Original subtitles

my brother

Kevin, how are you?

Thanks bro, how are you doing?

forever

forever

forever hombre

So talk to me, where are we?

So we are in my brain in many ways.

This is motion picture

technical high school.

It's a brand new school

for the New York City

public school system.

It's a unscramed

media arts and CTE school,

career and technical education school.

And in many ways it was designed

and built to give more

young people of color access

to an industry that has been

historically exclusive.

So we are here in

Queens in the birthplace

of the American film business.

We're in Woodside, we're in Sunnyside.

Next year, we're gonna be moving to

what we call the Hollywoodside campus.

Just a couple of blocks away,

this year we're

incubating in a middle school

in Sunnyside for our first year.

At full scale, we're

gonna have 800 filmmakers

in one building.

That's amazing.

How did this dream start?

It started with me making films,

trying to break into an

industry that I loved.

I wanted to be a famous director.

I went to film school,

and unfortunately my

film school didn't tell me

that there's an actual way of breaking

into the film business

that's not the romantic

and unrealistic way,

which is work your way up.

But I wasn't informed of that,

and I didn't have the

network and relationships

to guide me in that direction.

What inspired the school?

So this has been a dream

come true in many ways.

The mantra, really

the mantra of the school

is light camera access.

So it's built on the

idea and the notion

that we wanna give

more young people of color

from New York City opportunities

to break into the industry

in the way they should,

which is through pathways,

through entry level

jobs, through relationships,

and through guidance and mentorship.

Wow, that's beautiful.

And the way I see

you talking to the kids

so far in interactions, like family,

but you're doing a

project now that takes you

not only to talk to

your family, your mom,

but also going back to the homeland.

Talk to me about your new film.

Yeah, so it's funny

that we're here in Queens.

My parents, my dad's from Medellin,

my mom's from Cali, they met not too

far from here, right?

So I was born bred in Queens.

I'm now running a film

school in Queens, right?

So it's all coming full circle.

But I've always found it difficult

to really connect with Colombia, right?

That's where I'm from,

that's where my family's from.

So being able to tell a

story about salsa music

and the new capital of

salsa music in the world,

that's Cali, Colombia,

where my mother's from,

just makes this journey that

much more worthwhile for me.

And I'm really excited

that people are excited

about the documentary,

that the film is gonna be seen

by a lot of people.

And more importantly, that

I got to share a rough cut

with my mom, who is a huge

salsera from Cali, great pride.

And she was in tears, and

that made me very proud.

But she also has a

title in the film, right?

Yeah, my mother is an

associate producer on the project,

I had to throw her in, you know?

Let me tell you

something, I always say something

that in our home

in New York, growing up with a dad

from Medellin and a mom from Cali,

we learned salsa from one of those two.

And it was definitely the Cali,

that's all that's out there in salsa.

The Cali.

How does that happen,

that Cali and Colombia

actually has

maintained the love for salsa,

where in places like

New York, that has faded away?

It's a great question,

that's what the documentary

explores, right?

It's essentially

So you gotta see it, you gotta see it.

You gotta watch it, right?

You don't wanna spoil it for people,

but it's a tale of two

cities, a love story,

that Juan Carvajal, the

director of the film,

so poetically and beautifully shares.

He's from Cali, but he

lives here in New York,

so in many ways, it's a way for him

to really make the

connection with these two cities

that have inspired him.

So salsa music, as we

know, really exploded

in the 60s and 70s

here in Spanish Harlem,

and then it dissipated, and really,

no one really knows where it went.

And then suddenly, some years later,

it emerged in this pocket in Colombia,

which is truly

fascinating for me as a storyteller,

how a city, Cali, who has

experienced such trauma,

post-cartel, how now

it's trying to reimagine

and reinvent itself through music.

And dude, the film is just wild.

It's music, people are

gonna be up on their feet

in the theater, and

we're just so thrilled.

And for me as a

filmmaker here in New York,

to be able to tell a story

about what my mother's from,

it's just epic.

My friend, I am so proud to have done

this interview with you.

Thank you for giving

me Un Chín of time.

This is amazing,

this school is amazing.

The journey, your journey is amazing.

And of course, since we're

just doing Un Chín, right?

Of Kevin, and I think

that everyone should know,

and see the film, see

all your films, you know?

So anything else you wanna say, too?

Just wanna say, Ramon, thank you.

I mean, I've been

following Un Chín forever,

since it was a magazine that I would

flip through the pages,

and to be able to be a

part of this community,

it's just such an honor.

So, you know, mi casa, tu casa, right?

Come anytime, share your

stories with our students,

and go check out La Salsa Vive

La Salsa Vive

La Salsa Vive, baby.