PROJECT 4/ Local Legends film
The Development of Local Legends
The process of creating the film you see above began with an informal interview with Johnny Irizarry, former executive director of Taller Puertorriqueño and current director of Center for Hispanic Excellence: La Casa Latina at the University of Pennsylvania (November 10, 2018). Our conversation with Johnny opened the door to a deep dive into community building and organizing in North Philadelphia. When we asked about the importance of music to the neighborhood, Johnny lit up and recounted several stories about Centro Musical and its founding owner, the international and Puerto Rican stars that visited and performed there in the past, as well as local musical legends that frequented the store. One such local legend Johnny identified was a woman he called Doña Rosa. As he talked about her sense of humor, her poetry, and her singing talent, we realized it must be Rosita, the same woman who had warmly chatted with us at Centro Musical the month before. We made plans to go back to the store and talk to her again.
After having spent a significant amount of our time in North Philly walking up and down N. 5th street and looking at the murals in the neighborhood, we knew we wanted them to be a part of our final creative exercise for the course. So, the next day (November 11, 2018), we replicated our walking tour with Marilyn and documented the murals, local businesses, and ambient sound utilizing a Panasonic HD camcorder and a shotgun microphone, however without a tripod it was sometimes challenging to get smooth steady shots.
After filming outside of Centro Musical, we went inside to take a break from the cold and chat with Rosa. Much like our first interaction with her, Rosa treated us like family. Towards the end of our conversation, while Daniel was buying a CD that we were considering using as the soundtrack for our film, Maris asked Rosa if she would be open to doing an interview with us for our project. She agreed telling us to come back any day after 12 noon. We left the store to film a few more shots and one of the murals included a poem by someone named Rosa Benitez and realized it had to be our friend. A week later, on November 17, 2018, we returned to Centro Musical to interview Rosita. She had two stools set out next to her counter. Doña Rosa was expecting us.
That night, we sat at a table and talked through what narrative wanted to emerge from the the shots that we had. Everything up until that point had led us to Doña Rosa and Centro Musical. So we started there at N. 5th and LeHigh, the intersection we passed through every time we visited the neighborhood—the intersection where, months before at the Feria del Barrio, we unknowingly first heard Rosa perform the song she wrote for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. This film was built on another aspect of our entire project. As such, the wording and phrasing used in the voiceover narration, as well as the title of the film—Local Legends—comes from our ethnographic poems. The short film above is the result of three months of conversations, connections, and serendipitous moments.