Streamwood man takes on acting and teaching
David Blancas of Streamwood sees the similarities between teaching and acting.
Blancas ought to know. He makes his feature movie debut at the Chicago Latino Film Festival Saturday, April 18, and this week started student-teaching seventh-graders at Aurora's Cowherd Middle School.
The 21-year-old Blancas, a senior math and education major at Aurora University, plays the lead in "Silent Shame," which premieres at the festival.
"With acting skills, it's always putting on a show and entertaining the audience," he said. "That's pretty much how a teacher is: You have an audience that you have to prepare for and make sure everything goes smoothly."
Blancas' acting resume consists mainly of several high school and college shows, so transitioning to movies was a bit of an adjustment.
"I was not nervous, just unsure of what to do," he said of his first day of filming. "In theater we overact. We have to project our voices. I had to tone down everything."
"Silent Shame" premieres at 9:15 p.m. Saturday at Chicago's Landmark Century Centre, with an additional screening at 6 p.m. Monday, April 20. A final screening is set for 6:30 p.m., Thursday April 30. Check latinoculturalcenter.org/cinema-festival for more details.
The film's writer-producer Dalia Tapia spent Friday morning plastering film posters, which feature Blancas, around Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood. The two met in 2007 following a screening of Tapia's "Buscando a Leti" at Aurora University. A few months later, Blancas received a phone call and auditioned for "Silent Shame."
"He came off as an educated young man who had the talent and wanted to explore that more," said Tapia, who with director Tadeo Garcia auditioned more than 100 actors before Blancas arrived.
He plays the role of Ulyssis, who grows up in the 1980s in the early days of the HIV epidemic and whose mother dies from the virus, leaving him to be raised by his grandmother. The movie is about Ulyssis' quest to learn how his mother was infected and come to grips with his father's secret affair with another man.
Blancas' character "is the catalyst between the two stories between these two adults in the '80s," Tapia said. "He's the one who brings closure to the story, but at the same time in the story he discovers more than he expected to discover."
Blancas' family came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 2. He lived in Chicago before his father found a job that prompted a move to Streamwood. Blancas graduated from Streamwood High School in 2005. His parents, Martin and Liduvina, still live in Streamwood.
The film's dialogue is mostly in English, but there are a few subtitled scenes which shift to Spanish. That proved a challenge for Blancas, who worried about his Spanish pronunciation.
"I express myself better in English," he said.
Tapia wrote the original version of the screenplay over a 24-hour period starting on New Year's Eve 2005.
"The pen wasn't writing fast enough," Tapia said.
Later revisions not only reflected artistic tweaks but, after consulting with the group BEHIV, or Better Existence with HIV, Tapia said the story better reflected the struggles HIV patients endure.
"Some cultures - are very conservative and they won't speak to you about sexuality and certain things and, therefore, it creates ignorance," she said.
Blancas waited until his senior year in high school to start acting, taking roles in "Bus Stop" and "Grease." Before then, volleyball and soccer took up most of his time. His favorite role remains one that he played last year in college, in "Anna in the Tropics," as Palomo.
Acting will at least remain a hobby for him in the future, but he sees teaching as his career path. He'd like to be a school drama director.
"But hopefully," he said, "if everything goes well, I'll have more acting opportunities."