The Raval in Barcelona has not always had the same name. For years, these picturesque alleys in the old town of Barcelona were part of the “Chinatown”; a term adapted from its English equivalent “Chinatown” that referred to all those neighborhoods with a significant amount of population of Asian origin and where poverty and marginality reigned. “Not everything is bad in the Raval; when you have less, people share everything, when there is difficulty is when solidarity and the positive of the human being come out, and that is what the character of Gilda represents”, says Enric Ribes, director of the film Singing on the rooftops , starring Gilda Love, one of the last drag queens in the neighborhood.
From the second half of the 19th century, the Raval became a network of prostitution, music bars, cabarets and houses of tolerance that gave it a bad reputation internationally. At 96 years old, Gilda Love describes herself as a cross-dressing artist, “the horny girl from Cádiz” and a survivor of the rogue Barcelona. She settled permanently in the Raval in 1967, after several years traveling through Europe: Belgium, Holland, Germany and France.
Ribes and the artist met more than seven years ago in one of her performances: “Since I met her I have wanted to tell the story of this very human and interesting person,” she explains. The director describes Singing on the Rooftops as a hybrid film, with real characters and stories and some fictional elements, but always showing Gilda’s reality.
In Singing on the rooftops, little Chloe appears, barely two years old and the daughter of a friend who is an inmate of Gilda’s. The artist will have to deal with the girl: “Chloe represents a pure mirror; she does not matter a gender, no matter a social condition, the important thing is to be a good person, ”says Enric Ribes. The director has added that the echoes and criticism received so far have been very positive and that what has most interested the viewers has been the human part of the film and Gilda’s character.
The film premieres this Friday and will be in theaters at Cinemes Girona, Balmes Multicines and CineBaix.
