Kathryn Ramey

Awards & Honors

2020: Film Study Center Harvard/LEF fellowship, 2020-2021

2020: Marble House Artist Residency 

2020:  LEF New England Moving Image grant for post-production 

2019: Yaddo Colony Artist Residency 

2019: Creative Capital award

2018: LEF New England Moving Image grant for production 

2017: Puffin Foundation Artist Grant

2015: Massachusetts Cultural Council on the Arts Fellowship  

Her filmography includes 

• The Passenger (2007) 17mins, 16mm, col/sd. 

• Yanqui WALKER and the OPTICAL REVOLUTION (2009) 34 minutes, 16mm, col sd.

• WEST: What I know about Her (2012) 16mm, col/bw, optical sound, 20 mins

• ENOLAEMEVAEL/LEAVEMEALONE (2016) 16mm double projection installation

• Limen (2019) 16mm bw/sd 11 mins

• and her work in the process EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign) 

Her films have screened at festivals and other venues including Toronto Film Festival, TriBeCa film festival, MadCat Women’s Film Festival, 25fps Experimental Film Festival, Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, Alchemy Film Festival, National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC.

Mariela: How did you become a filmmaker? Did you always know that you wanted to be in this field?

Kathryn:

No,I thought that I would probably study Fine Arts. I went to college to study drawing and painting, thinking that I would be a fine artist. And then I had a teacher come into my classroom during open studio, and look at my work.

I was doing small sequential paintings, and drawings, and the teacher said, “You should be a filmmaker, you're basically doing storyboards.” And so she convinced me to take her filmmaking class the next term. And I did and I kind of never looked back after that. I fell in love with the camera and with the film itself.

And I was fortunate to have the people around me -- and the work that I was looking at -- not be sort of mainstream commercial, documentary or television. I was exposed to a lot of work from all over the world, international work as well from feminists. And that was also very influential because I wasn't steered towards mainstream art. I was exposed to a very broad spectrum, and to the little films and big films, and films made with no budget, and so I felt like it was possible. The people who were teaching me how to use a camera were female.I could see that someone, a woman like me, was using a camera. It made it seem like something that I obviously could do. And I think that's so important for all for BIPOC students, women, if we can't see ourselves using a camera than half? It's hard to imagine. So that's the other part.

Mariela: 

I can relate with that. As a kid, I loved movies. But it never crossed my mind that I could do that or pursue filmmaking. When I was in community college, I was  interested in this one class, it was about how to make your own movies. And then I took the class and I realized that film was there this whole time, and I never realized that it was a choice for me.

Kathryn:

Popular culture doesn't present it that way.

Mariela:

do you consider yourself a feminist filmmaker?

Kathryn: That's an interesting question. I consider myself an artist who works in film. I'm also an anthropologist. I'm an anthropologist, artist who works in film, and I, in all aspects of my life practice intersectional feminism.Thus, the work that I make, would have to be feminist work, because it's being made by an intersectional feminist. I mean, it's been so long that I've been seeing the world through the lens of feminism, but also other kinds of critiques of the overarching power structures that exist in our cultures. So, it would be hard for me to remember what it was like to not see the world that way. But, everything that I've been making for as long as I've been making has been seen through that lens.  But it's, it's intersectional feminism, not just sort of 1970s feminism.

Mariela: 

Is it challenging to define yourself as a feminist ? Specially when the word feminist sometimes has a negative context.

Kathryn :

There is a critique, and it is a valid critique, especially in the US, that when a group, a certain group of women in this country, articulated that they wanted the same rights as men, the same access as men, the same opportunities as men -- at the same time that they were asking for that, they were doing it on the backs of women, Black, Indigenous, Latinas, who came to take care of their children so that they could be free. That is a real valid critique of a strand of the of the 20th century feminist movements. 

But to discard all of feminism, by saying that it was only a white woman movement is to absolutely undermine, the incredible coalitions between women, and not just between women, but between, queer and transgender, brothers and sisters who all shared, a desire to be visible and to have access to opportunities. 

I am incredibly aware of the criticisms of the history of feminism. That's why I say I practice intersectional feminism. Because I simultaneously think about economic justice and racial justice and, all these other layers, and they're not, I can't disentangle them.

So, there was a period, especially in the arts and the later part of the 20th century where feminism got a really bad rap. And it got a bad rap from a bunch of different sides. But I mean, at the end of the day, women are people. And if whatever you're doing is making it more difficult for them to gain access to opportunities and to feel free, then that's not right. 

