Buenos Aires, Argentina. September 7, 1996. Gilda, the popular female singer of “tropical” music dies in a car accident, along with her mother, her daughter and four musicians from her band.

Six years earlier, Miriam Alejandra Bianchi, later Gilda, is a married kindergarten teacher, with two small children. She is happy with the family she has built, but feels a void in her professional life. Since she was a child, Gilda used to love singing, her father has always supported her and her desire gets stronger every day.

Toti Gimenez, key-board player and musical producer of “tropical” music, sets an audition to find a new voice. Miriam auditions and gets chosen. From that moment on, Gilda starts a meteoric career to fame; but she gets constantly rejected by record companies because her tuned voice, lean body and meaningful lyrics just “don’t sell”. Gilda doesn’t fit with the female-music icons of that era.

Gilda starts to deploy her talent as an author without betraying the cumbia formula. For the first time, a woman talks to other women about their rights, defending their place or claiming lost illusions.

Without financial support, and against the surrounding macho culture, her family prejudice and the difficult “bailanta” environment’s perspective towards someone who does not have the same origin, Gilda archives in five years what to most artists takes a lifetime.

Gilda becomes the “bailanta symbol” and her fans, who follow her with a devout passion, claim that she has miraculous powers. Her response is the following:

“If music has the power to make people heal, it is very welcome”.

Some months before her death, she records her most successful album “Corazón Valiente”. She tours around Latin America, becomes a popular “tropical” music icon and places this genre at the very top. She receives a gold disc for the sales success and signs a millionaire contract with Mexico to become a singer of Latin American cumbia. In the prime of her career, Gilda starts to talk about her death and composes a premonitory song: “It is not my goodbye”

 

“Quisiera no decir adiós, pero debo marcharme.
No llores, por favor no llores, porque vas a matarme.
No pienses que voy dejarte, no es mi despedida.
Una pausa en nuestra vida, un silencio entre tú y yo.
Yo por ti, volveré. Tú por mí, espérame…”

“I wish not to say goodbye, but I must leave.
Don’t creo, please don’t cry, because you will kill me.
Don’t think I’ll leave you, it is not my goodbye.
A pause in our life, a silence between you and me.
For you, I’ll return. You, me. Wait for me…”