always wanted you to attend
a non-traditional school but
to one which would educate you
towards freedom.
And so my first confrontation was:
'okay, didn't you want a school which
guided them towards freedom?'
Well, this is freedom,
when there's choice over our own lives...
that's how you build freedom.
But that's a good reflection, isn't it?
But getting there took a long time.
Because at the beginning we reproached,
there were conflicts between
your father and I.
Not because he shared,
but as in between the pain
and the worries
we did not meet each other in harmony,
because when we are not well,
we are not capable of being
at ease with anything that surrounds us,
we won't be at ease at our workplace or
anywhere, there's no peace inside.
There's no peace when you blame yourself,
I used to say:
If I didn't work,
if I spent the whole time with her,
I neglected them,
neglected my daughter,
And so my job,
which I used to love, I started hating it.
And so I no longer wanted
to get up to go to work,
I no longer wanted anything.
There was a night
when you father wasn't feeling well.
He couldn't sleep and neither did I,
and I hugged him,
and told him:
Ricky I think we have been wrong,
we grew away from faith and we thought
that everything was in our hands
and it was not like that.
And today I feel that the same thought
made me found faith.
To me, that is something I
am really grateful to you,
for not raising us with any religion.
Do you remember you told me
you had decided not to baptise us
or raise us with no specific religion
so we could choose what we wanted?
I think that is something of great value
and every parent should do so.
Well honey, religion is a topic in which
only life takes us little by little
to certain points, for example
taking a path and changing your mind
and taking another path.
And as time goes by,
life itself would then tell you
if that was the correct path or not.
To Ricardo from Gloria Almario.
- Let's see.
- Yay! For the swimming pool!
Bravo!
To Enrica from Natalia Imery.
- Bravo!! Open it up!
- Thank you!
There is a lot of information inside.
- This can't be true!! A spa day!
- That's what I need, a spa day!
Thank you so much!
It is what I need!
We gave him this present
in a "selfish" way.
- What for, what for?
- To play chess with Ricardo.
He's very good.
The anger and pain
I once felt towards my parents
for not accepting my homosexuality,
have started to fade.
Go ahead. The shoulders.
- The shoulders.
- Another time.
Another time.
As much as we can handle it.
Okay! All right, one, two, three.
- It's really good!
- That one is good!
But this is a workout for the arm,
right?
- Yes.
- And the abdomen.
But the whole body feels it because
look how breathless we get doing it.
- Shall we do another?
- Sure.
But what is the effect of that pill,
I mean, what does it do?
The pill is... it does two things:
Inhibits the involuntary movements,
the tremors
but it also provides substances
which precede the dopamine,
because the dopamine
is the neurotransmitter.
So the one which allows the connexions.
The communications,
the one that makes
the link between neurons.
So when such link doesn't happen
it sends a message from this side
and it doesn't arrive anywhere.
No one takes the message.
- What a hormone, don't you think?
- You're right.
Neurohormone.
Yeah, and it's also the one which gives
That feeling of well-being
when you are like:
how good I am feeling!
That's the dopamine.
You have no dopamine and you say:
I'm feeling down,
I tell your mum that
being without dopamine
is like if someone took your soul away,
'Let's take this away', it is gone
and you are left there, soulless...
Yikes!
- Bloody spring.
- Damn spring!
Why does it need to look
as if you don't know Italian?
You know it.
- Bloody spring.
- Bloody.
- No, you said bloody!
- What does bloody mean?
Bloodies spring a little disagreement.
It's a poem.
Nooo. Bloody spring, enough!
- It's a contemporary poem.
- It's a song by Gigliola Cinguetti.
Che fretta c'era, maledetta primavera.
Bloody, disgusting.
Like Marge and Homer, from The Simpsons.
Shall I kiss your eye?
No, but why would you do that?
I honestly don't understand it.
Let me.
I don't know how hygienic,
sanitary-wise can this action be.
Proper!
Stop it.
- What are we doing?
- Nothing.
- Did you put on some weight?
- Did I?
- I'm going to brush my teeth.
- Okay love.
Honey, do you remember
how does it start? Look!
"This book could not be published
without the consent,
in some cases reluctantly,
of the characters of the story.
As my son says: it's not easy
to have a writer in the family.
So I am thankful with them for putting up
with my endless questioning
and for allowing me to go deeper
in their lives."
- Wow!
- Does it remind you of someone?
Come here honey!
- Is Luchi there?
- Yeah, he is.
- Where?
- Come, Lucho, come.
Put it up, come.
Bring it.
Bring the teddy toy.
Come precious, what are you doing?
Come, come, come here!
- Don't touch it, not yet!
- Okay.
- Not yet, otherwise it gets..
- Come here my Luchi.
Easy, slowly, gently.
Who's this beauty?
It's purring!!
Why don't you want to stay?
A few nights ago I dreamt that my mother
and I arrived to a very big and old house.
The house was in bad shape,
with the floor full of puddles.
Against a wall, there were
many naked women making a line.
They seemed wet.
