{"id":223616,"date":"2025-09-13T13:09:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223616\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T13:09:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T13:09:09","slug":"this-filmmaker-wants-to-tell-you-stories-that-maybe-you-havent-really-seen-before-san-diego-union-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223616\/","title":{"rendered":"This filmmaker wants to tell you stories that, maybe, you haven\u2019t really seen before \u2013 San Diego Union-Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

Times were a bit tough for Nahla Valdez<\/a>\u2019s family, so during high school, she figured enlisting in the military would be the most useful way to help out. Her aunt had another idea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to recruiters and I was really going to do it. My tia, she was like my fairy godmother, she wasn\u2019t struggling and was helping us a lot at the time. She was like, \u2018You could paint before you could even spell a word; you can\u2019t be in the military,\u2019\u201d she recalls. \u201cAnd she plucked me out of school and put me with a Spanish artist in a small town in Galicia, Spain. His name was Juan Valc\u00e1rcel (Obelleiro) and I was there for four months.\u201d<\/p>\n

She came back to the U.S. on such a creative and artistic high after spending so much time in this mentorship in Europe with a well-known painter, and jumped right in to taking charge of the program that handled the morning announcements over the school\u2019s PA system at Bonita Vista High School. She turned it into a newsroom, separating everyone into announcing their interests \u2014 sports, arts \u2014 and taking on the role of lead anchor. She was producing and directing, which was a straight shot into pursuing filmmaking in college, studying radio, television, and film production at San Diego City College.<\/p>\n

Valdez, 29, lives in Normal Heights and is a filmmaker who also works in photography, set design, music videos, and multimedia work with an eye to stories about women, community, and the transborder experience. She grew up participating in all forms of art, from dancing and mariachi music, to photography and shooting videos. She took some time to talk about going back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border as a child, educating audiences about female filmmakers and women\u2019s stories in her Girlie Flicks Film Festival<\/a>, and how filmmaking is the space that allows her to explore all of her artistic interests.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Can you talk a bit about your experience growing up?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I lived in Playa de Tijuana, which is the beach town in TJ, but I spent most of my time on the trolley and on the bus. I would call it a nomadic lifestyle, I feel like I was living nomadically. I had my house that I would go back to, but I would also stay with my best friend a lot, who lived here. Her family kind of took care of me when things were a little bit hard because I was waking up at 4 in the morning to cross the border. I would wake up at 4 to be at the border by 5:45 a.m., at the latest; to be able to cross by 6:30 to catch the first trolley at 7; to be on the latest bus at 7:15 and be able to get to school on time. It was really hard, as you can imagine. Then, I would volunteer every day after school. I would go to the YMCA and I was helping kids with their homework, and because I had a volunteer program after school, it made me stay on track with my studies. I had the designated time to do it, but I also didn\u2019t have parental supervision from the age of 14 on, so it was very nomadic and it made me kind of hustle. My first job was at 15, helping my brother paint houses. Painting houses influenced me in my production design career. Because I started hustling at that early of an age, as (bad) as it kind of was being a kid and having to work and do all this stuff, it also feels like it propelled me forward to be where I am now. I feel like being an artist is like anything \u2014 if you want to be a doctor, it\u2019s going to take you 10 years, and if you want to be an artist, a \u201csuccessful\u201d one, it\u2019s going to take you just about the same time. What is it? You have to have 10,000 hours of mastery? So, I feel like it was both a disadvantage and an advantage for me, as an artist, because it made me disciplined and the tortured artist cliche (laughs). The struggling, starving artist came early.<\/p>\n

