March 2020, Saturday morning, taxi back to East Village. A catchy tune comes out of the radio and grabs me. His name is Estes Tuna. In the evening I am already deep in his discography, and here the closure begins and one song has remained in the loop all these days: “Paris Heart”. During the day I document the empty streets of New York, and every evening, at exactly 7:00, I go up to the roof and photograph the most sane moment in the most delusional period. The sound of the church bells begins the daily ritual, neighbors clap from balconies, windows and rooftops of the city. Some of them are drumming with pots, occasionally a Sinatra song is heard in the background, people, adults and children, are looking for a moment of human connection, to relieve some pressure, take a breath together, a few minutes of sanity.
A call comes from dad. Mom has to undergo surgery after a terrible accident and has a long recovery period ahead of her. The plane is empty, we land in Ben Gurion and the Home Front Command transfers us to a bus without windows and from there to the Corona Hotel in Jerusalem. Strange days, there is no sense, “Paris Heart” continues to play and I am already editing the film on the laptop, next to my mother in Ichilov. she asks and I explain that the tune perfectly expresses this delusional period. Mom suggests contacting a musician and collaborating. I am one who listens to mom.
Six months later, the resulting film, “7PM”, wins the director’s award for a short film at the Ferrara Film Festival, and the film’s soundtrack is “Paris Heart”, of course. But Estes’ and mine’s journey just started from there, like a fast roller coaster that stops at wonderful stations for a few minutes and continues again. Writing these words feels like getting off the train for a few days to document what has happened so far.
In the months after the festival, as the lockdowns continue, Estes and I exchange many voicemails, each from his own cave. Curiosity got the better of me. Together with my travel and film partner, my dear friend, director Luca Amendola (UNICEF award winner for his film “Dear Child”), we met Estes for the first time in Dresden during his first performance in two years. The plan was just to get to know and be interested in the possibility of a full-length documentary film, but we came back with a lot of filmed material and have already started editing. The music opened a door to the imagination, but meeting Hashi was a completely different story. I discovered a humble, extremely talented, intelligent, kind and funny person, a person whose nomadic life story felt very close to home. His commitment to authentic creation and the brave confrontation with the inevitable changes of life also felt close to the heart.
His life story is intertwined with travels around the world and also a difficult past in Israel, we learned this when Estes read for us from his private diaries and revealed an inspiring odyssey. Born in Zaporozhye, Ukraine, with Jewish roots, deaf in one ear, he experienced a harsh immigration to Israel as a teenager that stopped his musical momentum. A decade later, in New York, music found its way back into his life where he played on the streets and in the subway with violinist Michael Shulman. His musical and spiritual journey continued west to Los Angeles and there Stas (Stanislav) became Estes and his unique sound began to take shape.
With the little money he earned performing on the streets, he bought an old car and drove south to Mexico with the guitar, on a journey as if he were a client of a Jack Kerouac book. His ongoing journey took him around the world and his reputation as one of the world’s foremost guitar artists began to spread. In September 2011, he played at the “Buskers Festival Stadtspektakel” festival in Landshut, Germany. Sitting in the corner of the town square, he played “Song Of The Golden Dragon”. The audience gathered and the festival staff filmed the performance without knowing that they were documenting the birth of an icon. As of today, the video has over 99 million views.
From there Estes continued to travel the world, like a beacon in a divided and confused humanity. During a long stay in India, Estes developed a piece called “Internal Flight” that directed him into new realms of longer meditative sound journeys. These days, between the big shows and at almost every stop along the way, he leads special sessions. Healing rituals of sound and movement for smaller audiences that live up to the same name, Internal Flight, and on November 15th we will film Estes’ performance at the Culture Hall as part of the film. Two days later, on November 17th, we will participate in Internal Flight at Beit Ha’am in Rashpon.
A visit to Israel is always accompanied by the question – where is home? The possibility of doing this through the shield and the film is the closing of a small but significant and local circle. Even though from time to time the house is revealed more and more as a mindset.
Estes Tuna will perform at the Culture Hall, Huberman 1 on November 15 (Tuesday) 8:00 p.m., tickets starting at 199 NIS