The Devil’s Accordion (2000). Directed by Stefan Schwietert. Cinematographry by Ciro Cappellari.
The heart of this film is a non-interview with Colombian accordion master Pacho Rada. A narrator tells us Rada’s life story in first person, presumably using a script translated from an off-camera interview.
Here is the younger accordion star Alfredo Gutierrez citing the less savory side of his country’s music history.
“As a musician I didn’t escape the influences that, in various ways, more or less all artists were subjected to: the influences from the drug era here on the Colombian coast. The world of drugs is a part of our folklore - it is even a part of the Vallenato music mentality. Back in the 1970s the musicians identified with the drug people, because they got support from them.”
