Victor Nunez: An American Cinematheque Retrospective

ABOUT THE SERIES:

The American Cinematheque is proud to welcome American filmmaker Victor Nunez to the Aero Theatre for the L.A. Premiere of his newest film, RACHEL HENDRIX followed by a Q&A along with screenings of ULEE’S GOLD, RUBY’S PARADISE, and A FLASH OF GREEN.

Writer and director (and sometime cinematographer, editor, producer, and camera operator) Victor Nunez is a singular figure in the American cinema, a pioneer of the independent film movement who has never lost sight of the urge to portray life as it is actually lived, particularly in the state of Florida where he grew up and in which most of his films are set. From his early short films “Taking Care of Mother Baldwin” and “Charly Benson’s Return to the Sea” to the pair of masterpieces for which he is best known, RUBY IN PARADISE and ULEE’S GOLD, Nunez has crafted a filmography comprised of movies that are naturalistic in their performances and anthropological detail but entirely cinematic in their attention to how light, sound, movement (both of and within the frame) and cutting can express ideas and emotions. Often working with 16mm for a more tactile quality, Nunez is a director whose movies invite the audience to swim in the celluloid and get lost in the lives of their characters — characters who, at the time Nunez was making many of his movies, were not being represented on American screens often if at all. The American Cinematheque will be presenting a selection of Nunez classics alongside a screening of his latest film, RACHEL HENDRIX, with the director and several of his actors in person to discuss the films.

Program notes by film historian Jim Hemphill.

A note from filmmaker Todd Field:

Victor Nunez made his first film more than fifty-years ago. Over the ensuing decades the face of our film world tried on many masks. But Nunez continued, some might say stubbornly, to strip his characters to the core – leaving them nowhere to hide. His work displays a remarkable consistency, an unadorned vision of an America viewed at eye-level, dispensing with any and all cinematic safety nets. This retrospective is a wonderful opportunity to revisit his work. For those unfamiliar with Nunez, I envy you having this incredible introduction to such a singular artist.