Laura Varela  sees things that others do not see, and as a documentary filmmaker, she shares her vision by exploring new styles in storytelling.  She tells history with detail and force, and in her recent work, combines filmmaking with actual live art installations.

“My work is about those things that I know were not right, and now I can try to change them.” When she was 16 years old, growing up along the US-Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, she saw a man shot to death, just 10 feet in front of her.  She saw Mexican American Vietnam veterans dying from drug overdoses.  The violence that is reported in the press and media was the everyday social environment in which she grew up and which now inform her filmmaking: “I saw a lot of tragedy, things children should not see.”

Varela produced and directed “As Long As I Remember: American Veteranos” in 2009 and her masterful command of the stories of three artists, Vietnam war veterans, surely comes from seeing this human pain during her teen years, so close and personal.  The documentary aired on PBS nationally and is now on DVD.  It is hands down gripping in its exploration, in rare intimate fashion, of the agony soldiers live with after war.  Three Mexican American artists are the subjects, and if your view of war and pain has come only from the sensational news angles or facile depictions of sad moments, Varela’s movie will change you.   To get inside the ideas and emotions of these three men it takes a filmmaker who understands  Mexican American beliefs, how family relationships work, how gender roles are socially taught.  Varela receives letters from Veterans who found, in her film, the expression of something that they wanted to but could never put into words.

“Filmmaking is my activism,” she says.  Her neighborhood was middle class and she knew she had to leave the violence and that education was the path.  She knew this by “learning about the Chicano movement, learning from feminist theory, really looking at history, people’s history.”

Laura Varela is coming to Houston on March 28 to screen her film, “Enlight-Tents,” a short film about the  art installation she daringly set up in front of, and on the face of, the Alamo.  It screens at the Aurora Picture Show art event, “An Evening of Texas Mexican Film, Food and Meaning” during which a 9-course indigenous cuisine chef’s tasting menu will be served to guests as they watch her film overhead on a giant screen.

For “Enlight-Tents” she projected slogans and faces of Native Americans to create a monumental slide show using the Alamo as a projection screen.  Her film is the adaption of the installation.  She did receive permission to project the images but did not have to explain beforehand exactly what the images were going to be.  She collaborated on the project with Vaago Wieland, an artist colleague from Germany.

According to Sarah Fisch, writer for San Antonio Current, “some say that Laura Varela and Vaago Wieland’s ‘Enlight-Tents’ installation on the Alamo grounds…and its photographic projections of faces of color…onto the Alamo’s stony face — unnerved a starchy Old Guard.” Art pieces, whether structure or performance-based, are not welcome at the Alamo.  Not any more.

“I want to raise topics, explore solution, there may be solutions…That for me is filmmaking.”  As part of the Chicano artist community, she believes that artists inspire us to see what can be.  She asked herself sometime ago, “What can I do that I love and can make change?” The answer is filmmaking.

To read the original article visit

http://adansblog.com/wordpress/2013/03/laura-varela-new-style-filmmaker-coming-to-houston/

AS LONG AS I REMEMBER: AMERICAN VETERANOS

AS LONG AS I REMEMBER: AMERICAN VETERANOS examines the steep personal toll and enduring legacy of the Vietnam War on three artists from south Texas: visual artist Juan Farias, author Michael Rodriguez and actor/poet Eduardo Garza. Through the personal histories and experiences of these Chicano veterans, the film examines the role art plays in the sorting of memories, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), activism and the current conflict in Iraq.  AS LONG AS I REMEMBER chronicles their upbringing in the Mexican-American community, their military service in Vietnam, and their lives after the war. Farias, Rodriguez and Garza’s poignant and powerful recollections illuminate the minority experience in the U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps at a time when Mexican Americans accounted for approximately 20 percent of U.S. casualties in Vietnam, despite comprising only 10 percent of the country’s population.
Funded by Humanties Texas, City of San Antonio Office of Cultural Affairs and Latino Public Broadcasting.Support in part provided by the Southwest Alternate Media Project.

More Info:

Through the Program University Without Walls local artist like  Laura Varela  are able  pass on their knowledge to local community members.  You can register today to make sure you secure your spot. *Space is limited to the first 15 who sign up * Registration ends September 7th!