One of them had tattoos in one
of the sides of her back,
she was shivering and crying.
At the end of the queue it was a room for
home-made developing analogue photography.
The images were pictures of the women
who had finished the line.
I told my mother I wanted
my picture taken.
My mum calmly telling me to leave
because the women in the queue
were about to have abortions.
We started to walk towards the exit,
I didn't look back any more.
But heard groans and moans.
I imagined the tattooed woman in the queue
while the fetus came out of her vagina.
Roberto.
That allows me to be myself
everyday without a problem.
Yes, of course but I meant
in the household.
For instance my mum,
I mean, I got married,
I was living with a person and everything
and she continued asking me:
'how's your friend?'
But she isn't my friend, I mean,
she clearly isn't just a friend!
But she had that fixed idea
and wasn't able to change it.
- Yeah, well, it's hard.
- Is not that it is hard, what I meant is,
you need to understand her.
It's an intense struggle with one self
and one's environment,
your relatives, grandmas,
aunts and uncles, it isn't easy.
It's like death, don't you think?
I feel people take it as a death,
I mean it wasn't born the woman
I was hoping for,
so I need to assimilate
that she wasn't born at all
and one is always learning to be a woman,
for instance I always remember,
they put a dress on you, and well,
I've always sat down like this,
and they are like close your legs
because women don't sit like that
and you think:
'okay, I'm a woman! I sit like this!'
Don't speak so loud, speak more like...
- Don't swear.
- So then, okay, I speak that way
and you start turning into a person, like
a character of yourself don't you think?
Until you finally go out to the world
and you see people and you say,
okay this is possible.
And you can be whatever
you want to make of yourself.
It's the biggest freedom,
not to lie to yourself.
The saddest thing in the world is being
far from your family, from your parents,
but it's also very sad to be close
and feel rejected, right?
And being able to talk too, right?
I mean it's like sometimes the things
you can do with your parents,
if you do have an heterosexual partner,
it's like 'I'm sad because he did this
or he left me, or didn't leave me
but he's behaving in such and such way',
and you can have a conversation.
To me, I think I am in the position
of whom has changed their way of thinking
I mean, it's me whom out of the blue,
I have the impression that up until now,
I hadn't discovered my true self,
but now I have, so, I am telling them,
look at the cards you have on the table,
turn them over.
You might think you wouldn't have
any cards left,
but we live in a society where
you can have different card decks.
And... and I think we also need
to normalise this.
'listen I had a fight with Nati
because she's always late
there's not a day she's on time'
That's not true, by the way,
it's an example.
- It's really close to reality.
- But an example anyway!
But we should do it anyway,
because it's true, if the question
doesn't come from the other side,
'Hey and how's Nati doing?' And then,
from my side, it doesn't come either.
- Yeah, that's true.
- So what I mean is, we need to meet
each other at a certain point.
Yes, to be able to
establish communication.
Yeah.
Once when I was visiting my parents,
my dad had a "slump",
as he calls the moments of low mobility.
As always, my mum helped him stand up,
as my dad joked about his condition
and she laughed with him.
After many hours of exercise
and the medication kicking in,
my dad got his body back
and sat down to work whistling,
as if nothing had happened.
This happens several times a day,
everyday.
- Is it time to exercise?
- It is time...
- So are we going to the gym?
- Yes, I need to start at the gym.
- And shall we swim afterwards?
- Sure, we will.
Would you come to gym for a while?
I'm not as fit as you dad.
And I smoke...
my weakness.
Have you been smoking a lot again?
Not a lot,
compared to a 'professional' smoker,
I'm nothing but a beginner.
- How many?
- How many a day?
Three, more or less.
- Really? You need to self...
- Self regulate? Medicate?
- For you not to increase the amount...
- Yeah, I need to keep up my pace,
to decrease the amount
as I think quitting is harder.
It ends up being more traumatic
than helpful
as you may say 'I quit forever'
but you only manage to stop for a month
or two, and you fall back into the habit.
Yes, that's true,
but anyway you do need your willpower,
don't you?
- Yes!
- To quit it.
To control it.
Dad, thank you very much
for the stories you have shared with me.
Thank you, it's been very interesting.
Yes.
For all the lessons taught.
- Do you want my help?
- Yes!
- Is the gym open at this time?
- Yes it is.
All right,
- so how should we do this?
- Let's see.
Let me put this away.
Let me try and see if I can...
- What?
- Can you do it with only one hand?
- With just one?
- Yeah.
These images were shot
by my paternal grandfather.
I didn't meet him.
He was a fan of photography and film.
It was a great privilege
to have a camera back then
and to film important moments
of his life and family.
Here's my father on the verge
of starting to walk.
Rice pudding!
I want to marry a lady from the capital.
Who knows how to sew,
who knows how to dance,
she shall be a young lady
from the capital.
Who knows how to sew,
who knows how to dance,
she shall be a young lady
from the capital.
detectable problems through ultrasound,
36 weeks, which means you only have
three weeks left, it is properly placed,
the amount of liquid it's fine. You said
you don't want to know the sex, right?
