Guitar Holiday
How does a small town of 30,000 people in Mexico get its name on the map of the international music community? The colorful, vibrant documentary Guitar Holiday, tells the story of an entire community devoted to the craft of making guitars. Paracho, Michoacan is a typical Mexican town with a large percentage of Purepecha Indians making up the population. With their distinctive physical appearance and colorful dress, the indigenous influence is palpable. But what really distinguishes Paracho from other similar towns is its guitar shops‚ with literally dozens of them lining the streets.
Ever since the first Bishop of Michoacan dictated it, Paracho has been a guitar-making center and over time, it has become the guitar-making capital of Mexico and Latin America, with instruments exported to North America, South America and Spain. Most guitar shops in Paracho are small, independent family operations, with fathers passing their skills onto their sons and while there are also factories that also mass-produce, Paracho is primarily known for its hand-crafted classical guitars. Each year, Paracho hosts a Mexican National Guitar Festival to honor the town’s craftsmen, featuring nine days of parades, concerts and competitions. In Guitar Holiday, Director Dennis Conway captures the soul of a town that was born to make music.
