Miquel Galofre

 A Spanish Filmmaker in Trinidad, Mixing Magic and Passion

Miquel Galofre is a Filmmaker from Spain who has been living in Trinidad and Tobago for five years and working in the Caribbean for two additional years. His resume is extensive; the majority of his career was spent in television. He still does commercial work, but he has won numerous awards and the hearts of many with the documentaries he has done since moving to the region.

“The world is magic you know, but we forget”, a statement Miquel once said to me- which is the only way I can describe his films-magic. If we do forget that the world is magic, we are lucky that Miquel has found his passion in reminding us that it exists all around us, if we are but able to see it. He gives us a glimpse of the magical place we want the world to be, showing us how in some ways, it already exists. He finds the places where many have ceased looking for anything beautiful, a jail cell for example, and shares the treasures he finds. He reaches into your soul through his lens, and intertwines it with each of his characters, driving home the obligation that each of us has to try to find a way to love each and every human being. We know sometimes this isn’t the easiest of tasks, but he helps us do it by illuminating the beauty of his subjects by telling their stories with a mixture of skill, compassion and admiration.

To avoid being redundant and describing Miquel himself as magical, I will instead describe him as electric, effervescent, magnetic. Miquel says he was an unhappy child until he found film and music, but one would never guess. He has a glint in his eye and an incessant glee, like a mischievous child who has just thought up a fantastic piece of mischief. It was indeed a pleasure to be able to ask Miquel his thoughts and about his work and his life, and pay small homage to the beautiful work he has given us.

“The world is magic you know, but we forget. “

EP: You said in a previous interview that when you first arrived in Trinidad it felt like home, but it took a while for you to understand it. Do you feel like you understand it now?

Miquel: Yes. Because when you first reach everything is beautiful and nice and everybody’s your friend but then you realise…I had hard times as well… you realise that people pretend to be your friend but sometimes things go badly. It’s sweet but it’s bitter as well. I was happy but realising everything is not as nice as I thought at the beginning, but now after five years I feel in love with Trinidad again. I get it.

EP: You also said that Trinidad is really unique with the mixes and contrasts in its culture. How do you think it is unique relative to other places you have been to?

Miquel:  I used to think a lot about this and had it very clear in my brain but now after five years my mind is Trini and it’s difficult to get back there… but this is not normal. What happened here with the mix of people and cultures and religions is not normal. It is something that is advanced. I guess the world is going to be like it is here in the next two or three hundred years but you have it in Trinidad right now. How you live together is amazing. How many religions and how many different races. It’s beautiful. Black people excited because it is Diwali and everybody eating doubles and you see that they really interact and they live together and they feel Trini. I love it. I keep telling my friends recently, this is amazing. Look where we live. It’s beautiful. I just love it and I go on a lot of trips, road trips, to south, to the north coast, everywhere and just see beautiful people all over. It’s special.

EP: What are some of the moments that have stood out to you in all the projects that you have done?

The second one is ‘Songs of Redemption’ filming in the jail, filming inmates. We were there for eight weeks but it was scary. When you go there it has a smell that is special. There’s more than a thousand inmates. You go there and it’s moving. You have a chance to talk to them, to know them and they open themselves to you and you had in your mind these prejudices that they are criminals and they are bad people and the moment that you realise that they are persons and they did a mistake…then in your brain something is like, “Wait wait wait wait wait! Can I feel friendly?… Can I have feelings, care about someone, who did what they say that he did…?” Then you realise man, there is no good people and no bad people. There are just people with problems. And that was another point that changed everything again in my brain.Miquel:  One moment that was very touching and life changing is when I had to go to the ghettos to film these documentaries. I remember everybody telling me don’t go there. It’s very dangerous. I don’t talk English. I don’t get the code of conduct. I don’t understand when a man is looking at my eyes in the ghetto and I’m afraid. And when I went there I felt so welcomed and so good energy and so much respect, that that changed my life. People are struggling but people are giving so much. Since then I feel I owe something to them and I keep doing works that are showing the nice side of these parts. So that was very touching and I feel very close to ghettos, poor areas and how these families work and struggle; single mums.