And to say that that's not right is is fundamentally feminist. So, no, it's not hard for me to say that I'm a feminist.

Mariela: How did you decide to go with experimental filmmaking instead of mainstream filmmaking?

Kathryn : 

Well, it has to do with who you see behind the camera, who you see getting screened, who you see getting their work distributed. In the 1980s, which is when I went to school. I'm looking out across the field of possible positions taken, there were women in Hollywood but they were the radical exception. And what they seem to have had to do to get where they were, or who they had to know --  it just didn't seem possible [to me] at all. 

But more so than that, I was not interested in what was being made in Hollywood. So it was really looking at the field of documentary and looking at the field of nonfiction -- experimental and documentary nonfiction. That's where I saw women, that's where I saw queer people. That's where I saw people of color, making work and getting it screened, and in dialogue with each other. I wanted to make work on my own, with maybe one or two other people.

Mariela: So, this brings me to another question. Once you decided to make your own films, how did you find your first job? or how was it? Once you made a very brave decision, but then you have this financial insecurity.

Kathryn:

So I have a friend who says that experimental film is not a vocation, it's an avocation, which basically means it's not a career. It's something you do because you love it.

So right out of undergraduate, not knowing that I wasn't supposed to do this job. I started working in the commercial film industry as a grip and electric. I guess this was in the early 90s. Late 80s, I'm hauling cable, putting up lights schlepping sandbags, pushing dollies. And there were two other women doing the same kind of thing at that time in Seattle, which is where I was living. So I didn't feel that alone.

 But it still became pretty clear, even though it was Seattle, and even though it was the early 90s, that it was that area of cinema grip and electric was predominantly, almost exclusively male. And it didn't bother me. It's weird. I didn't even honestly didn't think about it that much. And then I moved to New York. And again, there were maybe a handful of people who were female, working on grip and electric, and I just kept doing it. And that's how I paid my bills.

So I paid my bills, working on music videos, and TV commercials and independent low budget, like $5 million features. I was in the Union on the west coast. And then I was not in the Union when I moved to the east because they're different unions. That's how I put my undergraduate degree to sort of work. I paid my bills and kept a roof over my head. But I knew that if I wanted to pursue my own work, I needed to find another way to support myself because there simply wasn't enough time in the day to work to make money and to create. So I applied to graduate school so I could get an MFA and teach. And I had this whole idea that I didn't want to go to graduate school if I had to pay for it, that I would only go to a place where I got a full ride, because I wanted to be free, economically, to do whatever I wanted to do after school. So I did, I went to Temple University, because I got a full ride. And what was crazy when I went there was that I had all this industry experience at that point so I really didn't need classes on how to make films. I knew what I was doing. There were a couple of classes that you had to take, so I took them, and then I just kind of had three years to make work and I did make work. And I started exhibiting in film festivals when I was still in graduate school, and even started getting some kind of awards or different fellowships.

And then because I didn't need to take very many classes in the film department, I started taking classes in other departments. I took classes in art history and in anthropology. And I just ended up staying and getting a PhD in anthropology. But while I was also getting My PhD and even before that, I'm teaching outside of Temple at this local university, at University of the Arts, which is a school in Philadelphia. And so like, by the time that I actually had my MFA and my PhD, I had all this teaching experience teaching film. So when I went on the job market, I was able to get a job at Emerson, pretty much the first year I went on the job market. So that's how that happened. 

But I never thought that I'd be able to fully support myself just as an artist, because that was not a model that I had seen. And it's still to this day, I think it's really not a super sustainable model.

Mariela: I saw your film The Passenger; It was very nostalgic, and personal .I was amazed by the cinematography, and the handmade process. And I saw this close relation with your family. Do you think that being a mother has changed your perspective of filmmaking?

Kathryn: Being a mother changed everything. I don't think there's any stone that has been left unturned. It made me incredibly more conscious of my time. It changed my work habits, because I had so much less time. I think my work became a lot more political. Because once you have children, you start thinking, the world isn't just for you, right? The future isn't just about you, you have to sort of try to make things better, or to think about the world in a much more expanded way. I think there's no way for me to know what it would have been like, had I not had kids, so I can imagine, but I can't guarantee that I wouldn't be in the same place or have made similar types of films.

