Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Santa Cruz.
Hi Christina, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. Between the ages of 15 and 29, I suffered from sleep paralysis, during which I would experience intense visions of home invasion. Towards the end of that timeline, I relocated to Los Angeles for graduate school – CalArts. The curriculum centered on filmmaking and installation work with a dash of music. These studies coupled with the sleep issues I mentioned manifested themselves in an artistic voice that has outlasted the afflictions that birthed them. For instance, my most recent film “Taylor and Vanessa” speaks directly to those old anxieties as well as my desire to own a home. Not a big home because I would drive myself crazy constantly checking my SimpliSafe cameras. Although, I do admit that I have my eyes set on Nancy’s house from “A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I will tell you a story that is hyper-specific but that I feel speaks to a larger frustration that I have with art exhibitions. One that I would consider a “challenge.” When you apply to, for instance, a film festival, you typically do not apply to a specific category or program. You are simply applying to the festival as either a short film or a feature film. And sometimes you get programmed in those festivals, which is supposed to make you happy, but that happiness is undercut when you find out, as has happened to me a couple of times, that you and your film have been slotted in some program like “Women Filmmakers” or “Hispanic Filmmakers.” And then when you look at the other programs at the festival they are more categorized by genre or subject matter – essentially every other program is more about the work presented than the director’s ethnicity or gender. This sort of programming inadvertently minimizes the supposed celebration of these filmmakers and comes across more as the festival trying to pat themselves on the back.
Also, I do taxidermy and I am running out of shelf space to display it all. That is a whole other challenge.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Earlier I mentioned “Taylor and Vanessa,” which can be found on my website. That I would say, to date is the best representation of my work as a narrative filmmaker, but before that I did a fair amount of experimental films – showcasing at Chicago Underground Film Festival, Dances with Films, and Sunspot Cinema, among many others.
“Subtle Distance” is a film I made without a camera by placing my jewelry and clothing on top of 16mm and exposing it with a flashlight. It was my way of revealing without revealing. It is highly personal despite the fact that there is no person in the film in the literal sense. Instead by using pieces of my ephemera alongside my voice, I aim to transform those physicalities into my metaphysical presence.
Outside of film I have made pieces that I would consider to be film-adjacent – installations that incorporate moving images as a component of a larger, more experiential whole. “Machine Memory” for instance performs the maxing out of a computer’s hard drive space as an analog for the tenuousness of human memory. It does this by establishing a false binary between an analog loop (the human) and the digitalization of that loop (the machine) and then collapses that binary by establishing a symbiosis in which these two states co-exist and co-deteriorate.
And then there’s Chestnut. Chestnut is the name of a music project that I co-founded with artist Daniel Watkins. Our most recent record is called Ladder Match, based on the famous wrestling gimmick match.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I love that the whole city really gets into Halloween. I told myself I wouldn’t live anywhere that does not have Universal Halloween Horror Nights. So, when you leave Florida you only have one other option.
Dislikes? The Pacific Ocean is too cold.
Contact Info:
- Website: christinasantacruz.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/christinasantacruz
- Facebook: facebook.com/ChestnutNoise
- Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UCalq4Tnr4MGJgYnrnAjKgkw
- Other: chestnut1.bandcamp.com/