What I love about Normal Heights\u2026<\/p>\n

I love that there\u2019s all kinds of people here. There are people that have lived here for so long, so it\u2019s a mix of very neighborhood people and also very young people, and hip, artsy people.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>How would you say your experience growing up has contributed to your artistic point of view?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>My mentor always said that being an artist, or making art, regardless of the medium, is learning how to see. My friend and I were crossing the other day because he took me to the doctor, and we were crossing back and I was like, \u201cYou know, with everything that\u2019s politically going on right now, there\u2019s really something to say about what that does to you, as a kid, crossing the border every day and being treated like a criminal.\u201d There were so many times where I was walking across the border \u2014 and now there\u2019s a covering overhead when you\u2019re walking across, but before there was nothing \u2014 where if it was raining, we would get rained on. We were standing in line, and it sounds kind of harsh, but I felt like we were always being rounded up like cattle. I always reflected on images of the Second World War and how that was portrayed. I was being treated like a criminal every day, like I did something wrong. I had to talk to somebody in law enforcement every day and tell them what I was doing and why. A lot of times, they were kind because the Border Patrol agents, specifically in Tijuana, they know that hundreds of children do this. It\u2019s not unusual for kids to be crossing by themselves. But some of them weren\u2019t kind and that does something to you psychologically. Then, there\u2019s the power to see through all of that, through what could be perceived as pain or a negative situation, and see the colorfulness of my culture, the warmth of my culture, and the community, as well. The transborder community helped each other in these situations. There were different periods of time when I had different people helping me. Different people would say, \u201cCall me when you get here if you need to cut me in line,\u201d and I would come and I would cut the line because somebody was there earlier than me, so I didn\u2019t have to wait as long. That\u2019s a very long answer, but I think that my artistic perception is how growing up in those situations was able to influence my vision as an artist by showing me how to believe in myself and seeing past the way that I will be treated by law enforcement, and then also believing and knowing that the biggest tool and power that I have lives within my community and within the people who are around me.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019re the founder and director of the Girlie Flicks Film Festival, which began as part of the North Park Film Festival? Tell us about the Girlie Flicks Film Festival.<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I volunteered to help the North Park Film Festival with marketing, and they encouraged me to put on my own screening. They were like, \u201cYou\u2019re all about female empowerment, we don\u2019t have any of that in the North Park Film Festival; would you be down to have your own screenings and highlight female artists and female filmmakers?\u201d So, I put on the Girlie Flicks Film Festival for the first time this year (in August), which was really cool. I got to bring in the main cinematographer that I work with, Natalia Moscoso<\/a>. I got her to come down from L.A., which she hates to do, but she\u2019s from San Diego. I feel like she is the biggest female filmmaker to come out of San Diego, ever. To me, that is who she is.<\/p>\n

The goal of the festival this year was to bring awareness and then highlight the best of what we\u2019ve got going on because there is a lot going on, we just don\u2019t know about it because we don\u2019t think of San Diego as a place where filmmakers come from. I brought educational content, I played films from the time of everyone\u2019s arrival throughout the two hours we were letting people come in. My mom made empanadas, and I was playing short films, one of them by the very first French female filmmaker, Alice Guy-Blache, from 1896. I played all of her films while people were trickling in and when we had intermissions. In the program, I wrote a little bit about her and how she was written out of history because she was (credited with being) the first person to do a close-up shot and to have people act natural on camera, not doing things theatrically like they would do in the 1920s. The credit for the first close-up shot was given to \u201cBirth of a Nation,\u201d which is a KKK film. Like, they would\u2019ve rather given that credit to them, than to her. So, the whole point of Girlie Flicks is to make sure that that doesn\u2019t happen, and that there is a space for that to be known.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019ve said that your own films focus on women and community; what has this looked like in practice, in some of the work you\u2019ve previously created?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I was working on music videos in L.A. for a while, during the pandemic. It was really hard and the music video industry sucks. It\u2019s everything everybody says it is-it\u2019s gross how they treat women, sexual harassment, there aren\u2019t any proper facilities (for women), no intimacy coordinators. I saw female artists having to do things that they weren\u2019t comfortable with, but record labels don\u2019t put budgets toward music videos as proper films. It\u2019s not like how it used to be during the MTV days. People are extremely underpaid and it doesn\u2019t make for the proper work environment.<\/p>\n

So, when I came back, I partnered with this Hungarian curator (Dori Varga) who founded the page that was then called Tribe de Mama, then Heroine Journal, and then we partnered together to make it Blood of Aurora<\/a>, which is a feminist Instagram page, one of the first motherhood pages. We partnered together to focus on making feminist content, specifically surrounding the themes of menstruation, births, orgasmic births. We made a film in 2023 about orgasmic birth, which is the concept of having a pleasurable birth, of using different things to basically have a woman who is giving birth have an orgasm and be able to birth that way because that will open you up. It was called \u201cWhen I Die.\u201d Then, this year I made a film about menstruation that I screened at the North Park Film Festival, called \u201cWhat Do You Do When You Bleed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Can you tell us what people will see in this film and what you want to convey in it?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>You\u2019ll see an accurate representation of what menstruation actually looks like because it\u2019s not a tampon commercial of a girl running along a beach. It\u2019s a really intimate portrait of a woman trying to soothe her menstrual pain, and rather than going on a date, which she originally intended to do, she stays home and invites a girlfriend over to eat donuts and do yoga and talk. It\u2019s just a portrait, it\u2019s not a huge narrative. I just wanted to make something that actually showed what being on your period is like.<\/p>\n

