Five years after Chavela Vargas’ death at age 93 on Aug. 5, 2012, a documentary about the iconic singer and actress will air for the first time in the U.S.
Chavela, which will be shown in some 14 U.S. cities in October — including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco — centers on a historic 1991 interview, when Vargas was 72 years old. The date marked Vargas’ return after a 15-year absence due in part to alcoholism. It was an extraordinary comeback, with Vargas earning a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, selling out performances at prestigious concert halls around the world and becoming a muse to film director Pedro Almodóvar.
Costa Rican by birth, Vargas ran away to Mexico City as a teenager, and by the 1950s, she was one of her adopted country’s biggest singers, thanks to a raw, unique voice. Vargas was also openly gay, unheard of at the time.
“If you’re a lesbian, you’re marginalized,” Vargas says in the documentary. “I put on pants, and the public was stunned. Both men and women were into me. Everyone.”
Vargas made no bones about her sexuality, and rumors about her ran rampant.
“She said she wouldn’t mention the names of her great lovers, but we know she slept with all of Mexico,” someone notes in an interview.
Vargas also speaks candidly about her long, hard journey into the abyss of alcoholism, calling it “an emotional sickness of the soul, of solitude and abandonment.”
Vargas’ personality is captured in the film’s poster, which is inspired by a well-known photo of an androgynous-looking Vargas with arms folded, wearing dark glasses and looking upward.
The acclaimed documentary, directed by Catherine Gund & Daresha Kyi, has been shown in several festivals. This will be its first showing for general audiences in the U.S.
You can watch the film’s trailer here: