Politics

"Four days spent in a studio working on a centerfold photo for Playboy magazine provided the subject matter for my film. The magazine itself deals with culture, cars, a certain lifestyle. Maybe all those trappings are only there to cover up the naked woman. Maybe it's like with a paper-doll. The naked woman in the middle is a sun around which a system revolves: of culture, of business, of living!

This video proposes an ironic metaphor to grasp the follies of U.S. government action and inaction in Central America. The process of learning U.S. policy is similar to the process of a young child acquiring the principles of language. These dual senses of literacy operate on several levels, situating a child’s consciousness within the contradictions of history comments on the illusory innocence of childhood, and the unexamined, but real, guilt of the U.S. government, its supporters and clients.

Now Let Us Praise American Leftists is an experimental video animation that seeks to eulogize and ridicule the American leftist movement of the past century. Foregrounding the exclusionary nature of American leftist politics, and its persistent refusal to allow more diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation to enter into the larger political daialogue, the video presents representations of American leftists as they are: men with mustaches.

In 2002 PBS commissioned several Latino filmmakers to create a three-hour documentary on Latino arts" in the U.S. The segment for San Francisco was commissioned to Gustavo Vazquez, who in turn invited me to partake in the project. We decided to feature "re:group," a loose association of S.F.-based performance artists who had created "a multi-ethnic/multi-generational performance lab" in response to the perils of 9/11 and the dangers of the Bush era.

Footage of a May 1970 rally featuring political speakers, including members of the Black Panther Party. Abbie Hoffman talks about fighting imperialism at home, and the Chicago 7 Conspiracy Trial. As the crowd chants “Free Bobby Seale,” the Videofreex attempt to interview several National Guardsmen. We see young black men talking to the troops, with one man telling a Guardsman, “I’ve got nothing... I went to Vietnam for you.

Best known for her drawings and prints, Nancy Spero has worked as an oil painter on both paper and canvas and with installations. She has been active in many radical groups including WAR (Women Artists and Revolution) and AIR (Artists in Residence), the first women’s cooperative gallery in New York. A historical interview originally recorded in 1982 and re-edited in 2003.

Mohamed Yousry: A Life Stands Still (also known as Good Translator) is a short documentary about Mohamed Yousry, a naturalized American citizen who's life changed radically after September 11, 2001. Mohamed immigrated to the United States in 1980. For the next twenty years, he developed a full and happy life, as a husband, father, and academic. On September 13, 2001 Mohamed was approached by the FBI on his doorstep in Queens, NY. After appeal processes and an attempt to extradite him, Mohamed was sentenced to four years in a federal penitentiary in Fort Worth, TX.