Alberto Arvelo was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He is a writer, musician
and director known for A House with a View of the Sea (Una Casa con
Vista al Mar) (2001), Cyrano Fernández (2007), Libertador (2013).
Arvelo has developed film works renowned for the social and human depth
of their characters and the visual strength of their images. His films
have won more than 30 international awards.
His film, A House with a View of the Sea (Una Casa con Vista al Mar)
(2001), tells a story of discrimination and injustice faced by a
widowed father and his son amid loneliness and difficulties in the
South-American Andes. The film was a part of the official selection for
the Cannes Festival, was acknowledged with 23 international awards, and
participated in over 40 international festivals.
As a professor with the National Film School in Mérida, Venezuela,
Arvelo founded the film movement known as "Atom Cinema" ("Cine Átomo")
2002. This movement is based on the idea of producing reflective human
films with a crew of no more than five people and minimal production
elements, intended to create viable projects for young Latin-American
cinematographers. The first film within this movement, Habana Havana
(2004), directed by Arvelo merited the Venezuelan National Film Award,
and another dozen international awards.
His prize-winning work, Cyrano Fernández (2007), is a free adaptation
of the French classic, Cyrano de Bergerac. The film maintains the
Cyrano-Roxane-Christian love triangle represented in the chaotic though
spectacular urban surroundings of a barrio in Caracas. The leading role
in Cyrano Fernández was played by Edgar Ramirez.
His documentary Play and Fight (Tocar y Luchar) (2006), first shown at
the Los Angeles AFI Festival, delves into the life of several children
in the renowned Venezuelan Child and Youth Orchestra System (Sistema de
Orquestas Infantiles y Juveniles de Venezuela), accompanied by
classical-music figures such as Plácido Domingo, Claudio Abbado, Simon
Rattle, and Gustavo Dudamel. This documentary narrates the "El Sistema"
phenomenon, one of the most well-known and widespread social programs
in the world. Arvelo's connection to El Sistema goes back to his
beginnings as a violoncellist with the Youth Orchestra in Mérida. Play
and Fight became the most-watched documentary in Venezuela; it was
translated into 15 languages.
Play and Fight was followed by a second documentary based on the
international projection of "El Sistema": Dudamel, Let the Children
Play (2010). This documentary is a review of the crisis of traditional
educational models and an exploration of the importance of art and
music as universal rights. This work had the collaboration of Sir Ken
Robinson, John Williams, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Richard
Holloway, and José Antonio Abreu. The documentary shows Gustavo Dudamel
as the person who inspired an international phenomenon spreading over
more than 50 countries.
In 2010, Arvelo directed a multi-media opera for the Los Angeles
Philharmonic Orchestra (La Cantata Criolla) under the musical direction
of Gustavo Dudamel, leading roles played by Helen Hunt, Edgar Ramirez,
and Erich Wildpret, and script by Guillermo Arriaga.
His most recent film, Libertador (2013), a Venezuelan-Spanish
coproduction production, is based on the life and work of Simón
Bolívar, leading roles played by Edgar Ramirez, María Valverde, Danny
Huston, Imanol Arias, Iwan Rheon, Gary Lewis, and Erich Wildpret,
script by Timothy Sexton, and music by Gustavo Dudamel.
