new home

woah hey so CLASS moved over here to the wildness movie site...! the change feels kinda weird but also honest- because i realized i'm mostly writing about the movie at this point. less blurriness with life friends and group projects...

i'm not sure if my eyes can adjust to this BLACK/WHITE reversal thing - my first thought was: does this space close something down? something about integrating the questioning space with the 'end product' space of a movie website? it's more than just an new look, its a new FRAME literally. but i was starting to feel like i was faking something - because the truth is, i AM most invested in the what happens now that the movie is done. like i wonder is it POSSIBLE to keep it real inside this more commercialized setting? more interesting to me to try, rather than to keep pretending the worlds are separate...

for example, since the movie started coming out, one challenge has been the amount of AUTHORSHIP that's put on me as the director- especially for press and audience who want A single person to easily identify with.

THATS WHAT HAPPENS

for example they conflate the movie and the party as one creation, which is a huge problem. (something i anticipated, and trying different ways to undermine). also there is tension with some collaborators about credit. this movie was created in the languge of collaboration, but that can be hard to translate for people less familiar. i'm also encountering occasional crazy assumptions about my intentions (or lack of intentions) around immigration stuff. like people asking me point blank: are you afraid this movie will cause people to be deported? i don't even know where to begin, but also find it necessary to have a really solid answer - besides just WELL DID YOU SEE F*$#!ING MOVIE??? WTF TO DO YOU THINK??? my answer for now, which i'm working on, is: in Los Angeles today, immigration status is a fact of life. 1 in 10 people are undocumeted. 1 in 10. that's like the same as gay people on the planet or something. so trying to hide or sensationalize this reality makes no sense- it is one facet of people's complex human lives. i felt it was important to show life primarily - and everyone who participated did so willingly, and at the same level of risk that they have to live with every day. the fear is real. but we can only know this fear to be a fact, inasmuch as it is reality for each of us in our own lives.

full circle

last night felt like a major milestone in terms of really finishing wildness (movie). we did a small screening at the Silver Platter for the owners and some of the regulars. it was so SURREAL to see the movie playing on that little TV behind the bar - like the outside from the inside! a teleport. everything finally coming full circle.

i was mostly nervous about what Nora (one of the owners and main characters in movie) would think - because she and i had a major falling out at one point; it was the reason i had to stop filming. let's just say, getting involved in a lawsuit against one of your subjects to help your friend who is also a subject is not like, best documentary practices. somehow over time though, we all got past that stuff. but it still felt terrifying and necessary to sit with her and watch the film. the fact that she loved it (...!!!) was like a major resolution. bless !

in other news we had an LGL legal clinic meeting yesterday - did you know there's a new law in california that says you can now get a court order recognizing your gender change, without requiring surgery?? more on that (and other crazy shit like the new "trans pods" being built in LAPD jails) later...

alexis rivera

california just lost one of it's brightest stars, Alexis Rivera - an amazing organizer, leader, sister, and  force of life. the trans community in los angeles would not be who we are today without her - we have all been touched by you Alexis. <3 <3 <3

here she is, tell us like it is ;) in our early LGL days...

Alexis Rivera's memorial tribute

noon-4pm, Fiesta Hall, Plummer Park, West Hollywood

please join family & friends as we honor the life of Alexis Rivera in a memorial tribute on Sunday starting at noon in Fiesta Hall at Plummer Park. At 3pm we move from Fiesta Hall into the park, where we will have food and more speakers. more info

spotlights

As WILDNESS finally makes it's way out into the world, i need to be blogging more. it's been hard cause everything's happening so fast- and weirdly secretive too: like getting into festivals, premiere statuses, publicists, sales agents, "buzz" -whatever that means... all of it supposedly in service to eventually getting the movie OUT THERE - which can mean a lot of different things. it also creates all kinds of drama- which makes it hard to hold onto why i started doing all this in the first place. so this moment feels really urgent politically- maybe not in an obvious way- but in a personal way that's tied to all the larger stuff- dealing with exposure and communication platforms. stuff i was thinking through all the time, but now that moment is here. what happens to everyone now that the MOVIE exists? it may be messy cause i'm learning, but i'll try to keep transparency about what's going on here...

also keep getting confused about when is the film actually finished?

it wasn't quite done at our world premiere when we had a MEDIA OFFLINE title card (OMGSRSLY amateur hour agggg). and it wasn't done at SXSW when we didn't have the spanish subtitles (ultimately wildness will b bilingual). and now that i'm back in LA for a min, it still feels not done because not all the most important people have seen it. ie everyone who's actually IN the movie- cause some people were involved in making- but others haven't seen a thing. and it's TERRIFYING to actually seek everyone's blessings. so we're devoting the next couple months to small screenings with folks from the silver platter and wildness... which each time feels so delicate. i already had one fallout (where i last expected it...)

movies are CRAZY real things. there's something about seeing your life through that media box/tv thing that we all take for granted as being informational... who is ever fully satisfied with a representation? i for one am never. having to do all this publicity and constantly chasing after journalists for corrections (for example calling the women of the silver platter "mexican men who dress like women" - cmon really??) i get what a potential bomb (like ticking bomb) a movie like wildness can be - because it's about community - and who cares more about our in/visibility than we do? i started filming when i had no plan to make a movie - the movie basically grew out of my life, it's so entangled with all the vulnerabilities, mistakes, and broken friendships - things that were not intended for the BIG SCREEN. and now it's frozen in time forever, fabricated into a story. gotta trust in everything that led up to this point and let go. or leap. or something...

i also wanna talk about is where everyone is at now...                           (photo by amos mac ;)
(those shoes i randomly found at C21 in columbus sqare... rachel zoe ! weeiirrrrd)

ngzuzu djing kenzo show in paris and stuff like that... LIFE moving faster still...

WILDNESS SXSW SCREENINGS

Friday, March 9 @ 8:30PM - Alamo Lamar B
***PREMIERE OPENING NIGHT***

Sunday, March 11 @ 11:15AM - Violet Crown 2
***AFTERNOON AFTERPARTY AT THE CHAINDRIVE FEAT DJ TOTAL FREEDOM***
504 Willow Street, Austin TX 78701

Wednesday, March 14 @ 12noon - Canon Screening Room

Thursday, March 15 @ 1:15PM - Violet Crown 1