Originally, Victor De La Fuente wanted to create a theatrical play that was to be performed live, on stage. Then, frustration turned into inspiration, and he decided to just turn on his camera and start filming instead.
“Fueled by intense determination to make a theatrical play before going back to work, and my utter disappointment that nothing was happening, I turned on the camera as an act of surrender. Something had to happen, so why not just be honest and tell the camera how I feel about it? Why not tell the camera and show the camera that I’m in a rut, a funk, a low point and be completely honest?” he says. “This soon became the spark once I realized, ‘Aha, this is actually helping.’ The filming wasn’t just a means to an end to complete a project, but it was a personal therapy session, a way to kick myself out of self-loathing and have fun while doing it.”
The result is “I’m Not Alone,” his short experimental short documentary/one-man show exploring themes of loneliness, identity, and self-expression. The show opens with a reception and screening at 6 p.m. tonight at the City Heights Performance Annex, and continues with screenings at 6 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday (tickets can be secured at ticketleap.events/tickets/vdelafuente/imnotalone_film#). He began filming a couple of days before the new year, during his two-week break from his work as a teacher at High Tech High Media Arts in Point Loma. He filmed inside his apartment, around the apartment complex, at Mt. Helix, and a local diner—all to explore more honest communication with himself, and others.
De La Fuente, 35, lives in La Mesa, and in addition to his work teaching media arts, filmmaking, and costume design, he’s also multimedia visual artist, performer, producer, and playwright with a degree in visual arts and studio arts from UC San Diego. He took some time to talk about his process for creating “I’m Not Alone” and the ways that artmaking has always been in his life, from the time he was a young boy.
Q: What made you want to tell this story?
A: As a performer and improviser on stage, I have tried (and often failed) to portray myself more honestly to an audience. What does this mean? For me, improvising through dance, spoken word, or acting on stage does not mean just doing whatever I want. Improvising, to me, is a direct response (a variety of ways to respond) and acceptance to everything that is happening. I set the stage and the parameters for myself and create the construct of what and how I want to improvise, but I know this construct will be met with the conditions of the day, the space, and the audience. This kind of performance requires me to constantly make a choice. I can choose what I decide to respond to and react to, or I can choose to ignore it even though what I choose to ignore will still be there. On stage, there is no escape and that, to me, is what is most exciting when improvising. You’ve got to be there and say yes because even the things that I don’t say or do are part of the performance, not to mention all of the things that can go wrong within the space or within my body. In essence, improvisation is a formula to allow me to be more present and use everything as material to enhance my initial plan. It’s like a nurse taking your vitals—you need to get a read of your weight, temperature, and blood pressure to gauge what’s possible on that day. In a performance, however, I can play with the vitals like knobs on a control , bringing them up or down as I want to create something entertaining.
All of this came into play when I decided to tell this story. I needed to translate my craft in improvisation to the frame and make it as honest as possible. I think I achieved it by saying yes to every single idea that occurred to me on the day I turned on the camera.
Q: What were you experiencing at the end of the holidays that intersected with living in an empty apartment?
A: My apartment is everything but empty—I have too many clothes, too much furniture, and an array of tchotchkes. I often sit on every chair in my house just because some chairs don’t get sit on enough. I love interior design and making a space cozy and stylish, and I spend a lot of time rearranging and organizing my apartment. When I hit a plateau with my decorating (often a distraction for that unwelcome internal dialogue), I started to be concerned and this concern grew to fear, doubt, and uncertainty. I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I was having an existential crisis a few days away from the new year. Often, the start of a new year forces me to reflect and feel the imprints of the year prior. Those traumas still exist and creep up, especially when I’m trying to create positive change in my life. In the film, I mention three main concerns that were bringing me down: workload, love, and the play. Each of these things is a different collection of insecurities that stop me in my tracks.
What I love about La Mesa…
I love the tranquility in La Mesa. It is a good place to return to at the end of the day and take a load off. The local shops and cafes are charming and welcoming, and I like to take walks around the area whenever I can.
Q: What was it about this experience that prompted questions about loneliness and identity?