Is it the first one?
DELIVERY ROOMS
After many attempts at getting pregnant,
my parents decided to go to "Lava Patas"
in the Huila region,
where my mother was born.
The "lava patas" is a ceremonial fountain
built by the indigenous
people in San Agustin.
There, women gave birth and water-based
healing ceremonies were performed.
A few days later, my mother got pregnant.
The last little bit...
During the gestation time,
my parents performed a nightly ritual.
My father would place his hands
cone-shaped on my mother's belly
and would tell me secrets.
They've told me that
at the beginning it was just words
then phrases and then songs.
March 15th, 1992.
Natalia at two years and two months old.
When the merry morning arrives,
and the moon escapes the river.
And the Little bull gets into the water...
I've been wondering for years
what does it mean to build a family.
DOPAMINE
Mum, how many years
have you been married?
30 years plus nine
as boyfriend and girlfriend,
it was...
quite funny, our dating years,
as he was so engaged
in the student's movement
and back then, as I've mentioned
students were associated
with other things, the leaders,
and were always thought to be involved
with the guerrillas and were persecuted.
It was very overwhelming, you see?
Because, you weren't free in your
political participation, but controlled,
let's put it that way,
so let's say that our relationship...
our relationship was a secret.
I mean, nobody could know
I was his girlfriend.
Really? And that went on for a long time?
For about two years, I think.
Wow!
So, at university we would greet each
other cordially, but nothing too special.
After two years, well, things changed
but nevertheless we were very cautious.
Of... holding hands, for example.
It was... yeah, a very
secret relationship.
Dopamine is quite mysterious
and powerful, isn't it?
Very powerful.
As the neurologist told me:
"you have to exercise every day,
and several times a day,
much better than just once a day."
High performance athletes
have to do it too,
if they stop doing it,
they lose muscle mass.
He gave me the example
of a famous heavyweight boxer
of whom he had known a story
who had stopped training for three months,
when he was back again
after three or four months,
he was a skinny guy... I mean...
It sort of deflates.
He wasn't half of the big guy he once was.
It needs to be kept up,
you cannot stop, right?
The doctor told me:
that happened to a body full of dopamine,
imagine yours,
or any other Parkinson's patient,
where there is a lack of dopamine...
An extra reason to exercise
many times a day, everyday."
But you took it very seriously!
If your mum could hear you...
You spend the whole day exercising.
As always, I exaggerated.
"I exaggerated"
I overdid it.
I don't remember very clearly the moment
I heard of my father's diagnosis.
I only know I wasn't prepared for it.
I was very afraid.
I started creating parallel realities
to escape that certainty.
That was twelve years ago,
and I am still afraid.
I dreamt I was visiting some family's
house. A family I did not recognise.
The daughter had recently passed away.
Nobody was crying.
She was about 25 years old.
A carcinogenic tumour had been removed
from her brain.
Her forehead was exposed,
and you could see her
brains through her face.
In one of the holes there was a throat.
The throat was contracting and expanding
as if trying to talk.
Or breathe.
She looked calm.
It's so early!
- Did you sleep well?
- I woke up a couple of times.
- During the night? Or in the morning?
- No, it was during the night.
And what did you do?
I went to the toilet and came back.
I played a game, bought some fruit
and came back...
- I mean, what did I have to do?
- No idea.
First, every time I wake up
I feel like going to the balcony, always.
- But you are too lazy...
- It's on the other wing of the castle...
We need to come up
with a transportation system.
To get there...
Hey dad, I've been thinking of,
all these stories that you guys tell us
about your youth and your time
at university, the political groups,
the meetings and so on.
What about grandma Julia?
You two never spoke about it?
Well, I think, in a way, she was a really
good mother,
because she never told me:
you have to quit all that!
I think she suffered a lot,
because back then we heard so many things,
missing people, or people held prisoner.
- Yeah, sure.
- Regularly at university...
And well...
she was very respectful of our activities
even with the meetings I would held
at home with people from University.
And well, what she did was really nice.
But did she ever,
at any point confront you?
Or even said:
"Ricardo I don't like what you're doing"?
Wait, I'll help you dry.
Okay. Ready.
What did you remember?
Well the fact that she did suffer a lot.
Granny?
But did she ever get upset?
No, there was a time that...
We were detained and they weren't...
they didn't reveal our whereabouts
our family was looking for us,
no one knew where we were.
We were at the F2,
the National Police intelligence service.
But it was a place... that night
they held us there in secret.
The other one who was tortured
was Gloria's brother, William.
- Was he with you?
- Yes, that night, or those nights.
I mean, the three of you who were taken.
Yeah, one was William, myself
and another guy.
And William had it worst
with the torture, he was tortured.
He was the one in the restroom?
With the toilet?
But he practised karate,
I mean he practised Judo,
so he held his breath a little.
But violent, very violent!
That's called 'the submarine',
it was called like that in the lessons
on interrogation techniques given
by the Southern Command
of the United States in Panam.
