CHAVELA

Directed by CATHERINE GUND AND DARESHA KYI

Date

July 24, 2019

About Project

DIRECTOR

CATHERINE GUND AND DARESHA KYI

COUNTRY

USA

RUNNING TIME

92 mins

YEAR

2017

LANGUAGE

SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

ABOUT THE FILM

Chavela Vargas sang traditional rancheros songs like no other, and when she sang everyone who heard her could feel her pain and their own. An unabashedly out, trouser-wearing lesbian singing music typically reserved for men, she became an iconic, hugely successful singer. Chavela was open about her lesbian experiences and didn’t care about what anyone thought. The directors navigate the peaks and troughs of her astonishing life, from her initial fame to the alcoholic wilderness years, to her rediscovery by Pedro Almodovar in the 1990’s when she was selling out stadiums until her death at the age of 93 in 2012.