On Prosperity with Cineplexx
Produced by Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin, LLC for ZZK Culture. Third in Series.
This interview was produced by Sergio C. Muñoz at Intelatin, LLC. It is distributed by ZZK Culture. Special thanks to Wil Dog of Ozomatli and to PBS Studios (KLCS) for their pilot feature on our effort for the financial wellness of musicians. AMA: sergio@zzkrecords.com
Cineplexx
Upon hearing the life story of Sebastián Litmanovich Mazal, I was impressed by how clear his fantasy for himself really is: To have the emotional and economic stability to have a small beach house in Florianopolis, Brazil, with a large garden and thousands of pets. For fifty years, he has weathered the ups and downs of a life dedicated to art and like so many artists before him, he has been incapable of achieving that elusive fantasy of stability.
Sergio: Please describe your childhood home?
On a street in a middle class neighborhood in Buenos Aires. We lived very close to downtown. Next to the river were the more luxurious homes and on the other side were the working class. The neighborhood is called Núñez and the river is the Río de la Plata. There were many buildings in my neighborhood, we played in the streets in the 70s and 80s. We would ride our bicycles all around and the porters for all the buildings used to watch out for us. Our building had ten floors and our apartment had three bedrooms and in the house was my mother, father, brother and sister. My parents bought the apartment in 1976. I lived there from the age of 3 until the age of 22.
Sergio: When did you begin to fantasize about prosperity and did you tie your vision to an image of a home?
My father was an independent entrepreneur and he worked with racecars. He was a mechanical engineer and he would rent the car to the drivers. He won a lot of races and he did really well. His parents were businesspeople as well that made clothing for children and my father ended up running that business as well. We felt prosperity and he economic security. Both of my grandparents owned their apartments in nice buildings as well. In the streets at the time, I saw homelessness and poverty and it affected me a lot and I noticed a difference between my lifestyle and theirs. Buenos Aires could be very cruel in that sense. I guess stability and security was always present in my understanding of prosperity. As I got older, as my father stopped racing cars, and our economic situation worsened and Argentina and my family fell into what I would define as a state of decadence. My father had to dig deep into his entrepreneurship to make ends meet but I felt that decline.
Sergio: When did you begin to play music?
I wish I could say that I studied music and that I was educated in musical theory but I cannot. I began playing music and over time, I have taught myself to perform and record music. I joined an indie band called, Papaya, and they have had some success. We opened for Imagine Dragons and played in many of the most popular festivals like Benicassim where we opened for Public Enemy. Papaya has 2 albums. Cineplexx, my solo project, has 12 albums. My latest album for Cineplexx is being released in October 2023.
Sergio: When did you leave Buenos Aires?
At the age of 29, I left Argentina because things were still in state of decline and I wanted to find some stability. I always wanted to live in other places and I wanted to travel the world. I lived in New York. I spent a lot of time in Brazil. But at 24, I opened a business dedicated to graphic design, Tea Time Studio. We had a lot of success and we had eight employees but also we had a lot of failures and we had no employees. My partner and I ultimately couldn’t make it work. He had more commercial and corporate interests and I was more interested in art and music. So, I moved to Barcelona, Spain. I also lived for a number of years in London, England and today, I live in Madrid. I have been living in Madrid since 2014.
Sergio: What does your home look like present-day?
I live in an area where there are a lot of senior citizens that use a local hospital as a hub. There is a lot of traffic. My building has tall ceilings and is very old and has five stories. I rent a 1 bedroom studio. It is very much in downtown Madrid. I can walk for 15 minutes into the heart of downtown. This is a great location for a musician to be able to get into the bars and theaters at night without having to drive. My home is prominently featured in one of my latest videos:
Sergio: Do you aspire to homeownership?
I don’t even consider it. In reality, I don’t even own a bicycle, much less real estate. I have never even owned an automobile. I see ownership as too difficult due to the instability of my life. I can’t project much more than a few months into the future. I did have a beautiful home in London. It was a two story with a garden and I lived there quite happily for three years. That was the best home that I have every enjoyed. We got married and as quickly as a I got married, we got separated. We never had children and I guess it’s sad that I never got the pleasure of that era of raising children in my life but I guess I saw children as an extension of a relationship and my relationships were too shaky. At the age of 50, if I were to be able to combine economic and emotional stability, I guess there is still time for me.
Sergio: Is there a connection between your former fantasy and your current reality?
I remember now that as a child, I wanted to live in Florianopolis in Brazil on the beach. I wanted to have a home there. All of the instability that I feel because I chose to be an artist and a musician is a part of my current reality and my fantasy of having a home on the beach in Florianopolis would be the opposite of my reality so there is no connection at all between the two. My former fantasy was to live in a place that was slow which I thought would be contrary to what life was like in Buenos Aires. Everybody in my family always had to fight for everything. My home in Florianopolis would be a small, humble, 2 bedroom beach-house with a big garden, a studio where I can play music and do graphic design and I would have thousands of pets.
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