Children of Las Brisas

Following three kids during ten years is amazing... Doing it in an often misunderstood country such as mine, Venezuela, even more! You end up understanding and empathizing, and that is a lot. This is an extraordinary film on El Sistema de Orquestas, a program aimed at providing formal musical training to the youth, particularly in the less privileged sectors, the struggles of three different kids and their families living in a poor neighborhood there, and a country that collapsed with no medicines, no food and no hope for their future. And it's a documentary! I loved it. I totally recommend it.

Of all the documentaries I've seen in recent years, this is perhaps the one that has strucked me the most. The hopeless, poverty-stricken situation in which the young people grow up and the fiery passion they all have to escape that situation through music is beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time.

The fact that the documentary maker also followed the young people for ten years and Venezuela ended up in a deep crisis during those years gives the story even more weight. The movie tells so many stories. About the course of life itself, about Venezuela, about the hard fight the young people have to deliver to get something better for themselves. It's a pearl of a documentary, which I have watched with tears in my eyes at times.