Premieres Monday, Jan. 2, 2023 at 11 p.m. on KPBS TV / PBS Video app
In poverty-stricken Las Brisas, the Venezuelan government-sponsored classical music program El Sistema offers children the opportunity to aspire for greatness, as the country’s spiraling collapse and political repression threatens the musicians’ dreams of a better life. In “Children of Las Brisas,” award-winning documentarian and Venezuelan director Marianela Maldonado (“Once Upon a Time in Venezuela”) captures three young protagonists over the span of 10 years.
Following its U.S. North American premiere at the 2022 DOC NYC film festival, “Children of Las Brisas” makes its broadcast debut on INDEPENDENT LENS.
Maldonado brings a deeply vulnerable perspective to the ground-level impact of the political, economic, and humanitarian crises present in her home country, documenting the years of 2009 to 2019 through the lens of three young musicians.
As captured in the doc, youth orchestra El Sistema provides guidance and purpose for the film’s subjects, including Dissandra, a violinist who observed the premature death of her two younger sisters, Wuilly, another violinist who spent seven years of his life locked in a church with his family as a result of his parents’ apocalyptic ideologies, and Edixon, a viola player raised by his grandmother and deaf mother after his father was murdered.
Dissandra, Wuilly, and Edixon forge different paths for themselves over the course of the decade as they face unique struggles in Las Brisas. Some audition to play in foreign concerts while others engage with the politics surrounding them through military service and activism.
Described as “combining the intimate and the panoramic” by The Guardian, “Children of Las Brisas” explores the political and economic struggles in Venezuela at both the individual and systemic level, addressing the impact of historical moments from the past decade, including the death of former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in 2013 and the 2017 protests.
“Bringing incredibly real and vulnerable stories from my home country to a global audience has been the very purpose and heart of my work,” said Maldonado. “Following these young artists as they endure so many hardships in pursuit of their dreams has inspired me, and I hope it does the same for the INDEPENDENT LENS audience.”
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Credits:
Director: Marianela Maldonado. Producer: Luisa De La Ville. Co-producers: Luc Martin Gousset, Andy Glynne. Executive Producers: Luisa De La Ville, Sally Jo Fifer, Lois Vossen and Sandie Viquez Pedlow.
After graduating from the National Film & Television School in the U.K., Marianela wrote and directed fiction short films and was a screenwriter for animation and fiction projects, among them “Peter and the Wolf” and “The Magic Piano.” As a documentarian, she co-wrote “Once Upon A Time in Venezuela” and directed “Children of Las Brisas.”
