by Christine Maynard

Oscar Torres is as real as it gets… and I didn’t immediately understand how, or why, because I had not yet seen his award-winning film, Voces Inocentes - the story of his childhood in the thick of the brutal Salvadoran civil war. Child soldiers were recruited, villages burned, and other heinous crimes that denigrate the soul were everyday occurrences. What he has been cooked in, his suffering, has been transmuted into amazing clarity and prolific creativity… and compassion.

Torres says love and humor are all one can hold onto when terrible things abound. “My elementary school poems to my girlfriend, in the midst of daily shootings, forced conscription, repression and death were all about love. It was self preservation to focus on that one good thing, love.”

Torres doesn't tout himself as anything, much less a spiritual savant, but his energy feels like the latter. He has an acuteness, a vajra quality. His certainty is remarkable. He is very present, but the subtext is simmering.

It seems that nothing is lost in his emotional landscape, because his journey became to tell the story, to give voices to the innocents. As Jung says, the alternative is madness.

Torres bravely addressed his psyche, war-strained due to atrocities most of us can never imagine. He suffered from terrible PTSD and the panic attacks they engendered. Startling sensory images arose spontaneously. He remembered scents, and the sounds of soldier’s boots, and M-16 bullets on their belts. He used these to create great cinematic art. He made the decision to not take the easy way out, to not choose darkness, rather, to embrace the light. He decided to write his story for his personal salvation. “The darkness allows one to justify everything,” Torres said. He found the strength to engage fully with his experiences, as he brought them to light.

It is easy to sense a higher power at the wheel in Torres’ life- call it God, fate or synchronicity. Opportunities avail themselves and he walks through that door, and another, and yet another opens. It isn’t complicated to him; as he shares his story I perceive a strong guiding hand. When I asked what his intent or motives were, time after time he replied that he didn’t think like that. “I was in a tumble dryer trying to survive."

His eyes quiver rather than twinkle, then his pupils constrict as he beams down like a hawk on prey. Something has given him an idea. And he knows exactly what to do, because it is there to be done; to alleviate suffering. His mother taught him that through the compassion she exhibited. After finding that he was unharmed after an attack at his school, she tended to the wounded soldiers even though they were the “enemy.” “She was my greatest teacher.” Torres shared.

He wrote Voces Inocentes in three months after memories of his childhood experiences began to erupt. He was 30 years old at the time.

This film is in every major high school and in every University in America. It has won over 70 national and international awards. Currently Torres works toward effecting social justice, helping youth, especially those in orphanages and writing and producing multiple films.

He made it to the States, barely escaping recruitment into the Army at 12. “Dad had another family there that knew nothing of us. The lady, who had kids of her own, was really good and kind.” He went to the cinema all the time, sometimes watching 3 films for $5. He admits that he even learned how to shave from cinema. He attended Belmont High, in L.A. The kids were cruel to a non-English speaking foreigner. Eventually, an uncle took him in.

He attended UC Berkeley but eventually dropped out. He took a job teaching English to Koreans, mostly older ladies, at a vocational school. He was learning Korean at the same time, which he calls “a fun language.”

Torres met a man at the language school who had been fired from a substantial role in Jump Street 21 due to a producers' blow up. His name was Bryce, and he strongly encouraged Torres to go to Hollywood, which to Torres sounded about as real as being told to go to another planet. But, he became a delivery guy for TGI when Bradley Pitt (now Brad Pitt) was their client. He sorted and delivered head shots and reels while learning his way around Hollywood.

He later worked for two Jewish ladies and became like family to them. They paid for his first six week acting class. He was cast in ER, CSI, and made commercials, until 9/11 happened and suddenly there were no jobs.

He was 30 years old, working as a waiter in L.A. Suddenly, serendipitously, he encountered something wonderful from his past, and it became a part of his present.

I was in L.A., still broke, driving a little Toyota and I read that this band who had disappeared since 1986 was coming to L.A. for the first time! At first, I didn’t know if it was some cover band or what. It was the actual band that had been referred to and thought of as ‘the Beatles of El Salvador.’ They were Venezuelan, actually, but in El Salvador their song Casas de Carton, cardboard houses, was revered, like a hymn. Their songs spoke of what we were living and were played on rebel radios. Propaganda led people to believe that the lead singer had been decapitated by the Army, but that was not true. I became the band’s designated driver so I packed their guitars and luggage into my Toyota and drove them around! Eduardo was the main singer and I found myself promising him, enthusiastically, that I was going to tell the world about this song, but I couldn’t imagine how I was going to fulfill this promise! I handled PR and arranged radio interviews, etc., for the band. The gig was to raise monies for the earthquake victims in El Salvador. 35,000 people came out and we raised 3 times the monies generated by ticket sales (something we also hope to accomplish here in San Miguel de Allende, for Los Mexiquito, with our special screening!)