Below is the direct link to University Without Wall’s section of the larger part of the Gemini Ink website:

http://geminiink.org/about/programs/uww

Photo by Red Baklava

More about her:

Laura Varela is a San Antonio-based documentary filmmaker and media artists whose work as a storyteller is shaped by her roots growing up on the US/ Mexico Border in El Paso, Texas.  Her work navigates between ideological, cultural, linguistic and physical borders through the use of film and contemporary art installations

Wednesday December 22 on FM

Hosts: Lynn Harris Ballen & Celina Alvarez

*How can watching one TV show impact your life forever? Author Lisa Shannon will tell us how her life changed from one day to the next with the click of her remote. In her book, “A Thousand Sisters” Lisa takes us on a journey to where she says is the “worst place on Earth to be a woman”. Leaving her successful business, fiance and home behind, Lisa’s quest to bring awareness to this issue has transformed her life and the many people whose path she crosses.

*Then Tejana film maker, media artist and activist Laura Varela talks to us about the enduring legacy of the Vietnam war and its effects on the lives of U.S. women and children. In her film, “As Long as I Remember: American Veteranos” Laura uses storytelling to emphasize the impact of war and how art can play a key role in the healing process.

*And we meet Dorothy Garcia co-founder of local group ArtsAidsArt, and her daughter Chloe – reporting how a small community beadwork project became the basis of a sustainable economic development program for women in South Africa.

http://athousandsisters.com/lisa-shannon/

http://www.varelafilm.org/

http://www.artaidsart.org/

Wednesday 7:00 PM KPFK’s Feminist Magazine: 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara.

Streaming live and archived at kpfk.org.

LISTEN ANYTIME – Download or Podcast at KPFK.org Audio Archives

Podcasts at: http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/xml/femmag.xml

Plus…Go to http://feministmagazine.org/ for more Info/Actions/SoCal Flavor!

Publicity Photo by Fadela Castro

Laura Varela

OASIS invites you to a film screening and discussion of

RAÚL R. SALINAS AND THE POETRY OF LIBERATION

a film in progress by Laura Varela
Followed by a Q & A with director Laura Varela

THURSDAY — NOVEMBER 11
7:00pm
Kohlberg Hall – Room 115
Swarthmore College
raúl r salinas and the Poetry of Liberation is a documentary in-progress that takes us on a trip through the life Xicanindio poet/activist raúlrsalinas’ and a changing nation told through “medicine stories,” poetry, and the rhythm of jazz. This story examines, the social/political forces that transformed a man from petty criminal to a poet of the people and revolutionary. raúl’sjourney includes transformative moments when, he directly engaged the oppressive forces that were attempting to destroy his own life and the people he loved.

His narrative runs through Jim Crow Texas of the 40’s an 50’s, to the trails of migrant workers to the prison rights movement, to the Chicano and American Indian movement with the defense of Leonard Peltier, Cuba, the United Nations in Geneva, to Nicaragua and finally raúl’s years in Austin nurturing the voices of young poets and incarcerated youth. Raul’s story and poetry is a testament to the times when Native people in the United States and Latin American rose up against oppression and colonization and found radical transformation in their quest for liberation. Through raúl’s story and poetry, in the context of history, we see both the evolution of a true American poet and the birth of new political force in the American politics of resistance movements.

This film is currently in production and has recieved funding from ITVS, Humanities Texas and the NALAC Fund for the Arts, supported in part by the Ford Foundation and JP Morgan Chase.

Laura Varela is a San Antonio-based documentary filmmaker and media artist whose work as a storyteller is shaped by her roots growing up on the US/ Mexico Border in El Paso, Texas.  Her work navigates between ideological, cultural, linguistic and physical borders through the use of film and contemporary art installations.
Sponsored by OASIS, Forum for Free Speech (FFS), the Intercultural Center and the Office for Multicultural Affairs