But he was killed anyway, wasn't he?
After that he was killed from
asphyxiation, he died, suffocated,
the forensic report concluded that
he died from mechanical-asphyxia.
What does that mean?
That he was suffocated
with a plastic bag.
And then thrown into the river,
and the Cauca river
threw him out at the "Hormiguero"...
And there he was found together
with the other guys...
Those news arrived a few days
before your sister was born.
I cannot imagine that, hard times...
Really hard. Your mum took it very bad.
At the end only will force
helped her coping with it,
made her able to breathe
and cope with that hard time.
Fifteen days after your uncle's death,
Laura was born.
When we stare closely at the
light and vertiginous eyes of death.
Tell each other the truth,
the terrible barbarities.
Loving cruelty
Loving cruelty.
I curse the poetry conceived
as a cultural luxury by neutral people.
Who wash their hands
ignore and evade.
I curse the poetry of those
who don't take a side.
Takes a side until getting stained.
Agony, the missing,
I feel for those who suffer.
And breathing I sing
Singing higher than sadness.
My personal pain I widen I widen.
I want to give you life,
to provoke new acts.
I feel like an engineer of the verse
and a workman who works with
others their homeland
their homeland made of steel
because we live beaten up,
and we're not allowed to say who we are
our singing cannot be without sin,
an ornament
we are hitting the bottom
we are hitting the bottom.
- You've got no voice?
- What?
- Have you or have you not?
- Have I got a voice?
What a horrible tongue!
- And how do you say eight?
- Eight.
During a school break,
we went away on holidays.
We were travelling
by car to a small town.
The three siblings
were sitting in the back seat.
My sister and I always picked the windows,
our brother being the youngest one,
had to sit in the middle.
My mum played a Silvio Rodriguez tape,
which we always listened to
when we were in the car.
She'd turn the volume up
and we all sang to it happily.
I remember the wind in my face,
the ever-changing landscape...
My parents on the front seats
singing their hearts out.
The dream I was falling into
as I listened to those songs,
the happiness,
the longing, the utopia.
Daddy when you finish filming
can I see it?
Okay, Sebas, that's enough!
Mother... when the thing
with your brother William had happened,
you two decided to step out of all that,
I mean it was because
of the situation of insecurity, right?
Or how did you decide that?
Well, honey...
There were two very important reasons:
Let's say that the first one,
which was before what happened to William,
was that, you were born,
Lauris was on the way.
And the leftist people,
who were committed,
were taking on so many responsibilities,
and at the same time so many risks...
They even decided that their children,
well, not everyone decided that, right?
But well, the children were left with
the grandmothers, or an aunt...
So they wouldn't be at risk
while the parents
engaged completely with the activities
they had to do.
And the truth is that
we never even considered leaving you,
it was unthinkable,
not even with grandma or aunty, who loved
you dearly, that was too much for us.
We thought... that we had to set
an example, right?
That, educating the new man, it was...
It was a commitment from the gestation.
We haven't changed
in the essential things,
in what we think we should aim for,
building a better, different society
and we still strive for that,
because doing is not as easy as saying.
Of course.
And life is full of incoherence,
and inconsistencies
and many times we found ourselves
confronted with that,
everything that happened in our lives,
many times we found ourselves
being inconsistent,
I think that is the biggest challenge,
the coherence in our own life.
And that's where we're at, isn't it?
It's not easy...
What happened, mum...?
My parents didn't like you very much.
- They don't like me.
- Well, yeah...
That's the only feeling that remains,
just kidding... but your father,
he does like me.
Yeah, my dad's cooler.
But I do remember when Laura graduated
or something like that,
it was at your school,
was it Laura's graduation?
When she was doing
something like the circus,
- what was that?
- Oh, yeah.
- Wasn't it her graduation?
- Yes, I think so.
That... I remember your aunt
was giving me money to buy beer.
'Go and get some beers!'
And your mum was there,
I remember that something happened to her,
right?
Yeah, I think she couldn't handle it.
And I remember that your dad told me
not to worry.
But I couldn't understand much,
I don't know...
Well, it was very... I mean,
the whole thing wasn't easy for my mum...
But why does she like Enrica then?
Yeah well,
I think what was hard for my mum,
back then, when we were together was,
well dude, I don't know, like...
we were out a lot,
the thing with the drinking, smoking
and the other substances...
don't you think?
But anyway, you did that
with other people too, didn't you?
- Other people?
- Yeah, I mean other friends,
- Yeah, but I feel that...
- But you need a guilty man.
- No way!
- A guilty woman.
No way, I don't see it like that.
What I feel is like,
one seeks what to find, right?
I do feel like back then it was a time
for exploring a lot of things...
I mean...
At least now, I think it's different,
but back then the feeling
of doing something that's forbidden,
I liked it.
And also because being with a woman
is a very different thing
than being with a man,
at least in my experience.
With a man is more organised thing,
more established...
We could think that Queer emerges,
as a sexually transmitted disease.