When the memories began to flood in, he fainted at the restaurant where he worked, and fell; he was having panic attacks all the time. One ER sent him away with Paxil. He thought, “Will I live like this, one pill a day and feel like this? Instinct told me something was going on in my brain and I needed to deal with it. I hadn’t thought of soldiers and M 16’s in years and suddenly the memories of bullets, belts and boots were flooding in. I committed to writing my story. When you decide to get better the Universe conspires to bring what you desire to you.”

Dec 2001.
Torres got a check, unexpectedly, for $1500 from a commercial he had been in a year ago. He thought, “Should I pay my two months’ rent that are past due, or buy a computer and write my story?" He decided to buy his landlord a bottle of good whiskey, ask for another extension on his rent and get a computer.

He had a handful of screenplays to study. The most important script was Braveheart, because it inspired him to follow his own heart. He learned how to write flashbacks from Titanic and Forrest Gump. Cinema Paradiso was his favorite. He chose Before Night Falls because “the director is a painter and he paints the scenes.”

He wrote and cried and cried… than laughed. “Otherwise you’d go crazy,” he said. He’d run marathons, and sometimes while running get an idea or have a memory erupt from some previously dormant neural pathway, and he’d run home to write it. He’d write until two, three or four in the morning. He’d hold onto the palm trees near his apartment in breaks from running or in the middle of the night after writing when it was just him alone with the memories, pain and panic. He began to feel better. As he continued to write, run, cry and laugh he noticed he was leaning on the palm trees for strength less and less. “Life is never a flat line,” he states.

Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Dec 12th of the following year.

Torres was filming a commercial in Pasadena. Filmmaker Luis Mandoki was on the second floor of a building with Torres, and Torres took the opportunity to pitch his screenplay. Mandoki inquired, "What's it about"? Oscar answered, "It's about a boy in San Salvador during the civil war."When they reached the end of the stairwell Mandoki said “Send it to me by tomorrow. I'm leaving town.”

When the phone rang and rang at Oscar's house, he didn't answer it at first, because he owed people money. Finally, he answered it and Mandoki said "We are going to be partners and do this together."

January 5th Santa Barbara

“The whole process was like Good Will Hunting,” Torres stated. “It became a therapeutic session.” Mandoki was very intuitive. They fought. Mandoki’s wife intimated that her husband had been on his knees to God saying, “If you want me to continue directing give me a sign.”

Once they had a huge fight, which was pivotal. Mandoki accused Oscar of holding back. Oscar didn't want to open up or write about his memories of holding a gun. Mandoki said “Keep your fucking script,” threw a chair across the room and drove away. Oscar, always the fighter, got up to throw a laptop into the wall but his legs were like lead. During our interview he got up and demonstrated "not numb; like this," and he pushed down hard on another man's shoulders who was seated in a chair. Mandoki returned, and they created this hugely successful film, Voces Inocentes, which has positively impacted many thousands of lives. He said, looking me dead in the eye, “Things happen for a reason. It’s all connected.”

Torres didn’t need Maxwell Maltz or Tony Robbins to teach him that if you decide that you want something you will draw it to you. Making Voces Inocentes was never about making money or his personal success in the industry. It was about saving his life, holding onto the trees he’d leaned on less and less, until he became as strong as a Sequoia.

Voces Inocentes was the winner of the Berlin Film Festival's Best Picture award. It was the first film to be screened at the United Nations and it received UNICEF's Humanitarian Film of the Year award.
Voces Inocentes is the true story of Oscar Torres' childhood in El Salvador in a time of civil unrest, when children were used as human shields.

"I want the viewers to really feel the truths. Despite the atrocities, the one thing that didn't get broken was the spirit. There is always hope." Torres said.

"A 17 year old kid fell on his knees crying when he recognized me, and his father had to lift him up. The young man said, 'I want to thank you; you saved my life. I was going to commit suicide before seeing your film. Watching this movie made me realize that I carry in my blood one of the greatest atrocities of the human race, and I survived. It is a privilege to be alive.'

"People often realize through watching this film that their tragedies are not that tragic. It is a powerful tool to sensitize individuals to the profound suffering of others. Innocent Voices is used in major high schools and Universities across the country: Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, University of Texas, Northwestern and UC Berkeley to name a few. It is an educational tool and, at the end of the day, it is an inspirational film."

After the movie, Screenwriter Oscar Torres will speak, and answer questions.

Torres stated, "You are a part of this moment. Your 200 pesos ensure that positive change will be effected. Lives will be impacted and understanding and compassion will break through, and make a difference."

We hope to see you there! Thanks in advance for your support!