The True Story Behind I Confess

In October 2013, I produced my short film I Confess. For those of you who are new here, I am a filmmaker. I write, edit, film and produce short films. All of my short films have been inspired by something that has had some form of an impact on me in my personal life. 
I am the most positive upbeat person with a great outlook on life. However, I express the devastating snippets of my life through the medium of my short films. I Confess was one of these very moments. 

Let me take you back a few years to when I was in my early 20’s. Firstly I was in Colombia, living with my family and I was a student at university studying System Technology. However, I hated it! 
Colombia is a very different place to here in the U.K If you do not wish to go to university the only other option is to go into the army. I wanted to do neither of these things. There is no state welfare in Colombia like there is here in the U.K so this was never even an option. I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the world. So I went travelling and I ended up settling in London, England. My journey from being a young adult at university to living in London is a rollercoaster of a ride and something I will definitely share in the future! 
I moved to London, England where I found work as a cleaner in a food establishment. I worked tiring days and before I knew it I was part of the London rat race. London is an amazing place full of life but everyone is working hard to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have to impress people that they don’t even like. This was the rat race and I just needed to survive it and keep my head above water. I found these days so hard getting up early in the morning to go to one job and then another job before going home for a matter of hours before starting my routine all over again. Along with this there was a huge obstacle to overcome which was the language barrier. I was a Colombian speaking Spanish living and working in a country that speaks English! When I arrived in London I could not speak a word of English. 

In this time I missed my family back home in Colombia incredibly. There were so many days when I wanted to escape but now I was in a position where the only option was to keep on going forward, keep on ploughing through for I knew deep in my heart that I would get to where I wanted to be eventually. 
It was at these times that I would go to the toilets of where I worked I would lock myself in one of the big cubicles sit down and for those few moments I was at peace. I could be myself, I could take time to breathe and to think. It was in here that I wrote a piece in Spanish called Lo Confieso which in English is I Confess. Even at those times working in London, I never forgot my actor roots it was and is something that will always be deeply rooted in my soul. Lo Confieso was a tragic story that I wrote at a very dark time in my life. I sat in the large bright toilet cubicle in my black and white overalls, I wrote and I cried. At that very moment in time I wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else. I wanted an escape and this is what Lo Confieso was all about. I felt trapped like I could not see a light at the end of the tunnel, not even a flicker. 
Little did I know that around 10 years later I would take Lo Confieso, translate it into English and adapt it into I Confess and produce it as a short film here in Scotland with ELGATO Film Productions. One of my mantras in life is “Everything Happens For a Reason” and I truly believe this. As unbelievably miserable as it was living through those times in London, it happened for a reason. That experience made me the person that I am today sometimes in life you have to have had nothing in order to appreciate everything! 

My Life of Being a Frustrating Actor!

When I meet people in the independent filming industry these days, I always share with them that I have a background in acting and directing from back home in Colombia. But I have never publicly told anyone my experiences of this time from my childhood in Colombia. This is my story of my acting roots. 

I started acting when I was a young boy aged 11 years old living in my family home in Anserma, Caldas in Colombia, South America. I knew I wanted to act but the main theatre group called ‘Tean’ in my town of Anserma did not want to accept me. The reason for this is that my Brother was very wild! Therefore the Director of the ‘Tean’ theatre group Jorge Carvajal Ospina did not want me to be part of their theatre group due to my Brother’s wild antics! 

So I joined another small theatre group in which we entered one of our performances into the theatre festival in Anserma. In this performance, I played the part of the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood. The Director of ‘Tean’ was so impressed with my character because I was so small and I performed so well. 
One day they were looking for an actor to play the character of Don Timidito who was a professor.

There was also a character who was a tearaway child, a rule breaker always getting into trouble and causing mischief. A child who had gone through many teachers and they could not find a teacher to bring him under control. Due to this he was home schooled. It was the character of Don Timidito who was brought in to teach this young child, however he went to teach him and he got abused by the child!
We performed this play called ‘Arbol Que Crece Torcido’ and we went to a huge theatre festival ‘Latinoamerican Festival’ in Manizales. In this festival I appeared in the local newspapers where I was recognised for my good acting skills. This is where my career in acting started, I truly believe that these good things happened to me because I am very determined and passionate, once I put my mind to something I don’t stop until I achieve it! I went from a little boy who no one wanted to be associated with in their theatre groups to being in demand where people wanted to work with me and they wanted me in their plays! 