In an orgy where the radical feminism,
usually known as post-structural thinking,
certain social movements,
certain anti-identity policies
and deserters
of the gay and lesbian
movements were fucking.
And from that emerged this mutant thing
called Queer, which understands
what happens within a house,
what happens between two people
and how they influence each other,
how they relate to each other,
how they engage, or...
how should I put it? 'Cause I don't wanna
use the word love, which I hate,
and don't wanna use the word
affect that much, anyway...
Which strategies
can weave that net of friendships?
How can you share your body, food,
your capital, your money,
your possibilities?
That too is political!"
What I understand of
what they are putting
forward, and all that
about the Queer theory,
is basically that romantic love
should not exist
and that sort of love is a product
of Capitalism.
- So, what sort of love should exist?
- They just come and slap you in the face!
Yeah, I feel like for these women things
are more...
Political.
Yeah, how can I say it?
More material, as in materialistic.
It's like: two people meet up
to fuck because...
- To satisfy a desire...
- Exactly, it's a biological need.
And we are animals and so forth,
like love and those things
are not real, it's like they are fake.
Plus, it's something you build up to,
like, I don't know...
to get a family, economy,
to establish oneself
as a socially accepted individual,
someone with a
family, with a car, with a
house, someone who
has a job, don't you think?
I don't get it, to me, in such cases,
my conservative soul comes up:
in order to survive you need, water, food,
in certain places,
and if you are lucky enough to
work from home, you need a house
if you don't need to work,
you can live without doing anything
for as long as you please,
but if you need to work you have
to get out, not simply going out,
you need a road,
at least some infrastructure, right?
Is this on? Yes...
I mean you can be an anarchist,
a subversive,
a revolutionary anything you please;
But finally, to keep on living,
you'll fall within some rules
set by a government,
an economy, the capitalism...
blah, blah...
Then okay, let's be critical
about what we do,
I love it, perfect.
If we all were more critical on this
earth, we would live in a better world.
But there has to be
something that makes
you somehow happy
without making you angry,
which belongs to society, about that:
You and I are cooking together,
it is an act of love.
I don't see it that sad anti-capitalism
and "whatever or what else".
Yeah.
I mean, in that way I am a romantic, and
I don't care if I am not a revolutionary.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we agree on that.
- To be honest, I quite like this patio.
- It is very beautiful.
Yes, it is. We should get more plants,
It's a bit empty.
But I quite like it like this. Remember
the other day we did yoga in here?
True, we don't need
to fill it up as it was a zoo...
A zoo?! Way off, I meant a forest...
Have you told your parents
that you are visiting for a long time?
My mum was like 'really?
Twenty-four days and half!?' ...So mum...
I sent her confirmation half an hour ago.
'Twenty-four days and half of a day.
Twenty-four and a half days...'
- How sweet!
- She is happy.
Better?
- Did you get in well?
- Yeah.
Hello, hello!
I think Angelita hates
doing this Spaghetti thing.
I feel like making hair...
- Making what?
- Hair.
- Hairs?
- With plasticine.
No way! Making hair.
- Why don't you say "I want cucumber".
- No, no, just no more papaya.
So, add some cucumber!
Don't ask, feel free.
But can I suggest something?
Try doing it from the top to the bottom
of the papaya,
so the spaghetti will be longer.
- That's it, I mean peal it like this.
- We are annoying as hell, really...
Do that this way, add that like this...
My mother, I am my mother!
- She's gone mad.
- What?
We all are our mothers!
This sauce goes on top...
Have you heard the parrot
at Fundadores talk?
The Fundadores parrot,
and it whistles too.
- The parrot at Fundadores?
- There's a man who has this parrot,
and they go everyday to the swimming pool
he gets there around 3:30 or 4:00pm
and leaves at 6:00.
That parrot is so funny!
It speaks pretty well, it says Roberto!
Roberto do you want cocoa?
And says it very clearly!
When Nati or Laura or well, Sebas now,
because now is Sebas...
Would you advise him
to join a political movement?
To be really active?
Just asking, sorry!
I've been long wondering about that.
Well, listen... I would say.
It depends, I'd say,
that is a very personal decision.
But... what one should do is,
not to grow so distant from the world,
I mean from the context and to
have an active social participation.
To militate, well, that's another thing.
But at least not to be indifferent,
Not to get separated
of his moment or by his time.
Not to be indifferent from the conflicts,
the debates, the flow of ideas...
But not militating...
Well I tell you, that's an individual
decision, and it depends...
A lot on the circumstances,
which vary along with the times.
I think we all militate, won't you agree?
To some extent, against a lot of things.
Yeah, I think some militate more
so we can militate in lighter things.
They aren't lighter,
they are just different.
I mean,
us now, three women can vote
because some other people
went out on demonstrations
until it was possible!
Not lighter, it's not that one thing
is more important than the other,
there are certain fundamental rights,
and there were other people in the past,
who fought so we can now benefit
from them.
I think that each one of us militates
in what one feels...
But... well, I don't know,
I think there's more I could do.
Right.
There are other people who are in,
let's put it this way, in the first row.
