“Burdenette of Dreams 1” and “Grandma Starla’s Perpetual Vigil”

Carla Jerez

There’s a femme form of dreaming I connect to in these works, rooted in longing and belonging, which is antithetical to dominant filmmaking practices that tend towards domination of the will.

The title Burdenette of Dreams 1 is a reference to the 1982 documentary film Burden of Dreams, which chronicles Werner Herzog as he spends years forcing his will upon the Amazon and its people for an overrated/annoying movie about colonialism. In this video I used The Neverending Story, a 1982 German film about a young boy whose desire alone has the power to save a fantastical world, to serve as the default dreamscape of the queer Brazilian performer when she closes her eyes. I hope to pose the questions: what can we long for under white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy? Who carries the true burden of those dreams?