I finally joined the main theatre group ‘Tean’ in my town. We portrayed various characters in my time there, I have many fond memories from this time in my life. 
When I was recognised as an actor, I was extremely lucky to be awarded with a scholarship to study at ‘Tich’ in the city of Manizales close to my home town. It was here that I learnt acting and directing which furthered my career to where I am today. The idea with ‘Tich’ was to learn from others and then bring that knowledge back to my town of Anserma to share it with other young children and create groups to help them to improve their acting skills. In ‘Tich’ we were evaluated in how we were learning and how we were working with other children. This was nothing in relation with acting for television or film this was purely for stage theatre. 
I created many different groups, there was one group that I created with one of my friends who at the time was my girlfriend. We called it La Pildora after the contraceptive pill, due to that most of our conversations were about the pill! I wrote many different plays during my time in my small theatre group. ‘Tean’ was the main group that I worked and performed with. 
When I was part of ‘Tean’ we travelled as a theatre group and performed at many different places including Manizales and other local towns. We took our play and we sold it to different schools and performed it for them. 
In Anserma, we have a theatre festival every year. Theatre is a big part of our culture in the town. The entire community gets involved with this, schools work hard to create something for the theatre festival such as posters, teaching children how to act etc. From here the best school is entered free into the theatre festival. We would then close all the streets and put on a huge parade through the town for everyone to enjoy it! 
Most importantly not only did the schools contribute to the festival but they did it completely for free with materials that the community already had. Colombia is a poor country but that does not stop us from being passionate about life! If you want to do something you can do it, there is always a way and I truly believe this! 
This is something that I have been trying to do here in Scotland with ELGATO Film Productions and Ayr International Short Film Festival. I find it extremely frustrating because any time that I approach anyone to become involved with our projects, their answer is always ‘no sorry I don’t have any money’. But you don’t necessarily need money to be creative but what you do need is a lot of passion and conviction! I find that here in Scotland that people do not have as much determination as back home in Colombia. 

When I was 20 years old I graduated and I went travelling, slowly my acting began to fade out of my life. This was very sad for me as acting is something I loved so much and I was so passionate about it, it made me feel free and it stirred my soul! 

Later on when I had my first Son Daniel I bought a video camera and I thought it was a good idea to use my Son as a guinea pig for my acting. I started by filming little sketches with Daniel and soon enough he caught the acting bug! When I saw this in Daniel it inspired me to return to acting.
I was so eager to once again be creative. From here I formed ELGATO Film Productions. In the future, I will share my awesome experiences from transitioning from theatre acting and directing into film! 
Right now in time, I have itchy feet and I would love the opportunity to return to my roots and do some acting. I don’t always want to be behind the camera. But I feel at present that it is difficult as I have many responsibilities such as being a Father and having a full time job to provide for my family. But if you truly want to do something there are no excuses, you can always do what you want. But the choice is always yours and remember “You are the creator of your own destiny!”. 

My Family Values!

I am back writing my blog after a long break. If you want to see what I have been up to check out my YouTube channel where I have been filming with my family. 

Since writing my last blog, things have changed at home. My partner Samantha is now expecting our 5th child in April 2016. We are expecting another boy! 

One of my greatest joys in life is being a Father! Every day I work hard teaching my boys all the good things that my parents taught me.
I was born in Colombia, South America. I am one of ten children, in my culture family is one of the most important things. 

My Mum and Dad gave me a great childhood full of love and laughter. They taught me so much about how to treat and value other people. These are the values that I am now passing onto my boys. 

I teach my boys manners on a daily occurrence and I teach them how to treat myself, their Mum and their Brothers. Sometimes this is something that is easily overlooked by other parents. But I believe it is so important for my boys to treat others with respect. I want them to learn that by respecting and being kind to other people they will receive it back. 
In my life, I am constantly striving to be a better person, a better Father and a better partner. I believe that you reap what you sow. Therefore if someone is kind to me I will return it back to them. I am also a firm believer in karma. If you do something good you will be repaid but equally if you do something bad, there will be consequences. 

All of these things that I have learnt from my family as a child and that I am still learning now as an adult, I will pass them onto my boys. On a final note I leave you with this quote: “Never stop learning because life never stops teaching!”