It’s beautiful to break prejudices and open your mind. I love that because it’s so easy to go to a place where something is like this or like that and nothing’s going to change it and you are so wrong. I used to hate dancehall bad. I felt I knew a lot of music because I was a DJ for ten years, so when I saw dancehall I was like “Nah nah, this is rubbish…it`s like reggae ton and this is not good music”. I thought I knew a lot of music, now I love dancehall. You have to open your mind, it`s difficult eh, sometimes. After loving dancehall I came to Trinidad and when I heard soca I went “Nah nah nah nah, I can do dancehall but soca NO! This is not music, this is rubbish” Laughs. Imagine how difficult it was for me to digest. Now I am a fan of soca, I love it. So it`s all about opening your mind. And it`s difficult but I`m lucky because my job allows me to do that

Third big thing that changed my life in my work. First time we went to the school in Laventille, Success Laventille. We did interviews with kids. I am very interested in kids, I feel very close to kids that are sad because I was a sad kid. And we did an interview with the most beautiful girl, Isis, twelve years old. Big eyes, amazing face, and she says- “I don`t have anything to be happy about”. A twelve year old girl, so beautiful with a life ahead of her telling you “I don`t have anything to be happy about”. That was… I saw myself there. I was in front of me, thirty years later, with the opportunity to talk to me.  Then is when I thought “We have to do something, I have to do something”, and then is when the documentary was born, I knew I had to do something.

EP: Is there a theme in your work?

Miquel: Yes probably there is a theme, which is that the world is a wonderful place, people are good, and people and love are everywhere. I use cameras to prove the world is a good place. The world has a lot of bad things happening but even with that, to be here and alive it’s wonderful thanks to something magical that you can find anywhere and it’s called love.

EP: Is there a special technique you use that is guaranteed to get you great footage and provoke emotions?

Miquel: The only technique is, you have to get ready to get magic because magic is everywhere and you don`t know where it is. You have to get ready to get it. Open your eyes, get the best of the people that are in front of you and be open to get surprised. Any script you have is rubbish because the script is in the heart of the people that are in front of you so the only trick is LISTEN. LISTEN. Open your eyes and listen.

EP: Which project are you most proud of?

Miquel: Art Connect. Art Connect is my project. I think I have been, all my life, getting ready to do Art Connect. That`s how I feel it. The only one that is my idea. I did seven documentaries, none of them were my idea, only Art Connect was my idea and I said what I had to say, what I had inside.

EP: You have won several awards for your documentaries. Are any of them special?

Miquel: Yes. We have gotten more than twenty five awards up to this point but there was one time at Little Carib Theatre that I cried getting awards. It`s the only time I cried. It was so moving. I came to Trinidad and Tobago thanks to the  Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival (TTFF) because they invited me with my documentary “Why Do Jamaicans Run So fast”. I didn’t know anything about Trinidad and Tobago at all but I came and I had the most amazing week and the film was very well received; the audience was laughing and clapping. Everybody was talking about this film and it had sold out screenings but it wasn`t in competition because only if you are Caribbean or you live in the Caribbean, you are in competition in TTFF. I didn’t know that and I went to the awards ceremony thinking maybe, maybe we will get something because people really love it. I got nothing. Then I realised we weren’t even in competition.  I worked really hard on the project “Hit Me With Music” because I wanted to come back to the film festival. I didn`t even dream of getting an award but I wanted to get into the festival again because the experience was amazing. “Hit Me With Music” was difficult to edit…it was dancehall…but I worked really hard, and we got selected. Now I was living here already, again awards ceremony, I was really nervous. And that night we got the Jury Award and People`s Choice Award, both awards. Man, I felt like I got an Oscar. You know when all your life is in your brain and you remember your family and you feel thankful to everybody…your grandma…and the day that your granddad gave you a camera and I felt… I cried! I was crying! I have seven TTFF awards now, but when you work so hard, and finally you get a reward, it`s a beautiful feeling. So, I remember the night being a very special night. I don`t know, maybe that night I realised, I can do this and people like it.

Maybe the things you are happiest about are the things that you have to put a lot of effort. I was living in the Caribbean because I had this dream of doing documentaries. My family didn’t understand, I came here a little bit afraid, I finished the documentary being here and I realised the jury and the audience chose that that was the best documentary of the festival, with such amazing films, for me it was like, “Wow!”   All my life, working so hard I was feeling that I could do something, and it`s happening, and it`s working, and that`s why I had all these emotions inside of me.