11/7/2010 (Sunday) KAETDT Phoenix, AZ 2:00:00 PM

11/7/2010 (Sunday) KCETDC Los Angeles, CA 10:00:00 PM

11/7/2010 (Sunday) KCETDT2 Los Angeles, CA 10:00:00 PM

11/7/2010 (Sunday) WHUTDT Washington, DC 11:00:00 PM

11/8/2010 (Monday) KLPADT2 Alexandria, LA 11:00:00 AM

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11/8/2010 (Monday) KTEHDT San Jose, CA 11:00:00 PM

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11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KLPADT2 Alexandria, LA 3:00:00 PM

11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KLPBDT2 Lafayette, LA 3:00:00 PM

11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KLTLDT2 Lake Charles, LA 3:00:00 PM

11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KLTMDT2 Monroe, LA 3:00:00 PM

11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KLTSDT2 Shreveport, LA 3:00:00 PM

11/9/2010 (Tuesday) KQEDDT2 San Francisco, CA 5:00:00 AM

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11/9/2010 (Tuesday) WCPBDT2 Salisbury, MD 11:00:00 PM

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11/9/2010 (Tuesday) WHUTDT Washington, DC 8:00:00 PM

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11/9/2010 (Tuesday) WMFEDT3 Orlando, FL 12:00:00 PM

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11/10/2010 (Wednesday) WYBEDT Philadelphia, PA 8:00:00 PM

11/11/2010 (Thursday) KAETDT Phoenix, AZ 4:00:00 AM

11/11/2010 (Thursday) WLRNDT Miami, FL 10:00:00 PM

11/12/2010 (Friday) KVCRDT3 San Bernardino, CA 1:00:00 AM

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11/13/2010 (Saturday) WYBEDT Philadelphia, PA 8:00:00 PM

11/13/2010 (Saturday) KCETDC Los Angeles, CA 11:30:00 PM

11/13/2010 (Saturday) KCETDT2 Los Angeles, CA 11:30:00 PM

10/24/2010 (Sunday) WNYE HDTV New York, NY 7:30:00 PM

10/26/2010 (Tuesday) WUSI HDTV Olney, IL 11:00:00 PM

10/26/2010 (Tuesday) WSIU HDTV Carbondale, IL 11:00:00 PM

11/2/2010 (Tuesday) KTXT HDTV Lubbock, TX 9:00:00 PM



Past Dates

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KEDT Corpus Christi, TX on main channel  Sept 15 Wed @ 9Pm

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KLRU Austin, TX 20-Sep Monday 9:30PM

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NHPTV  NH Explore channel Sept 21 Tues 8PM

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PBS WORLD

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KETZDT3 AETN Scholar Monroe-El Dorado El Dorado AR 29-Sep Wed 10AM/ 4PM/6PM/9PM/ 2AM

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Enlight-Tents documentation film created for the installation by Vaago Weiland and Laura Varela for Luminaria Arts Night in San Antonio, TX March 14, 2009.

Enlight-Tents
Concept by Vaago Weiland and Laura Varela

Installation for Public Space at the Alamo

Generations of mankind lived and travelled in tents. All of their possessions were placed in their tents. Everything took place in nature or these tents: life, love, birth and death. The most important values of life are inside of us–inside of our being. We don’t need thick walls to shelter these values and beliefs. We don’t need spaces built like fortifications such as missions, cathedrals, and other buildings of worship. We don’t need defensive fortification to feel secure or connected with other life giving energy. The understanding of the basic law must be inside of us–our heart, soul and mind. The beauty of mother earth reminds us of this constantly.

It is easy to change your position when you are living in a tent. It is easy to change your point of view when you are not living behind thick walls. You are just covered and sheltered by a thin membrane and are coexisting with nature when you live in this manner. This membrane is easy to destroy; everyone has to handle it carefully. You need a lot of sensibility, respect, and knowledge to handle it.

Vaago Weiland is from Europe and studied architecture as well as sculpture and spent time in San Antonio in 2007. He recognized that the San Antonio Missions were built like castles and defensive fortifications. Laura Varela is a Chicana from Texas whose roots in the Americas are grounded as far south as Durango Mexico and north to the Great Plains. Throughout their discussion about the arrival of Europeans and the effect on indigenous cultures and people one conclusion was clear: the belief and knowledge of the basic law of the universe and nature was sheltered behind thick walls for the Europeans.