Mariela: I saw your movie “what I know about her”. And I was surprised to see your kid in the movie. Because sometimes you think that you can’t take your children with you. That's what I thought before, I couldn't bring my family to my job. And when I saw your kid, I thought  this is possible. It gives a whole new perspective to your work; It just feels more personal, and real.

Kathryn: There's actually a DVD of films called, Kid on Hip, Camera in Hand , and it's basically a bunch of films by women who are mothers who are filmmakers. Sasha Waters Freyer is in it, I'm in it. Jennifer Hardacker is in it, and a couple other people. 

[When I got pregnant] There was a tremendous negative critique. I was told that I was destroying any possibility of having a career by having children. People are always trying to tell women what to do with their bodies, whether it's have kids or don't have kids. I made a decision to put my life together with someone else. That person wanted kids, I wanted to be with that person. So I started to entertain the idea of having kids, and then I had kids, and now I couldn't believe that I ever would have not had kids. I feel very, very fortunate to have gotten the opportunity.

There's a young filmmaker, Kelly Gallagher, who just posted something about the pressure she was feeling to have kids on Facebook, and I was like, “Kelly let me tell you something, When I was your age, and I made the choice to have kids, everybody told me it was going to ruin my life. Now people are telling you that you should have kids, otherwise, you're going to regret it.” I'm like, “Fuck that. Do what you want to, it's your life, people should not be telling you whether you should have kids or not have kids.” 

And once you do have kids, my kids are a huge part of my life.  But that certainly was a film that my kids were definitely around for, and were a part of. And that was, in fact, part of its intentional design. ELONA EM EVAEL/ LEAVE ME ALONE, which is the double channel installation film,  was made very much with my kids around,  as was actually Limen, because at that time (2019) I had a 15 year old, a 12 year old and a 5 year old. 

I started The Empty Sign when [my youngest son] was maybe 18 months old. The films that I have been able to make since he was born are very small, they were easy to get done. And that's why it's taking me so long to finish The Empty Sign. Because it's a really big film. And it takes a lot of time and attention. And if it was between my film and my kids, my kids almost always won. I would say yes, my film style changed as a mother.

Mariela: In your film “What I Know About Her”. How was your experience of looking through the archives? And then what was your experience once when you went back to the place where all these events took place?

Kathryn: Interesting question. So she was really my great, great, great grandmother. She was like,16, when she went across the Oregon Trail, and so she was really young. But she got pregnant. And because it took a really long time to travel, she had a baby [while she was still] on the trail. And then -- I know this from finding her papers in the archives --  she assisted the medical officer that was assigned to their caravan. And he taught her how to do basic things, bind up wounds, and set bones, and also how to help birth babies. 

So when she got to the Oregon territory, what was then called the Oregon territory, and continued to have children and work as a midwife. That was her job. She was a midwife. She would help both the settlers and even the surrounding indigenous people. They would come to her. Her descendants have journals writing about how their grandmother and mother would hold court in the kitchen, like, with different Indigenous women and other healers, and they would trade medicines and refer patients to each other. 

Sometimes she would send people to them, or get, herbs or remedies from them. And sometimes they would send people to her. And it was a very different picture of colonialism than what I knew to be true, , or to have happened elsewhere, which is that the settlers came. And they were very disruptive. And they were very extractive and brutal and genocidal. 

And so to have this ancestor, who didn't really participate in that, and in fact, felt more in line and akin to the indigenous population that she lived around, than she did with some of those Christian settlers that were there- that is really interesting. And it made me think about whether I would have had that courage? How would it be to be so young and to be in a place that was just so different. I mean, she was born in Tuckahoe, New Jersey, and then she moved with her family to Iowa when she was a child, when she was  about 12. Iowa then was kind of a frontier. But it wasn't like Oregon -- Oregon was like wilderness. And she lived in the middle of the wilderness. So it's kind of astounding to imagine having kids and just kind of trying to have a life. 

In the early part of the 20th century, once the railroad offered a bunch of the Oregon settlers free passage back East to visit where they had come from., she and her husband who she met in Iowa, went back and didn't have any family left. And that was it, she never want back East again. She was an incredibly adventurous human. And that's the legacy of that part of my family -- my family never made money. Often they were migrant farmworkers throughout the early part of the 20th century, not landowning or losing their land, or like they were just they weren't very good at making money. But they were always, traveling up and down the West Coast, living in tents. And it was interesting for me to think about that , would I do that with my kid? Would I just put my kid on my back and be like, okay, we're gonna go. Gotta go live in a tent for six months?” Probably not.