“The script is in the heart of the people that are in front of you so the only trick is to listen. “

EP: Do you feel a level of accomplishment now as a film maker?

Miquel: Yes and no. Yes because I learnt to film, I have learnt to tell stories, I have learnt to edit and provoke feelings. I don`t feel I`m talented but I have the passion that allows me to work really hard.     Every film I edit twenty versions. Every interview, to use two minutes I record three hours. I`m not a talented or skilled guy, I just love what I do and I work really hard.

So I know that working hard I can make it but it`s no because it`s almost impossible to make a life doing that. I cannot make a living off doing documentaries. There is no money for documentaries. It`s a fight and the hardest part is to get the budget that allows you to make the story that you want to tell. Actually I don`t think it`s hard, I think it`s impossible. I don`t do what I want, I do what I can. None of my documentaries were what I wanted to do, it`s what I could do, and it`s the closest I could go to what I wanted. But, it`s very very very hard.

EP: You have three more documentaries left and all the resources to do it. What three documentaries would you want to do?

Miquel: What a question boy!!! I would do “Hello Nicki”, a documentary about Shannice, a sixteen year old beautiful girl from South Trinidad who loves Nicki Minaj and likes to sing, but she has Cerebral Palsy and not everybody accepts her. I would love to do that. Then I will do Art Connect ten years after, the same kids, follow them ten years later. Five years has already passed since we filmed the first one. Also I would do a documentary I was really excited about that didn’t happen. It was based on a book called “Wishing for Wings”. That was very powerful. It`s like “Songs of Redemption” but even more powerful because the prison is for kids. In Trinidad you have a prison for kids that is called YTC.  It`s called Youth Training Centre but to me it`s like a jail.  Debbie Jacob did this book called “Wishing for Wings”. She`s a teacher, she used to go to YTC and teach English and talk to these kids and help them to pass their exams.  She would help them write stories and books. That’s so necessary man. That`s so necessary, we should understand the “criminals”, and the “criminals” should understand us, and then we can fix the problem, but we don`t look to each other. And people like Debbie Jacob are so important, and I was really disappointed when the producer told me it`s not happening because they didn`t get the money. It`s like “Art Connect” and “Songs of Redemption” mixed because it`s young people with problems, but in prison. They are still on time, to fix their life, you know? So “Hello Nicki”, “Art Connect 2”, “Wishing for Wings”. And there are two more I would like to do. One is a documentary I want to do bad bad bad but I`m giving up now. Following the Trinidadian athletes at the Olympics in Brazil. It`s happening in August this summer. About twenty Trinis are going trying to get a medal in the Olympics. I really would love to follow them and see the Olympics from inside. I`m sure some of them are going to do great, and even if they don`t do great it`s okay. Just the fact that they got there is amazing. That documentary should happen. And again, there`s no way to get the money. But if anybody is reading this and can help, let`s go Rio!  Laughs.  Let`s go Rio and do an amazing documentary that is bringing hope to the country! What is better than that?

I also would love to make a documentary about Machel Montano. I find him fascinating. It took a while for me to understand how big he is. But year after year, hats off… his passion, his talent, his hard work, his hits, more than thirty years and still the number one! It might be easy to criticize him but I have a lot of respect for him. Can you imagine the amount of pressure he has to handle? Since childhood? There is already stunning footage of him, I would love one day to put it all together in a film and make people understand what does it mean to be double MM. But it should be real, of course, showing the unknown sides. He is the Michael Jackson of Soca, no lie.

EP: Apart from these documentaries you would love to do, what are your plans for the future?

Miquel: I am at a point where I`m going to have a break because I spent so much energy during seven years doing seven feature documentaries. My values are in a different place. My most important thing in life every day is not work anymore. I want to take a break and allow myself to get old. I didn’t allow myself to get old. Suddenly I’m forty-five and I don`t know how. I started this crazy job when I was seventeen and when I stopped I was forty-five. So now I want to take a break.

At my age I start to think about how much more time I have here (alive) and what to do with that time. My biggest wish now is to have children, raise them well and teach them from an early age what it took too long for me to learn; “It’s really comforting being a good man and doing always the right thing. Well almost always…”.