New Juan Gabriel Docuseries Immerses the Viewer in ‘The Private and Public Figure’

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Narrated successful the dependable of the iconic Mexican singer-songwriter, Juan Gabriel: I Must, I Can, I Will premieres contiguous (Oct. 30) connected Netflix.

When Juan Gabriel released his debut medium El Alma Joven (1971) — which included the deed “No Tengo Dinero” — and received his archetypal paycheck, the iconic Mexican singer-songwriter bought a location for his parent and talented himself a Super 8 camera to meticulously papers his beingness connected and disconnected stage. Years later, that immense video archive became the instauration for a documentary narrated successful his ain voice.

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In Juan Gabriel: I Must, I Can, I Will (Juan Gabriel: Debo, Puedo y Quiero), a four-episode docuseries disposable connected Netflix starting Thursday (Oct. 30), the artists besides known arsenic the “Divo de Juárez” is showcased similar his assemblage has ne'er seen before: done his ain lens and from his intimate perspective. This was made imaginable acknowledgment to entree granted to documentary filmmaker María José Cuevas to hundreds of tapes recorded by the creator himself from the 1970s until soon earlier his decease successful August 2016.

“What makes this task unsocial is being immersed successful the 2 personas: the backstage and the nationalist figure,” Cuevas tells Billboard Español successful an interrogation successful Mexico City. “Juan Gabriel was music. Alberto Aguilera Valadez (his existent name) was his pause.”

Cuevas explains that she relied connected hundreds of location videos, performance recordings, household scenes, and intimate moments that had been stored successful a warehouse for implicit 40 years. But the sheer measurement of worldly — “all filmed by him and for him,” she emphasizes — became the project’s main situation for the filmmaker, producers Laura Woldenberg and Ivonne Gutiérrez, and their team.

“Any cassette could clasp a gem. There were tapes successful 8 mm format, VHS, everything,” Gutiérrez recounts. “We had thousands of photos, galore audio and video files, but the communicative was crafted by Juan Gabriel with the recordings helium near behind.”

The bid rubric comes from a paper header aft his archetypal performance astatine the iconic Palacio de Bellas Artes successful 1990, a show that sparked large contention owed to disapproval of his tendency to execute astatine Mexico’s astir prestigious taste venue arsenic a fashionable artist. This section successful the large singer-songwriter’s beingness is 1 of the astir symbolic moments successful the documentary. The operation is besides included successful his opus “Debo Hacerlo.”