Angles: Women Working in Film and Video (1997)

were leaving the island for jobs in the North because of economic filmmaker uses both narrative and conditions. “I never noticed or was aware of this,” says Negrondocumentary forms to achieve a complex Muntaner. “At the center of my ignorance, dubbed in Spanish, layering of issues concerning color, class American TV spoke to me.” and sexuality along with the intricacies of But even as a youngster there was something subversive in her daily life and relationships, including the choices. “I identified with characters who had magic powers or straightforward portrayal of the central were super aliens, such as those on The Addams Family or Star lesbian couple. In several documentary-like Trek. They allowed me to question the values of suburban life. segments, men and women discuss their But their enchanting solutions offered few weapons in the world I feelings about “home” and their identities was about to face,” she says. as Puerto Ricans. The insights and At 19, when Negrén-Muntaner arrived in Philadelphia to observations of these very different study visual anthropology and fine arts at Temple University, her individuals underscore the difficulties in self-image as a “middle class student was shattered” as she pinning identity down to race, gender, confronted a whole other set of images and words as applied to ethnicity or sexuality. Negrén-Muntaner Puerto Ricans—“shady, reckless, poor, dangerous, criminal, smartly brings in other components, such savage.” On television and in the movies she saw images of Puerto as class, education and skin color. Central Ricans being arrested or derided. Often they were shown as poor to the discussion is a universal question: and uneducated. Can you go home again? or What is home? “In the tide of these words,” she says in Puerto Rican ID, “I More meditative than conclusive, the lost who I was but gained a new destiny. I turned the TV off in piece is open-ended, suggesting that search of an image I'd never seen but knew existed.” identity is always shifting. What we don't see is as significant as what we do see. What is Negrén-Muntaner often writes about the missing, she says, is a public forum of discussion of the full range process of filmmaking and what it reveals to of Puerto Rican social, cultural and political practices. her. She has a masters degree in Visual “What does it mean to be Puerto Rican in its diversity? In the Anthropology and Fine Arts from Temple barrio, outside the barrio, light-skinned, dark-skinned, middle University and is working on her doctorate class, working class, straight, queer. In a way, the whole identity in Comparative Literature at Rutgers discourse completely swallows up all those differences, making all University. Her other works include: Puerto Ricans a blur of stereotypes and predigested assumptions,” Staying in School Is Cool, a video made she says. in collaboration with Congreso de Latinos The discussion of all aspects of identity and what it means are Unidos, features a group of 14-year-old inherent in Negrén-Muntaner’s work whether it's straightforward participants in the Congreso's after-school documentary, experimental or narrative. program. She combines music video | Her first piece, AIDS in the Barrio, co-produced with Peter segments with testimony and fictional Biella, is a street-smart documentary made in the Latino vignettes expressing teen fears and community where people on the street as opposed to “experts” aspirations. talk about sex and AIDS. It won the Gold Award (Community Homeless Diaries is a video journey into Health) at the John Muir Medical Film Festival in 1990 and is a Tent City, a camp built by homeless standard media tool used in educating Latinos about AIDS. organizers and homeless people on an Brincando El Charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican (1994) empty Philadelphia lot in 1995. Negrénaddresses the complexities and pitfalls of identity politics. Muntaner interweaves video, home O Brincando el charco, \iterally meaning to cross the puddle, is an movies, images of children living in Tent_ expression used to describe emigration. City and mainstream coverage of the city: Negrén-Muntaner plays the central character in the film, a It's a multilayered exploration of how U Puerto Rican photographer who lives with her lover in the States different media represent displacement and, and is called back to the island after her father dies. The social movements. oS there were none VOLUME 3 NUMBER2 @ 9