It was screened at the North Park Film Festival, and I\u2019ll be taking it to screen at different film festivals around the country, but I\u2019m trying to bring back CDs and DVDs, so all of the films and music videos that were screened at the Girlie Flicks Film Festival, I\u2019m going to be burning onto DVDs and selling for distribution out of my studio.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Why is it important to you to tell these kinds of stories about transborder living, women and feminism, and community?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Because they\u2019re underrepresented. I haven\u2019t seen very many films about what it\u2019s like to have to cross the border every day, or that being a daily thing that people do, especially not children. And for women, the same thing. I feel like, right now, we\u2019re in a renaissance of film because everybody has phones, so everybody can make content, everybody can make films if they want to. Right now, there\u2019s an explosion of all of these stories being able to be told, as opposed to what it was like even just 50 years ago, where you had to pay so much money to get access to a camera and develop it and edit it and all of these things. For the first time, we\u2019re seeing it be a really accessible thing, so telling stories of underrepresented communities is the most important. We don\u2019t need another action film, we don\u2019t need another reboot, we don\u2019t need any of that-we need to tell the stories that haven\u2019t been told before. That\u2019s what drives me.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What inspires you in your filmmaking\/visual storytelling?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I feel like there\u2019s a lot of people seeking nostalgia, but living presently, living in the now, is what inspires me the most. I think I am living in the most interesting time ever because there are so many things that are so new that we\u2019ve never been able to do or have access to, so I feel like there\u2019s so much to be inspired by and so many people to be inspired by.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Do you have favorite films or works of visual storytelling? If so, why are they your favorites?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>One of my favorite films is a Wes Anderson short film called, \u201cHotel Chevalier.\u201d That\u2019s one of my favorite shorts. And then, \u201cUne Femme est une Femme,\u201d it\u2019s a French New Wave film; it\u2019s French for \u201cA Woman is a Woman.\u201d The last one is by a female director, \u201cA Portrait of a Lady on Fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

I like \u201cHotel Chevalier\u201d for the story development; \u201cUne Femme est une Femme\u201d because I\u2019ve never felt more inspired by the uniqueness in the storytelling, it\u2019s not told like American cinema at all, but it\u2019s so inspiring and it\u2019s so beautiful; and \u201cPortrait of a Lady on Fire\u201d because the pacing is super inspiring for me.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Are there creators whose work you always have to make sure you watch? If so, who are they and why does their work resonate with you?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Definitely the Blood of Aurora page on Instagram, and anything by Guillermo del Toro, of course. Blood of Aurora because of the taboo content and the push to normalize it in the way that they do, in a beautiful and artistic way. And, Guillermo del Toro because he\u2019s the most inspiring Mexican filmmaker. I love the way that he portrays women, and I also love the way that he is kind of dark. I feel like the women are all very strong characters, they\u2019re real.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What\u2019s been challenging about your work as an artist?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I feel like everybody feels very entitled to art because of the way that we consume it on Instagram, so it\u2019s kind of crazy when artists need to be paid, the culture around paying artists is weird. Navigating the ups and downs of my career, I think that I\u2019ve been prepared for it well because of the way that I grew up, but it\u2019s not for everybody, having to put up with sometimes not having enough money to pay rent because people don\u2019t see the value in paying artists or understand the value of paying for artists\u2019 art.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What\u2019s been rewarding about this work?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>Recently, inspiring my community to also tell stories, and the way that I\u2019ve seen the girls in my life come into their own artistry and into themselves.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What has this work taught you about yourself?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>That there\u2019s still a lot of layers to peel away.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What is the best advice you\u2019ve ever received?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>All decisions will be based off of either love or fear and you can either act out of love or fear.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?<\/p>\n

A:\u00a0<\/strong>I love watching sitcoms. I love \u201cHow I Met Your Mother\u201d and \u201cFriends,\u201d and \u201cJane the Virgin, I think that\u2019s my favorite.<\/p>\n

Q:\u00a0<\/strong>Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.<\/p>\n

A:<\/strong> Definitely going to a yoga class in the morning, probably, and then climbing at Mesa Rim. Making some art, eating some really good food, and then ending with a sunset at Blacks Beach.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t