Victor J. Ramos is a filmmaker currently based in California.
E: victor.ramos.j@gmail.com
Artist Statement:
My films are shaped by how I encounter others and the commitment to patience. It’s a
patience that holds and lets moments take shape without being pressed by expectation,
as expectations can clutter thoughts and pull us away from listening. I find when
listening becomes a priority, patterns and meanings emerge, giving an open quality to
the meanings as they’re presented. Those meanings get filtered through a lens, an edit,
a feeling, and eventually an interpretation. But I’m not interested in landing at
interpretation or a 1-to-1 translation of intention; I invite thoughts to wander and place high
value in gaining perspective. That’s where understanding lives, and what my films are looking for.
This approach is rooted in how I came to understand perspective. I grew up in a small,
ethnically homogeneous town, but within my family, I didn’t feel that sense of sameness.
At one point, fourteen of us shared a single home. Parents, siblings, grandparents,
aunts, uncles, and cousins, all with distinct perspectives from different ethnic and racial
backgrounds. My father’s side of the family is Mexican; my mother is white American.
One uncle is from Saudi Arabia, another is Black American, and my cousins, like me,
are shaped by multiple identities. Living in that environment, we were surrounded with
multiple perspectives in one space. That’s really what stuck with me and gave the
instinct to create films that listen and reflect on how one sees the world.
Over time, my instinct has taken shape in the way I construct an image. I often think
about aesthetics and how they have the capacity to impose the filmmaker’s feelings,
sometimes overwhelming the act of listening. For this reason, choices that dictate the
feeling of an image are set before filming. I work with a static frame, held at or below
eye level. When the goal is to understand, it’s important to see someone without looking
down or searching. The frame stays and allows listening to settle into the viewing
process, where subtleties have space to be noticed.
I know it’s impossible, but I want to film everyone and everything in my proximity so that
I can process and make sense of the life that surrounds me. We’re all moving so fast
and rarely get the chance to spend real time with the people or places that surround us,
especially after they’re gone. Filmmaking gives me the opportunity to do so.
