Minda Martin

Director Reel

Cuba, Cine Adentro

I was invited by Alex Halkin, director of the America’s Media Initiative (AMI) to travel to Eastern Cuba to share my work in small communities as part of the program Closing Distances/Cerrando Distancias. There I screened two of my films about American poverty, displacement, and racial and gender inequities in America--Free Land and Mother’s Heritage. During this tour, I engaged in spirited Q&A sessions with Cuban audiences in the towns of Bayamo, San Pablo de Yao, Guantanamo, and Baracoa. The intimate spaces and conversations about and with those films were conducted inside people’s homes, backyards, and cinemas built in the 1950s. Cuba, Cine Adentro (2015) is the film I made for the Cubans I had met to reflect back my experience of our exchange. They shared their responses through emails, letters, and one group even wrote and performed an original song for me. Through the mode of personal exchange with the community, I sought to collaboratively activate a transnational line of communication, while also collectively identifying the impacts of national policies on personal experiences of living on and through the land. What’s more, the film text and its circulation illuminates the critical role of the cinema in forging community.

The Long Distance Operator

I was invited to contribute a segment to the omnibus experimental feature documentary Far From Afghanistan (2012) that was organized and edited by filmmaker, educator, curator, and critic, John Gianvito. Inspired by the French new wave omnibus documentary Loin du Vietnam (Far From Vietnam, 1967) by Chris Marker, Far From Afghanistan unites politically-progressive experimental US filmmakers and Afghan journalists to bring awareness to U.S. policy, its military surveillance complex, and its involvement in the longest war in US history.

While making my segment, The Long Distance Operator, I aimed to provide Americans with a way to think about their own distance from the on-going wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Placing the testimony of U.S. soldier, Ethan McCord-- who was on the ground at the scene of the Apache Helicopter “Collateral Murder” incident-- in the context of the pilot’s screens (that were made available on Wikileaks by Chelsea Manning), I came to see parallels between the visual technologies of war and the visual and affective impression of these wars from a civilian perspective. I worked closely with the actors, all of whom were war veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, to explore their emotions associated with using drone technology. As a whole, the omnibus film project enabled me to gain experience working with others to develop a collective argument through our individual works.

Free Land

Free Land is a personal experimental documentary feature that traces my immediate family's experience with poverty to the forced Cherokee relocation in the 1800s. The film includes archival media, creative writing, dramatic reenactments of historical documents as well as family artifacts, recordings and interviews. Free Land deconstructs the myth of America as a “free land” by showing that it was built at the expense of freedom and land rights of indigenous people and continues to operate at the expense of the disenfranchised.

Monsoon St.,'77

Monsoon St., ‘77 tells the story of a day in the life of a tomboy, Tina, who finds escapism in the rural desert of Tucson, Arizona. To compensate for her unhappy surroundings, Tina lives in a rich imaginative world. Her distracted mother continually rebuffs her until the late evening when the mother forces Tina to look at her bleak reality and recognize the ultimate inadequacy of her fantasy life.

with Daeg Faerch and Mickey Faerch

written, directed, and edited by Minda J. Martin

cinematography by Maritza Alvarez

sound design by Minda Martin and Theron Patterson

sound mix by Theron Patterson

Love, Minda

In this experimental short film, I show the trailer where my mother died as the landscape for a soundtrack that speaks about the difficulty in letting go of an attachment to an old lover while maintaining a friendship. The formal strategy, a back and forth montage technique, describes the obsessive mind of the main character.

AKA Kathe

written, filmed, edited, and directed by Minda J. Martin

In this documentary, I focused on the murder of a childhood acquaintance in my hometown Tucson, Arizona and the conflicting challenges she faced in her life as a sex worker, mother and someone battling a debilitating drug habit and poverty. I chose this subject at the time the media coverage of the murder only represented the sensational and dark side of her life and violent death and not the complicated and loving life she had led. By focusing on the details that led up to Kathe’s death, I drew a more nuanced portrait that sought to recuperate and humanize Kathe. I also critiqued the judicial system, the police force, and the easy availability of guns for the roles they played in both my mother and Kathe’s life and death

a little ballad

with Olivia Martin & Haroldee

written, directed, and edited by Minda J. Martin

cinematography by Mike Plante

sound mix by Craig Smith

A personal film that details the differing perspectives of a mother and her daughter who both utilize the radio as a tool for escapism.

Mother's Heritage

I began my career as a filmmaker making personal films. I took to the camera as a political act to represent the kinds of people I grew up with, working poor large white family in the southwest. I also sought to understand my life experiences. My first film, Mother’s Heritage (1996) tells the story of my mother’s untimely death from an accidental gun shot wound. In her absence, her story is told through the recollections of her family who discuss the many challenges she faced during her life. The camera/subject relation in the film shows my father up close with frontal lighting that highlights his premature aging. In between his interviews is silence and various voices of family members underneath family archival footage.