Alberto Ferreras on capturing the U.S. Latino experience with HBO’s ‘Habla’
The independent filmmaker and author writes about his docuseries that’s been running since 2003.
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Ad Age is marking Pride Month 2023 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package, in which LGBTQ+ creators revisit some of their favorite projects. (Read the introduction here.) Today, our guest editor Sandy Greenberg turns the spotlight to Alberto Ferreras, an independent filmmaker and author who currently serves as creative executive-in-residence at TelevisaUnivision’s Así Studios and learner-in-residence at Spring Point Partners. Here, Ferreras writes about the making of “Habla” for HBO.
The most life-changing project of my career has been “Habla,” a low-budget image campaign I created for HBO Latino in 2003 that became a long-running documentary series. “Habla”—which means “speak up” in Spanish—opened my eyes to the diversity and complexity of the Latino experience in the U.S.
When I first moved to New York City in 1990, my biggest surprise was the vast Latino population in America. I had no idea of its existence because, growing up in Venezuela, I never saw Latinos in American movies or TV shows. When I arrived here I became part of a community that I didn’t know anything about.
I’ve met hundreds of professors who use “Habla” for Latino studies and language programs, because it’s showcased Latinos of all shades and kinds: rich, poor, straight, gay, trans. We’ve had singers, actors, authors, athletes, janitors, nannies, congressmen, Pulitzer Prize winners and anyone in between.
