Dr. Kathryn Ramey is a filmmaker, anthropologist, and professor in the School of Film, Television, and Media Arts at Emerson College. Her work centers on the experimental manipulation of celluloid, as well as her own personal or political experiences and stances. Both of her films featured this year, EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign) and BETTER LIGHTING, aim to call her audience to action in order to spark change.  

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Anna Landolfo, WOEFF: I was hoping we could start by talking about EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign), as that will be sort of kicking us off for WOEFF. It took you several years of traveling to Puerto Rico and filming, coming back to the US, editing, and I was wondering what that experience was like for you as a whole and how did it inform not only the film, but your views and your filmmaking through the process?  

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KATHRYN RAMEY: 
That's an interesting question. It was my first long form project, before I made EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign), the longest film I had made was maybe 35 minutes. 
So, that presented its own challenge, figuring out the form that the film would take. I utilized some processes, some strategies that I had already used, but I had to also find new ways of working. I started gathering material in 2013. My first trip there was in 2015, and then, probably, overall, made eight to ten long trips, in which I was filming.  

      One of the big pieces of my work, that is in the film, but is also really, truly a central aspect of my work, is that I don't go places that are not my own and just extract images. I always have to sort of figure out how I can give back, how I can be of use. So a lot of my work time there, every time I would go, for probably at least half the trips, would also involve some sort of workshop, some sort of training for people who live there in various film making and alternative film processes. 
So that takes some time, too, but it's also part of my ethical research process. So, it was a struggle because you spend that much time working on something, and for someone, like me, who had been sort of making a short film every year or two for a while, not having something come out, not participating in the sort of expanded network of experimental film exhibition was really challenging, so I did end up making three other projects during the span of time that I was making a EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign). I was pretty much done with principal photography right before the pandemic happened, and my first edit was about three hours long, so really, really long. 


      And then the pandemic happened. I have three children, so I was teaching from home, my children were learning from home.
My husband was working from home and it was, you know, it was hard to make work during that time. So, the post piece was so elongated, largely because there was a pandemic, smack dab in the middle of it. I don't know if that's helpful, but it was hard. I had to develop new ways of working. I had to continue to make, have my creative practice sort of on a slow boil during the whole process, by producing short films at the same time. I don't know if I answered your question. 

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AL: That's a wonderful answer. I really like how you always try to give back, rather than just taking from these images. You deliver workshops, and I think along with that, something that I found particularly interesting in this film is how you processed it with these different compounds involving seawater, anamu, and the flowers that you found. It gave me this feeling that not only was the film about the US colonization of Puerto Rico, but that there were pieces of it physically embedded within the film itself. How important was it to you to have Puerto Rico physically embodied through the form of the film? 

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KR: That's actually another really good question. Nobody's asked me that. One of the ways that that came in is through a kind of upwelling of new research strategies and interests in anthropology, particularly sensory ethnography and multi-species research practices.
So, during the time I was making EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign), I also was a programmer for The Society for Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival. I was looking at films made by anthropologists and talking with them about their research strategies. So it was sort of like the air that I was breathing in terms of my theoretical perspectives. I started (the film) before I was a director of the film festival, and then, through the process, I started to think about sensory ethnography and also multispecies approaches. And so that became a part of the film, which, as you say, is evidenced in that Puerto Rico is literally, physically in the film through this hand processing, with seawater and plants, and also through the phytograms.  

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AL: You mentioned how two different women saw you: one as being sympathetic to Puerto Rico's struggles in making this film and another saw you as a colonizer, and you say that both of these women are correct. How would you say that this film addresses that kind of dichotomy as a whole?
 Or does it?  

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KR: Well, I mean, in the end, all I can ever really be is a sympathetic gringa. Because I am not Puerto Rican. I'm never going to be Puerto Rican. And for most Puerto Ricans, the best that I can hope for is that they can see me as sympathetic or kind. And that's not nothing. But I think that it's really one of the things that sympathetic Americans have done when they've gone to Puerto Rico is really not confronted that dichotomy or that they are from the colonizing country. They haven't confronted it. They haven't really addressed it and centered it in a very self-conscious way. So that's what I did.  

      I got a ton of pressure from people. “You need to hire a Puerto Rican producer. You need to work harder.” I had consulting producers who were Puerto Rican. My sound recordist and composer is Puerto Rican. I paid people and involved people in Puerto Rico. And, in fact, my consulting producers had, in a large aspect, they had final edit on the film. I literally changed voiceover or cut out scenes or changed things based on their feedback.
But there is a way in which, particularly, the contemporary doc community wants people to do what I would call “checking in a box,” right? So get a fully Puerto Rican producer on there so that you can say that they have co-authorship when I would just be making the film, and that didn't feel right or fair to me. So, I think any American filmmaker in Puerto Rico has to foreground their colonial status, as a piece of the complicated nature of making it work.  

      I would also say that the film is largely made for Americans. I am talking to Americans. Puerto Ricans know very well how much they've suffered, and people are still uncovering the ways in which the occupation by the United States has impacted and is impactingeverything from their mental health, their educational system, their physical health… And so, they know that, and that's their story to tell. I'm actually trying to speak to Americans to try and raise their awareness about this situation, because they're not very aware.  

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AL: I think that also transitions nicely into my next question. Between these two films, EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign) and BETTER LIGHTING, there is this insider-versus-outsider perspective, being a white woman in Puerto Rico versus a white woman in the US, critiquing your own identity.
How has your identity as an intersectional feminist filmmaker informed these two different projects similarly or differently?  