Mariela: How has been your experience making this film El Signo Vacio ; since is your first full-length cinematic film compared to the short ones?

Kathryn: I have gone [to Puerto Rico] many, many times to shoot. It wasn't just the complexity of the thing that I was trying to grapple with. In the beginning, I didn't even fully understand that myself: this whole super complicated relationship - how US occupation and imperialism and colonialism works there. And it continues to exist because just basically, those of us who have power in the states don't really don't exercise that power in to alleviate the colonial situation. 

If 51% of us went and told our politicians, we need to revise the relationship with Puerto Rico and put them on a path towards independence. Shoring up their economy, like doing this doing that doing this.  We could set a timeline, we could extricate ourselves in multiple years. I mean, I wouldn't want to take out the US right now, only because we've screwed up the country so much that they really don't have a functioning economy right now. 

So there's work that needs to be done, but it shouldn't be done by people in the states saying this is what needs to be done. It should emerge out of community based action in Puerto Rico, saying this is what we need. These are the systems and structures that we need to set up. Help us do it right. And that's never happened in the history of the Puerto Rican- US relationship. There's never been a moment when there was enough political power and will and, and, and energy from United States to listen to Puerto Rico saying, “This is how we need to set things up.”  That people in the US saying “ oh, yeah, that sounds good. We'll help you out.”  It's always been the other way. White politicians coming - or not even coming -  saying this is what is Puerto Rico is going to do for us? Yeah, and tremendous policies of extraction. Making wealth to benefit US companies on the backs of Puerto Rican workers both on the island and in the US. 

Tourism isn't great. I mean, it's better than no money coming in. But tourism means that everything is being set up for people who are visiting, not for the people that live there. But it's not a problem that's unique to Puerto Rico, necessarily, we have many places. The US Virgin Islands are another great example of how the US has basically taken these places and said, these are going to be vacationland. And with no thought to any choice, or idea, or what the folks that live there want to have happen for their lives, for their future, for their children. Do you think most people wake up and think “ Oh, what I'd like to do -- I'd like to make beds for tourists for the rest of my life.” That's ridiculous. On minimum wage, in a place where everything costs more because it has to be imported. 

But what's interesting about Puerto Rico, is that it has tremendous agricultural possibilities to sustain agricultural growth. In other words, they could feed everybody who lives there. So what do you really need, you need shelter, and food, right and clean water? They Could do all of that. They just have to take control over all of the resources over the land, start growing their own food; there has to be a complete change of how the society is organized. There are many people who are pushing to make these kinds of changes. So I'm just trying to make some of their voices visible.

Mariela: I have one more question; is there something that you would like to share? that I haven't asked you yet?

Kathryn: I'm delighted that you wanted to talk with me. I think that I always say that I have a foot in two worlds, that nobody but the people who live in them know or care exists. One of them is an experimental film, and the other one is anthropology. There are these worlds that if we just cease to communicate, probably the world wouldn't notice. So, it's great to have somebody care and to have someone want to talk about it. 

I always think about utility and trying to make things useful. And, and there's often a struggle. And this is something that people have asked me. Like, I gave a talk, maybe last year, last year at Evergreen, and students said “experimental film is so difficult. Maybe people won't be able to see it, and they won't be able to understand it. And I was like, “Is it really that difficult? Or does it just have that reputation?”  I don't know, it's the only way I know how to do things. And I hope that it ends up being useful. 

I guess that would be if someone was to ask me a question. It would be about why I use sort of ethnographic theory and methodology to make experimental work? 

And my answer would be that, because anthropology is a discipline. And again, there's tons of horrible things to say about the history of anthropology but anthropology is a discipline that tries to understand how and why people do things, right. And, for me, that's really important. To really not try and observe, but to actually inquire how and why people are doing things and what they need to live better. 

So anthropology is my discipline, and experimental film is my mode. Because conventional industrial, film practice, commercial film, television practice, is far too, still far too constrained by conventions by proper ways of doing things. And, the standards of professionalism, and all those kinds of things that end up creating a structure that excludes almost everybody, from making films. And so that's why I put those two things together. Ethnography is my method. experimental film is my mode.

This interview was conducted via from Tijuana,Baja California, Mexico to Boston, MA, United States in February 2021.