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.
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!”. 
