Symphonie Fantastique

"Symphonie Fantastique" is a dramatization of what I once experienced in real life: a sensual, yearnful night spent overlooking, participating in, and photographing a wind ensemble performance (down to the exact location we shot it in, too). I was the wind ensemble percussionist who brought my then-lover up with me as the music washed over us while we held each other intimately on that dimly-lit floor. Looking back now, I reminisce on that memory as if I was watching myself in third-person; an omnipotent presence that experienced it all alongside me from an entirely different perspective than my own. That was when I was a senior in high school. Now, I'm a college graduate--coming back to where this film's inspiration began. I have written, directed, produced, and edited my dramatization with my best friends and family by my side and knew that having my Chicago crew drive all the way to Cary, North Carolina would be worth it in order to bring this film to life the exact way it needed to be. The one thing I ensured was vastly different in my new dramatization, however, was the language the characters spoke in and the ages these characters embodied. I chose to change the ages because the way I experienced this moment never felt like I was a teenager when it happened--it always felt like an experience only those fully experienced in the many intricacies of life and love could understand. I chose to make this film in Spanish because I think there's a version of myself that wishes this inciting memory of mine was spoken in my first language...maybe not even in the US as well. Another reason why I wanted to change it was to honor my late Abuela, Soni (of whom the main character is named after) and Diego, the name my parents originally wanted to give me before they gave me a "white" name so I wouldn't be racially profiled (funny, right?). My main actress' father also passed away last year so I made sure that they are both honored in the credits for they would have been so proud of their child/grandchild making a film that is as inherently as Mexican as they were. That, to me, is something that I believe makes this film special: its proximity to me and my culture onto an otherwise objective, real-life experience. I couldn't be more proud of myself or my cast and crew and together we made our own 16mm staple into Mexican-American cinema that the world has yet to see. This is "Symphonie Fantastique."