The inspiring power of the cultural shock | Fran Guijarro | TEDxMalagueta

"Stories behind the fog" is what Fran Guijarro has been filming for some time in San Francisco, the city of fog ... and the homeless. One of them, Moses, lived with Fran a fascinating story. Fran is a Malaga native who has been in San Francisco for more than a decade, making his way as a filmmaker. In 2012 he co-founded his own production company and is a resident of the San Francisco Film Society. More information on Frans's project at: https://storiesbehindthefog.com/

This talk is from a TEDx event, organized independently of the TED conferences. More information at: http://ted.com/tedx

I was born 36 years ago here in Malaga
and I went to San Francisco 10 years ago.

There I make films and advertising
for a living.

I remember my granny asking
when I moved there,

"Fran, why are you going so far away,
there in The United States?"

Who would have thought that the answer
would come 10 years later

and my going there was due to
a story that changed my life.

That story came out of
a tremendous cultural shock

and that's what I'd like to share
with all of you today.

The inspiring power that
the cultural shock has

for those who spend their lives
telling stories.

But who experiences these cultural shocks?

Well, those who move around the world;
today we call them immigrants or emigrants

depending on which side you look on.

But actually, the human being
has always been on the move.

It's been 70,000 years since
our ancestors came out of East Africa

to begin their exploration of the world.

These are our Homo sapiens ancestors
literally leaving East Africa,

starting their exploration of the world.

I think I'm going to continue
without a PowerPoint.

(Laughter)

And here we are today,
entering into other planets.

We have been constantly expanding,
like there's something in our DNA

related with the Big Bang,
that made it all begin.

The button is on the other side.

(Laughter) (Applause)

Pretty cool.

They gave me the remote
this way when I got out.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Maybe this would be the reason
this TED Talk becomes viral.

(Laughter)

This is us going already to other places

and as I told you, we've been
in constant expansion, right?

As in our DNA there was something
coming from the Big Bang.

Those cultural movements, migrations,
they're history generators

because they come along with discovery.

Discovers that surprise us,

that shock us and break our patterns.

And because human beings are the
only capable of transforming elements

that we see in reality,
in stories that transcend it.

Let me give you an example: Imagine
these same ancestors of 70,000 years ago

leaving the natural habitat
from where they were born in Africa

and discovering new things
in their daily lives, like a new fruit,

a new animal or a phenomenon
they've never seen before,

such as snowfall.

Think about it for one moment.

No other species would have made
this new animal on a totem

or in a protective emblem for the tribe;
he wouldn't have spoken

about this snowfall as a curse
or as a divine blessing.

It happened something similar to me
when I arrived to San Francisco.

I remember seeing two things
I've never seen before

and that called my attention so much.

Interestingly, one of them was also
a meteorological phenomenon: fog.

I've never seen it that way.

I thought: "Wow, it seems like
a sea of clouds."

I was fascinated to see how it was,
covering all of San Francisco

and making giant things like the
Golden Gate Bridge, the famous red bridge,

suddenly disappeared before your eyes.

The other thing I had no idea about
and that shocked me a lot

was the amount of people
I saw begging in the street.

More than 6,000 people without a home
in the main technological city,

in the same place where
Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone,

in one of the richest cities in the world.

That number to this day, according to
several NGOs, it stands at 12,000.

12,000 people without a home
in San Francisco.

In my case, that was the cultural shock
that changed my life.

Let me tell you how, let's go back
ten years, until 2007,

when I was just a lad.

I was studying
at the San Francisco University

and I remember I was ordered
to make a short film

for one of my lectures.

I was so shocked about
the homeless theme

that I somehow knew

my short film was going
to be related to that topic.

And so it was.

I ended up writing the short film that
I titled "I wish," for which we needed

not an actor, but a real homeless.

And what do you think we did?

We held a street casting.

We approached more than 20 people who
lived on the streets of San Francisco

to see if they were interested in being
the main character of the short.

And well, for many reasons,
no one seemed at all interested.

The thing is that
the filming date was close.

and we didn't have our main character.

I remember a conversation with the
short film director, Martin Rosete,

in which we discussed the possibility
to change the script at the last minute

and hire an actor.

But then something happened.

When we stopped looking for
that person, it appeared.

In those days of uncertainty, I remember
that I came out of one of my classes

in the night, I was on my way
home, to catch the subway.

And walking by the financial district
from San Francisco, I remember I walked

in front of one of these homeless guys.

But this time, there was something
super different, because on this occasion

it was the person who addressed me,
unusual thing, and he did it in

a very friendly way.

So, I stopped and we started
to have a conversation and said:

"My name's Moses," Moisés in Spanish.

So I told him: "I'm Fran, Francisco,
like the town, San Francisco."

He laughed because he thought,
"It's easy to remember your name."

And few minutes later I told him
the idea about the short film:

"If you're interested, why don't we meet
in another place? Where can I find you?"

So he answers:
"You can find me in my office."

And I ask: "You have an office?"

He answers: "Yes, this corner,
where we just met,

this is my office."

I've been living in the Financial District
for the last 20 years.

I remember thinking at the time:

"Holy shit! This person has been
on the street for 20 years."

The thing is the next day
we met again.

And this is us in 2007.

Having a coffee near Moses' office

when he could read
the scripts of the short film.

And he told me that yes,
he did want to be the main character.

So we finally recorded
the short film together.

