Presented by Slab Cinema Arthouse at Slab Cinema Arthouse, 134 Blue Star, San Antonio, TX 78210
Free and Open to the Public
Please join us for an evening of film, poetry, and an intimate conversation with award-winning filmmaker Laura Varela and renowned Queer Xicanx Interdisciplinary Artist David Zamora Casas. Slab Cinema presents this Xicanx Month special event.
Thursday, August 1, 2024, 7 pm Slab Cinema Arthouse
Join us for an evening of film, poetry, and an intimate conversation with award-winning filmmaker Laura Varela and renowned Queer Xicanx Interdisciplinary Artist David Zamora Casas. Immediately following the screenings David Zamora Casas’ will discuss and share a work in progress performance for his Democratizing Racial Justice Residency for Dia de los Angelistos Nov.1. An intimate conversation and Q&A with both artists will follow the performance.
Run of Show Line Up:
UN TRIP: raúl r salinas and the Poetry of Liberation (A film by Anne Lewis and Laura Varela 25 min). UN TRIP is a split-screen jazz and liberation documentary based on “Un Trip through the Mind Jail” written in 1969 by the beloved Xicanindio poet Raúl R Salinas while he was incarcerated at Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. This film is about transformation through political education in the community (initially a community of the incarcerated). The film also explores contemporary issues like imprisonment, community destruction, gentrification, and the profound impact of cultural memory on sanity and salvation.
Becoming Joy: The Art of David Zamora Casas Documentary Short (Laura Varela 4 min 2019) Created for the UTSA Institute of Texan Cultures Solo Exhibition Transcendental Tricentennial-Love Letters to San Anto: The (he)ART of David Zamora Casas Nuclear Meltdown Filmmaker Laura Varela gives us a glimpse into the life and art practice of Queer Xicanx Artist David Zamora Casas, a native of San Antonio, Texas. The film explores his paintings, installation, performance art, and activism beginning in 1985. Themes include the intersections a Gay Xicanx Catholic man must negotiate as well as gender, sexual identity, immigration, environmental justice, and civil rights. His life practice is a conscious decision to create performative environments that move forward critical dialogue within people of color, LGBTQ+ and Americans of Mexican/Indigenous origin.
Work-in-Progress Screening Clips from David Zamora Casas Nuclear Meltdown. When complete the film will be told through vignettes that capture transformative moments in Zamora Casa’s life and work when complete. This project is made possible by the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture Individual Artist Grant.
Work-in-Progress Cuento and Installation Preview by David Zamora Casas. A discussion on the inspiration for the work created for the Democratizing Racial Justice Residency 2024, funded by the Andrew A. Melon Foundation and facilitated by UTSA. The final installation will culminate in the Main Library in Uvalde, TX. The altar is an exploration of grief and will create a healing space through art, allegory, and fact rooted in history. The immersive installation will combine film, mixed media, the art of David Zamora Casas, and the writing of Barbara Renaud Gonzales’s.
Q&A Following performance.
