Juan Gabriel intimate: how the most revealing documentary about the idol was made

Not the flashy jackets covered in diamonds, nor the expensive furniture of the various houses he owned. If there was a special object for John Gabrielit was his personal video camera. It was the moment when the “Divo of Juárez” revealed his alter ego, Alberto Aguilera. He filmed himself talking in front of the mirror; I left her in her room while she talked with friends like Daniela Romo and Ana Gabriel; He filmed his children, like a proud father, and even left her to the side while he ate with his inner circle.

Those hours of recordings, which span decades, were left gathering dust after the death of the Mexican idol in August 2016. Probably, very aware of his place as a historical figure, he left that enormous audiovisual archive as a potential posthumous project. That material is what supports the 4-chapter docuseries Juan Gabriel, I must, I can and I wantreleased on the Netflix platform on October 30. An effort to portray the artist with his own images and words.

Accessing Juan Gabriel’s archive was not easy. There the efforts led by producers Laura Woldenberg and Ivonne Gutiérrez were deployed. “We had been trying for many years to tell the story of Juan Gabriel from different sides. And finally, at the beginning of 2023, we can present the creative proposal to Juan Gabriel’s family,” says the first to Cult.

The plan that managed to seduce the family was to show a portrait of Juan Gabriel, with its lights and shadows. And especially, to the man behind the character, Alberto Aguilera from his unfortunate childhood and adolescence in Ciudad Juarez.his beginnings singing at Noa Noa (the club to which he dedicated his popular song) under the alias Adrián Luna, and even a brief stint in Lecumberri prison for 18 months for a false accusation of theft. You see his rise to fame and his powerful influence on a generation of Mexican singers. “On the one hand, we wanted to preserve his legacy and so that new generations can continue to admire this icon of Latin American culture. And on the other hand, contribute with new information, which is knowing Alberto Aguilera, which is the human partthe person behind the idol – says Woldenberg -. And with the chiaroscuros that any person has and understanding that he is a human with successes and errors. So, we wanted to really show like that intimate portrait. And the family understood it, the family agreed, a relationship of trust began to be established, until they suddenly gave us all of Alberto Aguilera’s personal files.”

Then, the production companies had to gather the material. “It was distributed in different warehouses, stored, dusted, packaged, some tapes even with mushrooms. They arrived at the Mexico City office because they were in different places.. And with all this invaluable material, it was decided to make this series,” explains Woldenberg.

The file is remarkable. There are images of the “Divo de Juárez” from the seventies, interviews on television programs, images of his vibrant shows in palenques from behind the stage, as well as testimonies from those close to him. Likewise, there are hours of recording taken from Alberto Aguilera’s personal camera, in which you access his inner world; his conversations with himself, his social work with children and the dedicated decorations for each of his houses. It was the director María José Cuevas who dedicated two intense years to the analysis of all the material. “We had the structure of a chronological line of the most important moments in the history of Juan Gabriel, and that was our guide,” he tells Culto. But of course, when reviewing the material, that was where we were really finding like the heart and souland above all, the dialogue of these two characters; “the private character of Alberto Aguilera, from his home videos, versus the public character Juan Gabriel.”

According to the director, that chronology and the material served as the axis to decide what was included or not in the docuseries. “That is dictated to you by the editing process itself with Valeria Valenzuela, who is the editor. That allowed us to see how we narrate and how we began to build the soul of both characters, Alberto and Juan Gabriel – Cuevas details. Reviewing the material we understood much more about this idol that we all know, by knowing where his songs come from, where his loneliness comes from.”

Producer Ivonne Gutiérrez points out a detail that caught her attention when accessing that intimate Juan Gabriel. “Definitely this obsession with recording -he says to Culto-. It was something we didn’t expect and I don’t think anyone knew how disciplined and obsessive he was with his recordings. We knew there was something, but not at this level. And it was wonderful to start watching him record himself, sometimes even just him talking to the camera. Or I would record a meal, for example, where I would put the camera and leave it recording there for three hours. He recorded himself at a level where he clearly violated himself in front of the camera. “I think he was a visionary of memory preservation.”

Another point that had to be settled was that of those invited to give their testimony. It was not easy, because there were many who approached him and said they had shared a story with him. “I think at the beginning we were a little overwhelmed by so many people around him and a lot of noise.”who were clearly not the people closest to him, but our radar was always: well, we have to be guided by the archives, the archives are going to dictate to us who are the people who are important to him. That was a super important filter to be able to define who to talk to and who not to talk to,” explains Laura Woldenberg.

This allowed us to collect exclusive testimonies such as that of Enrique Okamura, one of the people who supported him in his beginnings, and is surprising with the inclusion of Laura Salas, the woman who was chosen to be the mother of the singer’s children. “She spoke for the first time.”says Woldenberg. Also his children, Ivan, Joan, Hans and Jean, agreed to speak for the first time about their famous father. “Once they saw that we were doing a very respectful job with their father, they began to give us a lot of access to all the files,” adds the producer. And that, at the same time, it was already evident that they were excited and that they also wanted to give interviews and participate in the project.”

Therefore, the team is satisfied with what they managed to capture in the 4 episodes. “I really liked the result, because you can see that intimacy that we wanted to achieve and it feels like honest work for the viewer as well,” they say.