And we are in the tenth, tenth?
Tenth or eleventh, don't know
doing other things
contributing nevertheless.
But I think we shall acknowledge
the people in the front row,
people who risk, human rights defenders,
people's defenders.
Who are risking
things in a different way...
In a more protagonist way,
risking their lives, their safety.
- Exactly! That's what I meant,
- Right.
One has to be able to give value
to each one of the fronts,
I mean the social fight
is not only an outwardly thing.
A lot of people concentrate on external
fights or with certain communities
but inside, with the family for instance,
There's not much of a fight...
- It's neglected.
- And that is very hard to work on.
Quite painful, as painful as any
other great pain one might suffer from,
Okay, you are right,
good you've convinced me.
I was about to
answer you but then I
thought better to let
you state your point.
In fact, each individual
has to transform him or herself,
one has to self-analyse too.
As I was saying, we were saying once,
with Nati,
in one of many discussions that...
In one of many discussions!
Is that, what has happened,
in my opinin, right?
Is that today's youth, has immersed
so much in self-analysis, right?
But they went far too deep in themselves
for an individual transformation,
that they grew apart
from everyone else
from the social sphere, right?
So it's a movement, you can't compare,
with a broad political movement,
I mean one which has a social impact too.
Back in my days
the thing was the other way around,
more outwardly a bit less to self growth.
It's the way it is,
right? It's a cyclic thing.
Yes!
These dynamics, I mean.
We shall suppress from the soul,
all the fear future could bring to mankind
we shall acquire serenity in every single
feeling and emotion regarding the future
we shall look with equanimity
anything that might come
and we shall only think
that anything which might come
would be given to us by a universal
direction, which is full of wisdom.
It was great, I was really drunk.
I got married wasted.
And did you put a ring on
and did the whole thing?
Of course I did. We bought it.
But I don't know.
I feel like everything was a fiction film.
We both had lied.
We saw each other after
like three or four months.
We had only been together
for like two months.
I don't know, it was weird.
You've been going out for
two months before the wedding?
Gosh Angela... but well,
you had a nice party didn't you?
Yes, we had alcohol
from all around the world.
Where did you get married?
- It was in Xochimilco. By a lake.
- Wow!
It was wonderful, really really nice.
But... I don't know.
And how was the show?
Well, the guests were weird,
they all were like from a movie,
well, from the movie I had worked on.
So we had the designer, costume designer,
the art coordinator.
And I think everyone was
acting out of their bodies.
Everything was a big performance.
I was very happy.
I drank everything I was given.
There was Polish alcohol,
Bolivian alcohol. We drank and drank
and we arrived on an island called
"The Island of the Dolls".
There are some huts
to which old dolls were attached to,
and we arrived at the magic hour.
- Wow! How cool!
- And the fireworks started.
Everyone had fireworks.
- Wow, pretty!
- There was a guy who had a sound system
and I think Juliana had a playlist.
- What kind of music?
- I don't remember.
- Did it have salsa on the list?
- Yeah, A song she wanted.
The whole time they played only one song?
- Nooo!!
- Yes!
- So it was a movie set.
- It was on a loop...
it was a movie, like a set,
and everyone was from the movie.
Everyone knew what
to do. It was like... We
got there and chop-chop.
Everything ready.
The designer had a devil doll
filled with fireworks hanging
from the top of a tree, like three,
two, one... they got married!!
And we started to walk
and I was given away by the designer,
and the guy who married us was fake too.
He was dressed like a Hawaiian
with white trousers
and a flowery shirt and he was saying
sort of legal things that were fake,
like by the Mexican resolution such
and such I pronounce you wife and wife,
and everybody cheered.
The only missing thing
was someone shouting: Cut!!
Dad do you remember our
first conversations
about the fact I like women?
Yeah...
there are changes coming in the future
in many ways, for example
one asks oneself,
would I have grandchildren or not?
How would that be? Have you asked yourself
something about our home?
Something in particular
that may have induced you or led you?
No, not really,
I think those are choices
that one might go for
as one starts to discover them.
But there's nothing in particular
about our family that could
have led me to make this decision.
What sort of questions
did you ask yourself about this?
There were many.
I wondered whether I failed
as the masculine figure,
your mum also questioned herself and me.
Many, many, I questioned the school,
the pedagogy,
if anything happened
with something or someone.
I remember those, out of many.
And one does not end liking it,
but can understand it
as something that...
depends on you, not on us.
It's not us who decide
how things should be,
because it's your life,
It's your life.
That's how it is.
Got it.
For example during the first years,
When it was all new,
about eight years ago,
I was very upset, obviously it
had to do with the age too,
with adolescence and everything,
but I was really angry at you guys.
Were you? Why?
Because you didn't accept it,
although it wasn't so much
because you didn't accept it,
it was more because
you didn't understand it.
Because one may not accept something
but may try to understand it.
But now things are different.
Well, all of us have changed
regarding that matter.
I remember the conversation
we had in the studio.
