Director
"Varela’s use of the diptych form suggests many things: a Warholian endorsement of dispersed attention, a citation to image-in-image news media, an act of forced similitude. Unlike Warhol’s treatment of the diptych, Varela is not ambivalent to these images, which shift between personal observation, archival materials, commercial and news images, all cited to state an unambiguous outrage[...] the whole of it is weighted with heavy omens, that this age of cruelty and menace is still only in its infancy." -Stephen Broomer
Director
As Varela moved on from film, working with video from the 1990s to the present, the spiritual and autobiographic concerns of his work remained, evidenced in the longer works that conclude this programme, works in contemplation of sacred and profane experience. His Hidden Presence continues the multiform, ‘found’ image construction of In Progress, accommodating a collage soundtrack of electronic beats, a distorting, looping horn, and a loop of the Velvet Underground, to accompany surreal and horrific scenes of wrestling and crucifixions, as well as diaristic photography.
Director
A Super-8 film by Willie Varela
Director
A Super-8 diary portrait by Willie Varela
Director
Literally, ‘Together in Life, United in Death.' Writing found on a gravestone in a cemetery in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico. Death's shadow everywhere.
Director
Compiles scenes from medical films; observations of street life; scenes of protest in San Francisco, in the aftermath of Harvey Milk's assassination; and images from mass media (break dancing, rocket launches, Reagan at the start of his second term), all with the characteristic skip of the television set's signal.
Director
Glimpses of life on the run. Shot in Juarez, Mexico, Austin and El Paso.
Director
A straightforward documentation of a performance by the Voladores given in Dolores Park, San Francisco, in June of 1984.
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Life in a goldfish bowl
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Filmmaker George Kuchar relates various childhood traumas, including his obsession with the ‘lean people'.
Director
A light study of surfaces, shapes and colors, ending with a silhouette shot of a woman's mouth
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8mm film that restricts itself to material shot in a San Antonio motel room and an apartment in El Paso.
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A document of a family celebration in a suburban backyard.
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The tensions between the beauty and decay of death.
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A game of intuitive stops and starts.
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A film by Willie Varela
Director
A poetic study of the Concordia Cemetery.
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A poignant portrait of Stan and Jane Brakhage visiting Juarez.
Director
Varela's reflections on home and place before embarking on one of his major life changes, moving from El Paso to San Francisco.
Director
"A series of catalogs of light, "light journals" if you will, dealing with everyday, ordinary realities in such a way that the surrounding light becomes tactile and intimately expressive." -WV
Director
The third part of Willie Varela's Moon trilogy.
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A film in the Moon Trilogy by Willie Varela
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A study of sunlight refracted through drinking glasses.
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A silent Super 8 film by Willie Varela.
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Super 8, silent, 3:17.
Director
One of Varela's luminous abstractions of the moon.
Director
"Ghost Town is a study of wrecked buildings, Varela's camera panning across the strange beauty of the rusted metal, broken glass, and rotting wood of the structures, eventually discovering another symbol of time, a tree that Varela animates by his dynamic exploration." Stephen Broomer
Director
A film by Willie Varela