A: This question makes me think about the vulnerability that I think I was able to access and capture for this film. To be vulnerable in front of the camera and show myself in ways that I often even have a hard time expressing behind closed doors really led me to question myself, my sense of loneliness, and identity. Why does vulnerability have to be lonely when loneliness itself is such a common feeling? As this experience of making the film progressed, I started to wonder and look at loneliness through different lenses that I identify with. One, in particular, is Mexican pop culture and the melodrama of telenovelas. Telenovelas were pivotal to my understanding of life, as twisted as that might seem. The notion of good and evil, what it means to be a man or a woman, and love with all of its drama. As much as I think I have evolved away from their influence, the conditioning from telenovelas is still present within me and it doesn’t have to be bad or cliché-it can be something embraced and used as part of my identity. This same approach I applied to other lenses that I identify with, such as being a gay, bilingual, cisgender, family-oriented, Mexican-American performing artist. The list can go on, but then again, do I have to label myself or can I allow the fluctuations of my own identity to be responsive to who I want as I go?
Q: How would you describe your sense of identity before and after the making of this film?
A: I can think about my before and after sense of identity as a metaphor and compare it to the color grade of my film. During the first act, I am going through my low point or “funk.” I wanted to represent this further by omitting some of the saturation, making the image look dull, even washed out. As the film progresses and develops, so do the colors. They become more vibrant, saturated, and alive. This is how I feel about my sense of identity. I believe it takes energy, confidence, and good spirits to have access to the full scope of what I identify with and reflect that back to the world. In my synopsis, I say to be unapologetically myself is not at all an easy task, especially when my sense of identity does not always conform to the norm. It takes courage, and I think after the making of this film, I gained a little more of it.
Q: The description of the film says that you’re “both the hero and the villain his own narrative.” In what ways would you say that you’ve been the villain in your story? And the hero?
A: The film is a documentary of myself, a personal self-portrait. I like to think of the work of Frida Kahlo and her numerous self-portraits throughout her life that depicted, not only her, but also the objects, flora, and fauna, and symbolically represented her internal state of being. I find my internal dialogue, my self-loathing guilt, and sense of loneliness within me to be the villain I must confront in this story.
The actions that I choose to engage with (performance, auto-therapy, exertion) are my heroic attempt to cope with these shadowy villains and, hopefully, be victorious at the end of the day. Ultimately, the villain I am often up against are the beliefs, behaviors, and ideas that I often take on from others.
Q: You have an extensive arts background, from your degrees in visual arts from UC San Diego and the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, to your work as a media arts high school teacher, to your performance work with local groups and institutions, including Disco Riot and Project Blank. What was your introduction to creating art?
A: I I was about 4 or 5 and I was at our local community center where summer art classes were offered, and I saw an ad for a painting class. I was not old enough to enroll, so instead my brother bought me an easel, some paints, and small canvases. I thought this was the coolest gift ever and knew then and there that I wanted to be an artist and make art. By then, I had my 64-count crayon box and multiple coloring books that my grandma bought me. I was initially interested in drawing and would use my VHS Disney movie covers as references to draw (I refused to trace it). I would also make puppets and I loved the “Rugrats,” so I often drew their faces on paper, glued them to a pencil and animated them in a cardboard theater. I also grew up in a rural town in Mexico and this exposed me to other forms of hand-made craft that had me mesmerized at a young age. I had cousins who made jewelry, aunts who could knit, crochet, and embroider, and both my grandmas were seamstresses. I did try and learn to do some things from them, but my favorite was just to observe them working. My earliest memories are these moments of intense observation, sitting in silence to not disturb their process.
Q: What have you learned from your work as a high school teacher about your own storytelling?
A: Coming up with film project ideas for my students has truly sharpened my own aptitude for storytelling. I have been able to design and test my own approach to storytelling with the students and find different points of entry to find the elements of a good story. These are sometimes from the back or side door, or upside down altogether. This has helped me learn and finesse the idea that storytelling is not always through a linear path, but it can be accessed through different angles. This makes it much more fun for me.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: Some of the best advice I received was what my sister told me to do during a phone call before making this film. She said to do something that I don’t normally do to feel better about myself. Pointing the camera toward myself and confessing to it, and visiting Mt. Helix was me putting her advice to practice. That same day she also told me to say something nice to myself, which is a very vulnerable part of my film. I took this advice to heart and recognized its power.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I experience surprise from others when I tell them about the work I do outside of school. People are often surprised when they learn that I am an artist/performer since it could be perceived as a unique thing to do.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: My ideal weekend in San Diego would involve going out on Friday night after work to sing a song or two at Red Wing Bar. I’ll make sure to call it a night early to make sure I have a slow Saturday morning with multiple cups of coffee and journaling. I’ll rewatch a film by Pedro Almodovar, which always gets my artist gears going, and do some sketching or ideating for future projects. I’ll call up my best friend and arrange brunch or dinner and we will have some intense laughs. The rest of the weekend I will devote to resting, relaxing, recharging and sneaking in a workout or two.