You told me that hearing that
was as hard as it was when you heard
about your brother William's death.
I remember clearly.
Yes, it was like that...
and many years went by,
as painful as that was.
And we always wanted you to attend
a non-traditional school but
to one which would educate you
towards freedom.
And so my first confrontation was:
'okay, didn't you want a school which
guided them towards freedom?'
Well, this is freedom,
when there's choice over our own lives...
that's how you build freedom.
But that's a good reflection, isn't it?
But getting there took a long time.
Because at the beginning we reproached,
there were conflicts between
your father and I.
Not because he shared,
but as in between the pain
and the worries
we did not meet each other in harmony,
because when we are not well,
we are not capable of being
at ease with anything that surrounds us,
we won't be at ease at our workplace or
anywhere, there's no peace inside.
There's no peace when you blame yourself,
I used to say:
If I didn't work,
if I spent the whole time with her,
I neglected them,
neglected my daughter,
And so my job,
which I used to love, I started hating it.
And so I no longer wanted
to get up to go to work,
I no longer wanted anything.
There was a night
when you father wasn't feeling well.
He couldn't sleep and neither did I,
and I hugged him,
and told him:
Ricky I think we have been wrong,
we grew away from faith and we thought
that everything was in our hands
and it was not like that.
And today I feel that the same thought
made me found faith.
To me, that is something I
am really grateful to you,
for not raising us with any religion.
Do you remember you told me
you had decided not to baptise us
or raise us with no specific religion
so we could choose what we wanted?
I think that is something of great value
and every parent should do so.
Well honey, religion is a topic in which
only life takes us little by little
to certain points, for example
taking a path and changing your mind
and taking another path.
And as time goes by,
life itself would then tell you
if that was the correct path or not.
To Ricardo from Gloria Almario.
- Let's see.
- Yay! For the swimming pool!
Bravo!
To Enrica from Natalia Imery.
- Bravo!! Open it up!
- Thank you!
There is a lot of information inside.
- This can't be true!! A spa day!
- That's what I need, a spa day!
Thank you so much!
It is what I need!
We gave him this present
in a "selfish" way.
- What for, what for?
- To play chess with Ricardo.
He's very good.
The anger and pain
I once felt towards my parents
for not accepting my homosexuality,
have started to fade.
Go ahead. The shoulders.
- The shoulders.
- Another time.
Another time.
As much as we can handle it.
Okay! All right, one, two, three.
- It's really good!
- That one is good!
But this is a workout for the arm,
right?
- Yes.
- And the abdomen.
But the whole body feels it because
look how breathless we get doing it.
- Shall we do another?
- Sure.
But what is the effect of that pill,
I mean, what does it do?
The pill is... it does two things:
Inhibits the involuntary movements,
the tremors
but it also provides substances
which precede the dopamine,
because the dopamine
is the neurotransmitter.
So the one which allows the connexions.
The communications,
the one that makes
the link between neurons.
So when such link doesn't happen
it sends a message from this side
and it doesn't arrive anywhere.
No one takes the message.
- What a hormone, don't you think?
- You're right.
Neurohormone.
Yeah, and it's also the one which gives
That feeling of well-being
when you are like:
how good I am feeling!
That's the dopamine.
You have no dopamine and you say:
I'm feeling down,
I tell your mum that
being without dopamine
is like if someone took your soul away,
'Let's take this away', it is gone
and you are left there, soulless...
Yikes!
- Bloody spring.
- Damn spring!
Why does it need to look
as if you don't know Italian?
You know it.
- Bloody spring.
- Bloody.
- No, you said bloody!
- What does bloody mean?
Bloodies spring a little disagreement.
It's a poem.
Nooo. Bloody spring, enough!
- It's a contemporary poem.
- It's a song by Gigliola Cinguetti.
Che fretta c'era, maledetta primavera.
Bloody, disgusting.
Like Marge and Homer, from The Simpsons.
Shall I kiss your eye?
No, but why would you do that?
I honestly don't understand it.
Let me.
I don't know how hygienic,
sanitary-wise can this action be.
Proper!
Stop it.
- What are we doing?
- Nothing.
- Did you put on some weight?
- Did I?
- I'm going to brush my teeth.
- Okay love.
Honey, do you remember
how does it start? Look!
"This book could not be published
without the consent,
in some cases reluctantly,
of the characters of the story.
As my son says: it's not easy
to have a writer in the family.
So I am thankful with them for putting up
with my endless questioning
and for allowing me to go deeper
in their lives."
- Wow!
- Does it remind you of someone?
Come here honey!
- Is Luchi there?
- Yeah, he is.
- Where?
- Come, Lucho, come.
Put it up, come.
Bring it.
Bring the teddy toy.
Come precious, what are you doing?
Come, come, come here!
- Don't touch it, not yet!
- Okay.
- Not yet, otherwise it gets..
- Come here my Luchi.
Easy, slowly, gently.
Who's this beauty?
It's purring!!
Why don't you want to stay?
A few nights ago I dreamt that my mother
and I arrived to a very big and old house.