None of us would have been able
to ever imagine

that this four minutes short film,
made by students

was going to end up generating
a film about Moses' life

that we've been producing and
filming for the last 20 years.

Ten years, sorry, 20 is too much.

(Laughter)

We Andalusians are very exaggerated.

(Laughter)

And that besides, this story was
including our beloved city of Malaga.

And you're probably wondering
what does this character from SF

have in common with Malaga.

Let me tell you.

The short film we made, "I wish"
won the audience award

at the Notodofilmfest in Madrid
and the organization invited Moses

to come and collect the prize.

So, imagine his face when we told him.

Besides jumping for joy,
he told me that, curiously,

Moses had had a fascination
with Spain since he was a kid.

And that he had three desires:

to bathe in the Mediterranean Sea,

eat a real paella

and see in person Picasso's Guernica.

Imagine this person coming out straight
from the streets of San Francisco

and landing in my kitchen
at my home here in Malaga

just to eat my mom's paella.

(Laughter)

I can say he loved it
because he had two extra plates.

(Laughter)

And this is us in a picture
we had after the big meal.

And just before our nap
we all lied down in the living room.

Another thing that put together
this man from San Francisco with Malaga

was Picasso's Guernica.

Moses went to Reina Sofia and
I've never seen a person in my life

getting excited like this
in front of a piece of art.

Moses burst into tears in front
of the Guernica and all the people there

when he saw in the painting
a reflection of his life.

A life in which a drug bomb and
family pressures came down on him,

making him lose his job,
his home and finally his family.

When I got back to the U.S., I found out
this artistic sensibility was inside

a great musician: that Moses had been
a guitar player for a long time

in the 70's, that he played with people
that ended up succeeding.

People that played with The Beatles,
The Rolling Stones, you know?

The same way Moses met my family,
I met his family.

All these relatives thought that Moses
was dead after 30 years of not knowing

anything from him, so imagine
that time for family reunion

30 years later in Chicago.

Little by little, I discovered his life
and documenting it with my camera,

ending up recording 600 hours
of material over 10 years.

Six hundred hours of material
over 10 years.

During this time we all lived the
financial crisis,

which accentuated a lot more the problem
of the homeless in the U.S.

I came to Malaga once a year,
and I saw how bad things were here,

unemployment, with incredible rates.

However, what called my attention
is the fact that in Malaga or in Spain

I couldn't see so many people
living on the street despite the crisis,

and every time I got back to the USA,
I could see thousands of people

living in a sleeping back.

So I thought:
"But why here no and there yes?"

I knew I was looking for an answer,
a quite complicated one,

and I knew Moses story
was only the tip of the iceberg.

Remember that the things
that are against our thoughts

may be our inspiration source.

In my case, from this constant collision
it was born something that we titled:

"Stories behind the fog."

A multimedia platform that is
associated with the film and through which

we're discovering, documenting
and sharing the stories

of 100 people who live in
the streets of San Francisco.

Through these stories we can
understand a little better

the reasons of this very big problem
San Francisco and the U.S. face.

Besides, we've found such incredible
stories that break the stereotypes

that almost everyone's
have on the homeless.

Among those 100 people,
we found a CEO from Silicon Valley.

A CEO that lost it all
and ended up living on the street.

A woman

that has been a domestic violence victim
while she was pregnant.

She had to leave her house
to eat, shower and sleep

without anybody knowing
at the Facebook offices,

where she worked as a safety guard.

Another woman worked in Hollywood,
in the great cinema industry

building sets, movies stages for
great productions such as Matrix.

We have found stories of
undocumented immigrants

who have been trapped in the USA
for the last 20 or 30 years.

And if they get out of the country
they won't be able to come back.

We've found stories of lecturers

that have a great PhD
but they still live on the streets.

Stories of gays and transsexuals
who have left from home

because of the family pressure.

Stories of kids, teenagers,
complete families even.

People with severe mental problems
like schizophrenia and bipolarism

who live on the street and
come to the to street drugs to move on.

These stories, besides the personal level,
help us to understand a little more

the American system, and how
this system is indeed related

with the poverty of the country.

These 101 stories, one about Moses
and these 100 we're collecting,

are the last 10 years of my life.

And you may be wondering:
"But Fran, what are you up to now?"

Finally, we are editing the film,
in order to release it very soon.

We have 600 hours of material to edit
and we're also compiling

these stories in a book

that we'll publish along
with the launch of the movie.

Remember that the human being
has always been on the move.

And that these migratory movements are
generators of stories because they involve

discoveries that shock us
and they often inspire us.

Remember also that the human being,
Homo sapiens, is the only species

capable of observing reality and
counting stories that transcend it.

That's why you've heard me speak today
about the homeless through the fog.

Because their stories
are hidden behind prejudices,

behind stereotypes,

and many times, behind our own ignorance.

In the same way as San Francisco
is hiding behind the fog.

Take this with you, to San Francisco,

if you ever go to this amazing city.

This is the lesson
this gentleman Moses taught me.

And the most sincere answer to the
question my granny made me 10 years ago.

But really, it's just my story, one story.

Imagine the number of people
that are migrating around the world

and that find in cultural shocks
the spark they need

to tell stories from
a different point of view.

Telling these stories,

these people get involved
in more cultures beyond theirs

and they inspire the rest of the world.

They inspire us to discover
so many things!

Among them, that in fact all of us
are more united than separate

and that we are mirrors for each other.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)