Sunflowers and Roses, 2019.
Sunflowers and Roses is a contraction of time, space, and community. As the screen becomes polluted with teeth, hair, and flesh, the warm buzzing score reminds the viewer of sunny days in the llano (flat lands). The days where we played soccer under the clouds, where our sweat rolled off our Jalisco brown-ish skin, and the bright, succulent, oranges left our hands sticky.
The teeth belong to Roselynn, Kevin, Eduardo, Daniel, Nerine, Yasmeen, Jackie, and Jenifer, the folks that helped me create my own “family” in a world of confusion. It's a selfish piece, filled with the memories I want to remember, filled with the people that brought color into my life, and filled with the teeth I won't ever forget.
The piece is Mexican abstraction, it challenges who gets to be in and who gets to create experimental films. Kaleidoscope memories burst from the screen, its saturated excess is the color that has been pushed out of experimental filmmaking. With this injection of saturation, Sunflowers and Roses challenges viewers to rethink familia, rethink the flowerbed, and remind everyone that experimental filmmaking isn't owned by whiteness.
Foster youth filmmakers are not pobrecitos (sad stories).
His filmmaking recenters the community and shows the world that foster youth have untamed imaginations. His work dives headfirst into confusion, color, and the memories we will see in our “search for God” (Stan Brakhage, Michael’s favorite experimental filmmaker).