The house was in bad shape,
with the floor full of puddles.
Against a wall, there were
many naked women making a line.
They seemed wet.
One of them had tattoos in one
of the sides of her back,
she was shivering and crying.
At the end of the queue it was a room for
home-made developing analogue photography.
The images were pictures of the women
who had finished the line.
I told my mother I wanted
my picture taken.
My mum calmly telling me to leave
because the women in the queue
were about to have abortions.
We started to walk towards the exit,
I didn't look back any more.
But heard groans and moans.
I imagined the tattooed woman in the queue
while the fetus came out of her vagina.
Roberto.
That allows me to be myself
everyday without a problem.
Yes, of course but I meant
in the household.
For instance my mum,
I mean, I got married,
I was living with a person and everything
and she continued asking me:
'how's your friend?'
But she isn't my friend, I mean,
she clearly isn't just a friend!
But she had that fixed idea
and wasn't able to change it.
- Yeah, well, it's hard.
- Is not that it is hard, what I meant is,
you need to understand her.
It's an intense struggle with one self
and one's environment,
your relatives, grandmas,
aunts and uncles, it isn't easy.
It's like death, don't you think?
I feel people take it as a death,
I mean it wasn't born the woman
I was hoping for,
so I need to assimilate
that she wasn't born at all
and one is always learning to be a woman,
for instance I always remember,
they put a dress on you, and well,
I've always sat down like this,
and they are like close your legs
because women don't sit like that
and you think:
'okay, I'm a woman! I sit like this!'
Don't speak so loud, speak more like...
- Don't swear.
- So then, okay, I speak that way
and you start turning into a person, like
a character of yourself don't you think?
Until you finally go out to the world
and you see people and you say,
okay this is possible.
And you can be whatever
you want to make of yourself.
It's the biggest freedom,
not to lie to yourself.
The saddest thing in the world is being
far from your family, from your parents,
but it's also very sad to be close
and feel rejected, right?
And being able to talk too, right?
I mean it's like sometimes the things
you can do with your parents,
if you do have an heterosexual partner,
it's like 'I'm sad because he did this
or he left me, or didn't leave me
but he's behaving in such and such way',
and you can have a conversation.
To me, I think I am in the position
of whom has changed their way of thinking
I mean, it's me whom out of the blue,
I have the impression that up until now,
I hadn't discovered my true self,
but now I have, so, I am telling them,
look at the cards you have on the table,
turn them over.
You might think you wouldn't have
any cards left,
but we live in a society where
you can have different card decks.
And... and I think we also need
to normalise this.
'listen I had a fight with Nati
because she's always late
there's not a day she's on time'
That's not true, by the way,
it's an example.
- It's really close to reality.
- But an example anyway!
But we should do it anyway,
because it's true, if the question
doesn't come from the other side,
'Hey and how's Nati doing?' And then,
from my side, it doesn't come either.
- Yeah, that's true.
- So what I mean is, we need to meet
each other at a certain point.
Yes, to be able to
establish communication.
Yeah.
Once when I was visiting my parents,
my dad had a "slump",
as he calls the moments of low mobility.
As always, my mum helped him stand up,
as my dad joked about his condition
and she laughed with him.
After many hours of exercise
and the medication kicking in,
my dad got his body back
and sat down to work whistling,
as if nothing had happened.
This happens several times a day,
everyday.
- Is it time to exercise?
- It is time...
- So are we going to the gym?
- Yes, I need to start at the gym.
- And shall we swim afterwards?
- Sure, we will.
Would you come to gym for a while?
I'm not as fit as you dad.
And I smoke...
my weakness.
Have you been smoking a lot again?
Not a lot,
compared to a 'professional' smoker,
I'm nothing but a beginner.
- How many?
- How many a day?
Three, more or less.
- Really? You need to self...
- Self regulate? Medicate?
- For you not to increase the amount...
- Yeah, I need to keep up my pace,
to decrease the amount
as I think quitting is harder.
It ends up being more traumatic
than helpful
as you may say 'I quit forever'
but you only manage to stop for a month
or two, and you fall back into the habit.
Yes, that's true,
but anyway you do need your willpower,
don't you?
- Yes!
- To quit it.
To control it.
Dad, thank you very much
for the stories you have shared with me.
Thank you, it's been very interesting.
Yes.
For all the lessons taught.
- Do you want my help?
- Yes!
- Is the gym open at this time?
- Yes it is.
All right,
- so how should we do this?
- Let's see.
Let me put this away.
Let me try and see if I can...
- What?
- Can you do it with only one hand?
- With just one?
- Yeah.
These images were shot
by my paternal grandfather.
I didn't meet him.
He was a fan of photography and film.
It was a great privilege
to have a camera back then
and to film important moments
of his life and family.
Here's my father on the verge
of starting to walk.
Rice pudding!
I want to marry a lady from the capital.
Who knows how to sew,
who knows how to dance,
she shall be a young lady
from the capital.
Who knows how to sew,
who knows how to dance,
she shall be a young lady
from the capital.