Ben DeJesus | award-winning documentary filmmaker, director, producer

Prelude: I came to this world with a whole lot of cultural privilege, via the field of music. That story is enough for an entire season of other stories, but today, as I was readying to write about Ben DeJesus I learned of the passing of José José, el Principe de la cancíon (the song prince), and sadness overtook me. I remember when José José and the Latin American ballad were at their height, and I was growing up. I couldn’t help but shake that our stories again are under-told, misunderstood, and slowly losing their historical originals. Mexico lost a giant, a ferocious voice that made the Spanish speaking American Continent stand up for years and years and years. José José was one in a million. His legacy will live on for no one alive could ever belt a song like “El triste” in the history of music, period. Just right before José, another giant passed away, Camilo Sesto. Maybe because I lived it and saw them young, powerful, and beautiful, it is that I am inconsolable…something slips slowly away, and tears flow out of me. I can’t shake the sinking feeling that if we, Latinx don’t stand for us an entire era will go by us forgotten and lost…And, perhaps for this very reason is that I am beyond grateful that my talk with Ben DeJesus, gets to be shared today, another poetic moment. Read last week’s CODA.

The eye of the beholder. 

Points of view catch on from a place none can see. They percolate up and through from within the bottom of the heart. Definition is a more delicate sphere, a space that takes effort and where a point of view becomes a source of good or a source for something else. In the realm of mainstream, Latinx are still missing in great waves and especially the gifted artists. In comes Ben DeJesus. A boy from New Jersey who as I see it came into this world with favor and grace and who is making something out it with defined artistry in the pursuit of goodness and justice.

In the end, at this point in time, these gestures are about justice.

“Raúl Juliá The World’s A Stage” is a rescue of an American master. And, when I say American master, I don’t just mean the United States. I mean the Southern and Northern American Continent because that is who Mr. Juliá was, a figure of the Pan American experience.

Ben DeJesus has definition and purpose and a visual and sensorial way to his point of view that breathes out respect throughout his work in a style all his own. I researched and watched Ben’s work a lá binge and found that whatever is continually percolating inside him has a root in nobility. I’ll skip all the big names, his bio is credits and accolades are out there for you to Google. The thing that I want to let you know is that I look forward to more because he has not forgotten the value of his people. And that is gold.

Catch “Raúl Juliá The World’s a Stage” on PBS.org. The film is streaming through October 11, 2019.

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