A dramatic week in the life of international music superstar J Balvin is examined in Director Matthew Heineman’s new documentary, The Boy from Medellín.
Heineman’s film provides an immersive look as Balvin, dubbed by his fans as the “Prince of Reggaeton,” prepares for the most important concert of his career – a sold-out stadium show in his hometown of Medellín, Colombia. As the performance draws ever closer, the streets explode with growing political unrest, forcing the Latin Grammy-winning musician to wrestle with his responsibility as an artist to his country and his legions of fans around the globe. As the public pressure of the approaching concert heightens, behind the scenes Balvin also deals with the anxiety and depression that has plagued him for years.
Following the DGA Special Projects Documentary Series screening in Los Angeles on June 17, Heineman sat down with DGA Special Projects Documentary Series Subcommittee Co-Chair Ondi Timoner (Coming Clean) to discuss the making of The Boy from Medellín.
During the conversation, Heineman revealed how he was drawn to make the film. “I was always interested in making a film about music and maybe making a concert doc,” said Heineman. “I met [Jose/J Balvin] after a show that he played at Madison Square Garden and we connected. He talked a lot about his own battles with mental health, anxiety and depression. Something that I've dealt with myself. To me, whenever I look at a film, I always wanna’ try to say something hopefully bigger, deeper than just what's on the surface, and I knew in that thirty-minute conversation that he would make himself vulnerable. I had no idea that when we'd land in Medellín, that the protests would happen and that the film would become a vérité film about an artist struggling to find his voice.”
Heineman’s other credits include the documentary feature Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare; and episodes of the television documentary mini-series Tiger and The Trade. He is a two-time winner of the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary for his 2017 film, City of Ghosts and his 2015 film, Cartel Land, which also won a Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. He was also nominated for the 2018 DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in First-Time Feature Film for his debut narrative feature, A Private War. Heineman has been a DGA member since 2015.
You can listen to Heineman's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.