Graffiti Films

David Martinez is a writer, filmmaker and political activist based in San Francisco. His work is about everything from animated bird corpses to Sudanese revolutionaries, but usually involves radical politics and social movements. His movies have screened everywhere from small community centers and churches to European Film Festivals. His writing has been published in The San Francisco Bay Guardian, Filmmaker Magazine, McSweeney's, CounterPunch, CorpWatch, and Islam Online. He has worked in documentary production with Hector Galan and Billy Nessen, and feature film production with directors Richard Linklater, John Sayles, and Jimmy Mendiola, and worked as an actor in Waking Life, directed by Linklater. He has also been employed as a school teacher, social worker, bike messenger, and taxi driver.

Films and suchlike:

500 Miles To Babylon (2008, 60 minutes, video) Filmed over the course of three trips to Iraq as an independent videographer, this is a documentary not about soldiers, not about governments, but about Iraqi civilians and a handful of independent journalists in a country being turned into hell. A cinema verite narrative of daily life, disintegration, and the humor that ordinary people adapt when living in a warzone. With a soundtrack of Iraqi Choubi songs compiled by Sublime Frequencies.

Dreams in 8 Millimeter (produced 2002, aired 2004, 6 min, video and Super-8 film) was a short documentary about experimental film artist Willie Varela, who has been making abstract cinema in El Paso, Texas for the past three decades. Dreams in 8 Millimeter was one segment of the series Visiones!, executive produced by Hector Galan, aired nationally on PBS.

Eros: A Film About Direct Action (2000, 35 min.,DV), a verite-style, street-level film about the anti-W.T.O. protests that shook Seattle in the fall of 1999. Shot entirely by the filmmaker as he himself participated in the demonstartions, this piece is a first hand look at the activists, unionists, and organizers that made history in four rainy days that November. Narrated by Scottish author James Kelman, with music by noise-rock trio FAT.

The Frog In The Well (1999, 28 min., DV and 8-mm), chronicles the life and work of Hoh-Kun Yuen, photographer, physicist, ice-skater, and multi-media activist. From 1963 until his death in 1997, Yuen documented the sights and sounds of social protest in his adopted hometown of Berkeley, California, assembling a massive archive of photos, newspapers, and over 30,000 hours of recorded audio. Soundtrack music by experimental guitarists Gary Lucas and Alavarius B. Distributed by the National Asian American Telecommunications Association. (www.naatanet.org)

Rabbit's Tale (1998, 6 min., 16mm), a cinematic re-telling of a Zapotec trickster tale, using handmade masks, natural lighting, and the Texas Hill Country. a story about the futility of the work ethic, or maybe about why the moon looks like it does. Narrated by Nuyorican poet-laureate Piri Tomas, with music by members of neo-cumbia outfit Grupo Fantasma. Distributed by Subcine (www.subcine.com), a collective of cutting-edge Latino filmmakers.

The Merchant's Wife Leaves Home (1997, 5 min., Super-8 mm) is an animated short about domestic strife and alchemy. It was made using bones and small artifacts and curios found in street markets in Mexico City. Pretty soundtrack music by Ralph Carney.

Vivo En Un Pais Libre (1994, 10 min., Super-8 mm) a short documentary about people leaving Cuba on homemade rafts.