 “All we did was create something that came from the purest place—I know the director [Luis Mandoki] did it from his part, and I did it from mine,” explains screenwriter Oscar Torres of his film Innocent Voices. “This film inspires so many people at so many different levels, we are overwhelmed by it.”
Torres based Innocent Voices on his childhood in war-torn El Salvador in the 1980s. In an incredible and powerful manner he brings his pain and his family’s struggle to the big screen. Innocent Voices tells Torres’ story through Chava, a boy approaching the recruitment age of 12 all too quickly against the backdrop of El Salvador’s civil war. Chava and his friends have two choices: Join the army or join the rebels. Neither circumstance should befall a child. After witnessing numerous tragedies and surviving too many close calls, Torres escaped to the States in 1986; he was eventually reunited with his mother, brother and sister. Torres is enjoying the new path his life has taken. He has appeared in many commercials and independent films, as well as in theatre and in guest spots on television shows such as ER, Any Day Now and CSI: Miami. An actor, he is used to telling stories through the roles he played. The last thing Torres wanted to do, though, was tell his story—it took him nearly two decades to do so. “I had to be convinced and actually understand, sit with it, and really realize that maybe what I had to say was not really about me, but was about many, many other children around the world,” he says. “For 18 years we didn’t talk about what happened to us as a family,” Torres continues. “Maybe if I would have talked about it sooner, it would have helped a little bit earlier. Maybe it would have done something about the war ending earlier. I don’t know. You carry those questions with you. People who go through that are not to blame for not wanting to talk about it, that’s your way of surviving.”
Torres was mentored by producer Moctesuma Esparza (Selena), who helped him develop the screenplay. Several months later, Torres pitched the idea to director Luis Mandoki (When a Man Loves a Woman) in two minutes on the set of a commercial—Mandoki was directing, Torres was acting. “I went up to him and I said, ‘Mr. Mandoki, I have a story to tell you, would you please read the script?''' Torres recalls. "Mandoki said, ‘yes,’ and took the screenplay with him on vacation to Mexico." A few days later he called Torres. “He said, ‘I read your script. I want to do your film. Let’s meet.’” Shortly thereafter, producer Lawrence Bender (Good Will Hunting) came onboard, and the project went full speed ahead. Torres originally wanted to tell the story of the protest song “Casas de Carton,” composed by Venezuelan folk group Los Guaraguao, that his uncle sang to him as a child. The hymn was prohibited by the government and could only be heard through the forbidden radio frequency of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). “When I sat down and I started writing, the first thing that came to me was the footsteps of the soldiers behind us and walking down that path,” Torres explains. “But every time I would approach the river in that walk, I would go to a flashback. I never wanted to get to what happens [next] with my friends. “I used to cut to Venezuela in that script, because I wanted to tell the story of that song.” Then Mandoki convinced him to dig deeper. “He said, ‘I think what you lived [through] is more important, so I need you to tell me more and I want that to be the story of this film.’” | |  | Innocent Voices | The film definitely came out the way Torres wanted. “At the end, what Luis caught in that image on the screen, it was amazing, because the soul of what the story was, he captured. There were little sacrifices you have to make along the way,” Torres continues. “I wanted to write a couple of scenes that were so close to my heart, but we had to make choices so that the story could continue and be [as] tight as it is. I think it was a beautifully told story in that sense. The end product definitely justifies the life lived.” Chava was played authentically by newcomer Carlos Padilla. The fourth-grader from Mexico City has done some soap operas in Mexico since the film concluded, but Innocent Voices was his first role. “It was like a beautiful dance between the director and [Carlos]; the director teaching him and this kid just taking it in and learning every day,” Torres says. “It was like watching a flower bloom in front of our eyes.” Torres has written two more screenplays, one of which may start production by the end of the year. Oscar Torres went from living a nightmare to living a dream. He has more beautiful stories to tell, and has learned from experience that writing what you know and who you are is the best course. “When I tried to tell the American side of the story and I tried to make it commercial, it doesn’t work, because I am not a commercial writer,” Torres says. “I’m an independent writer and I write from the heart. “I [tell writers], write from that place that nobody else in the world can find and can write from, because that is what we all want to see,” he continues. “We all want to see a part of ourselves reflected on somebody else as something that we can never be. And we want to experience us through you." ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Deb Eckerling is a freelance writer currently writing for Venice Magazine and Latin Style. She lives in Los Angeles, CA.
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Congratulations, the movie is beautifull---