The story of Dorel and Ricardo (trailer)

Back in the early 2000’s I was living in New York. Every morning I took the subway from Bedford Ave in Brooklyn to Union Square in Manhattan. And a lot of those mornings a pair of musicians were playing together on my platform. I used to stop and listen to them. Sometimes I’d skip a train or two to listen longer. There was something about them. They didn’t seem to have much in common, yet they played beautifully together. One seemingly from Eastern Europe somewhere, playing the violin, and the other undoubtedly hispanic, playing the guitar. There was one song in particular that caught my attention. I didn’t know the title at the time but I know now it was “Csárdás” composed by Vittorio Monti. It was beautiful the way they played it together. It stayed with me all day when I’d heard it in the morning.

What’s the antidote for Fear? I’d say maybe Curiosity. We’re living in a world riddled with fear, and it’s stopping us from evolving into a future of ecological balance and human sanity. The two men on the platform stepped out of their respective cultural and musical comfort zones when their curiosity took over. They played together for four years, each day touching thousands of people with their mix of classical and carribean music. In a world of segregation and wall-building, to me their music represents a soundtrack of hope for the future.

“The Story of Dorel and Ricardo” (24 minutes) is going to premiere at Tempo Documentary Film Festival in Stockholm, Sweden on March 10th at 1.45 pm. For any of you who are not able to attend the premiere, I will send a link for the film with a password in the next Campfire Stories newsletter, so that you can watch the film at home instead. (I can’t offer the film openly here yet, as that would disqualify it from participating in other film festivals I’m planning to submit it to.) The link I’ll send will be valid for 14 days from March 10th. So, if you’re not already a subscriber to the newsletter, please drop your email in the form below. Or if you don’t want to be on the mailing list but still want to see the film, feel free to email me and I’ll send you the link directly: mattias@mattiasolsson.com.