In person: filmmakers Diego Robles & Bertha Aguilar, Wyvernwood resident Gumaro Oviedo Flores, and programmer Jorge Ravelo

Filmforum continues local filmmaker Diego Robles' series The Wyvernwood Chronicles:

Part 2, an eclectic collection of short films ranging from resident-made PSA’s (Public Service Announcements), to meditative experimental documentary pieces, to youth workshop animations. The films center around a group of residents and community homes located just east of the Los Angeles River, in Boyle Heights between the years 2007-2015, where many attempts by the city to displace the residents were challenged by its residents.

The films begin to be made around the beginning of the Great Recession, as LA Co-Media (Los Angeles Collective Media) collaborated with Comite de la Esperanza & neighborhood residents from Wyvernwood to make documentary videos, spread awareness, lead youth workshops and aid in the preservation of their housing and the archiving of their histories. The films made from LA Co-Media range from being didactic, to being calls-to-action, to also being playful and meditative cinematic forms. To complement these films, the documentary short GUMARO, made from cut material of Robles’ feature film Wyvernwood: The Garden City, follows resident Gumaro Oviedo Flores in one of his Los Angeles Quinceñera videography jobs, showing the relationship between representation and a coming-of-age ritual.

Part 2 focuses on an even broader and more horizontal approach to representation, where the films aren’t simply made about community but are birthed from within community building efforts. The screening will be followed by a Q&A panel with a number of the filmmakers and residents of Wyvernwood.

Program (~70 minutes): 

• Que Hermoso es Wyvernwood (2010) by Gumaro Oviedo Flores - 1 min
• Doña Carmen (working title) (2015) by Manuel Huerta - 5 min
• Cut-Out Animation made by Wyvernwood Children (working title) (2013) by Bertha Alicia Aguilar Garcia - 4 min
• Nosotros Somos Wyvernwood (2009/2010) by  El Comité de la Esperanza, LA Co-Media, Gumaro Oviedo Flores - 10 min
• Wyvernwood (made around 2009/2010) by El Comité de la Esperanza, LA Co-Media, Gumaro Oviedo Flores - 3 min
• Yo Soy Wyvernwood/Yo Soy Comité de la Esperanza (made around 2009/2010) by Gumaro Oviedo Flores - 30 sec
• Short video made of still photographs and napkins from Comité member Doña Avangelina, (2013) by Diego Robles - 4 min
• Nuestros Videos Culturales para la Preservación de Wyvernwood ( 2009/2010) by Erasto Arena, El Comité de la Esperanza, LA Co-Media & Diego Robles - 4 min
• El Futuro Wyvernwood (2009/2010) by Abraham Osuna, LA Co-Media, Comité de la Esperanza/Wyvernwood Resident’s Ricardo Mojica & Salvador Vergara -  3 min
• GUMARO (2021) by Diego Robles - 36 min

And other films to be announced

Guests:

Diego Robles, Filmmaker

Diego Robles is an artist and educator. Diego grew up in the Houston metropolitan area, where growing up in extremely diverse environments instilled in him a-life long interest for engaging oral histories, the mechanisms of thinking, and the way futures are designed. He has now lived most of his life in Southern California, residing in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles for more than half of it. He has been inspired by independent film, video stores, public libraries, comics, and a lot of live and recorded music. As a young person, he lived a year in Tijuana, Baja California and a year in Mexico City, Mexico where his interests in Meso-American, Mexican, and Latin-American cultures greatly grew from first-hand experiences with friends, family, and second-hand book stores. He's a Film School graduate of the UCLA School of Theater, Film, and Television, as well as an MFA graduate of CalArts's School of Film/Video & the School of Critical Studies. As a native to the US-Mexico border, he continually re-explores various ways the presence and absence of dualities is expressed and disciplined into boundaries and cliches. With more than 20 years of Teaching-Artist experience, Diego has led various Art Laboratories, Book Discussions/Group Readings, and participated in research Projects at CalArts, UCLA and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. Diego currently lectures on Visual Studies, Chicanx Art, and various topics in Art Pedagogy at CSU San Bernardino & San Diego State University.

Bertha Aguilar Garcia (Mexico, 1981) is an art historian and artist engaged in a broad range of mediums, making filmmaking the epicenter of her practice.Interested in the myriad of possibilities buried within time, Aguilar Garcia puts forward her art practice as a possibility to reshape vision. It is her belief that the displacement of vision brings forth the possibility of effortless change. At the beginning of her practice, she worked both in production design for film and advertisement in Mexico City while engaging in her own experimental filmmaking practice. Her work has been shown in the Morelia International Film Festival and the Berlinale Talent Campus. Beyond that, she has exhibited visual art works in group shows in Mexico City and co-curated a binational art show hosted by the Americas Society in New York and the Carrillo Gil Museum in Mexico City. As of lately, Aguilar Garcia works in Los Angeles as a teaching artist, engaging youth through the arts.

Gumaro Oviedo Flores was born in Atlapexco, Hidalgo, Mexico in 1961. He has been living in Wyvernwood since 1988. In his late 20’s and early 30’s, Gumaro began participating in Wyvernwood’s community-made religious activities, most notably performing during many semana santas (Holy Week) as Jesus Christ in la pasion de Cristo (The Passion of Christ). When the efforts to preserve Wyvernwood became more widespread in 2007, Gumaro employed the use of his craft and abilities to photograph, videotape, and bring more awareness to an encroaching effort to demolish their homes. Gumaro participated with Comité and collaborated with LA Co-Media between 2007-2010, making short videos for these efforts aimed at keeping their community together, and preserving their homes.