My story has been marked by shifts in perspective, some gradual and others sudden. Until age 10, I shared a small bedroom with my mom, dad, and baby brother in a little house in a low-income neighborhood in Bogotá, Colombia. My teenage uncles shared the bedroom next to ours, and my aunt lived in another room with her husband and son, my cousin/best friend. My grandma had another room, only separated by a curtain from the living room and all the ruckus we would make whenever there was a soccer game on TV.

Every day I saw my parents, aunts, and uncles work hard to provide the best they could for us. My grandpa died when I was 6, and my grandma raised her 7 kids with the same generous and steadfast work ethic my grandpa had practiced as a farmer. After his death, the family lived in a huge city, in a struggling neighborhood where most lived paycheck to paycheck and some didn’t even know whether they would eat from one day to the next. In spite of this, the neighborhood kids would gather and play in the streets chasing after a ball and dreaming of becoming great fútbol players and perhaps one day lifting their friends and family out of the struggles that surrounded us. This dream is evident in the fact that my dad named me after English soccer player Gary Lineker and so making me perhaps the only Colombian kid named Gary.

When I was 10, my dad got a new job that changed everything. One day we packed up, left the family I was so close to, and got on an airplane for the first time, moving to a whole new country. In my new home I had a room to myself. For the first time in my life, we had a dining table. Our neighbors had filled our fridge with all kinds of great food I had never tasted before. My eyes were suddenly opened to a world I hadn’t known existed. Even my name changed, as people started saying it with the English pronunciation. In my family I’ve always been known as Gah-ree (the r sounds like the t in water).

Many more eye-opening moments came after that. I moved to a different country. Met the girl that would become my wife. She went to the Chicago area for college. So I moved to yet another country, following her, and eventually we married and started a family. All along I naively and stubbornly pursued music, completing two masters degrees (MFA Music Composition, Vermont College of Fine Arts; MFA Professional Composition and Orchestration, University of Chichester, UK) as I tried to make sense of being a kid from the streets of Bogotá wanting to do something with music and film world.

My past calls to me often, shaping how I see the future play out. Film and media are changing, and it feels like the right moment to share my past and present. My life is rich in memories and experiences, and I’m inspired by them and by the people who have shared them with me, especially those who don’t have a voice even though they have rich stories. My goal is that my work will honor those memories and share experiences that inspire, transform, and connect with you.