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KR: Well, I mean, there are films that come out of a lot of anger, and a lot of frustration, in trying to hold my own sort of group accountable, but in very different ways. I was born before Roe V. 
Wade was codified into law, and had siblings and cousins who either carried teen pregnancies to term, or had to seek illegal abortions. So, I remember quite clearly what it felt like to start to have bodily autonomy, despite the fact that, you know, we still lived in an extremely patriarchal culture, and there's rape culture. I mean, I remember being like, “Oh, at least we're moving towards bodily autonomy, and we're moving towards freedom for women.” And then it was taken away, and it was taken away because a lot of people voted for a regime and a political party and a belief system that does not believe that women should have bodily autonomy, and that does not believe that women should be treated as equal to white men. I can see that, and I can be angry about people who are not like me, but what was really astonishing to me was that white women, in my age group, in my socioeconomic status, of my education level, voted for the regime that we currently have and had voted for white supremacy, patriarchal supremacy, because they'd rather have a seat next to the table, or in the same room as the table, than actually share in the commonality of people who are being oppressed by this. 

      That was astonishing to me. And so, that film came out of that real anger, and wanting to stand up and say, “It's our fault.” There's a lot of buyers' remorse amongst women.
So anyhow, that came out of that, and it's a very, it's a little thing compared to EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign). It's a little film, very much a reaction response. It's meant to provoke conversation, and it's meant for people to really claim. There are a lot of people who are like, “I didn't vote for him, or I didn't know this was gonna happen,” and we're here now. What are you gonna do now?
How are you gonna take some responsibility for the horror that we're experiencing now?  

      So, that's bad. It's a very different thing than EL SIGNO VACÍO (the empty sign). I don't know if I answered your question, but it is interesting pairing these two films, and as you're actually very astute. They're both presenting my own subjectivity in a critical way. 

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AL: I think that's a really good way to phrase it. And I enjoyed looking at these two films together because they're so different and they tackle your own political thoughts and opinions and actions very differently.  

My own personal view or interpretation of the treatment that you gave to these General Electric advertisements from the 70s [in BETTER LIGHTING], with the the split screen, the use of the negatives, and the text on screen, is that it serves as a visual of the impact and the kind of division that white women have caused politically. I was wondering how you decided to use these particular ads as the source material for this film and why the specific treatment.  

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KR: So, I've had the commercials for a very long time. I kind of collect found media, and use it a lot in my work. I think, at some point, I was thinking of using them in a longer piece, about, you know, sort of the backlash against feminism, and, you know, this is before Trump. I had other stuff going on and other stuff I was interested in, but they always sort of hung in my mind as pieces, material artifacts that are very much from the '70s, so they have a texture and a look, and that reminds me of this period where women were starting to gain political power, but also recognition from the law. And so they have this material and historical resonance. I just really was interested in them, and I hadn't really figured out what I wanted to do with them, and then the Dobbs decision happened. And I knew immediately that I wanted to use these pieces and to make it a little agitprop, anti-PSA, if you will. Then the treatment happened.  

      I think it's easier if you talk to other kinds of artists, like painters, or sculptors, or musicians, when they talk about improvisational work, but this really was improvised.
I knew that I wanted to use the phrase, “white women are a curse against their sex.” Because when the Dobbs decision came out, I had the opportunity to do a show in Boston of my shorter work, and I titled the program, White Women Are a Curse Against Their Sex, because although it's not really what my films are about, I'm so angry right now, and I'm gonna use this opportunity, this platform, to say that. And I just really loved that phrase in the sense of how it encapsulated in just a few words what I was feeling. And when I continue to feel that white women, they are a curse when they use their power to align themselves with white supremacist patriarchy. I knew that I wanted to choose the text, and I wanted to use the text in a way that made it an image. I used to do a lot of optical printing work, and so when I first conceived this film, I sort of conceived it as an optical printing thing that I would make a double screen, that would have taken me a lot more time than this did, which, once I figured out what I wanted to do, the process was actually very quick in putting it together. So, I spend a lot of time thinking about how something's gonna look, and then, you know, and I really did for a long time think that this was gonna be an optically printed piece. Double system, two strand, 16 millimeter.
And that would have been great, but I actually just wanted to get it done and get it out, so I needed a digital version. But, the strategies that I use with positive and negative, and black and white, and color is really about turning the words into images. Barbara Kruger is someone whose work I have really admired, and she's a still, visual artist. But that piece, Your Body is a Battleground, came out in the '80s, which was when I was a teenager, and it encapsulated everything that I felt like I was feeling right then, in terms of emerging into my adult body, and not feeling like the law says that I have certain types of authority over my body. In reality, society is still very much wanting to dictate what gets done with my body or to my body, and I don't feel like a whole citizen. And so, that piece, Your Body is a Battleground, I mean, even looking at it, you can really tell that it somehow was in my subconscious when I was making BETTER LIGHTING. Because, eventhe text is evocative, but she uses a very similar text.  

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AL: That's another great transition. I wanted to ask you about the text, and I think utilizing the text to create a whole separate image is very interesting. The actual language of the text is very provocative and it's very direct, like we talked about earlier, it was more of a call out against white women in politics, specifically in their voting. There are two different ways that one might be able to see it. On the one hand, the language is very much condemning white women and pointing out their misuse of this power that we have through voting. But on the other hand, it might be a first step in white women recognizing the problem and taking a step back to realize what's been done and to start fixing it. I was wondering if you had a version of that that feels more aligned with your thoughts on the film.  

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KR: Well, you know, it's interesting. One of my very, very close friends, who's also a filmmaker, was upset by the film, and she said, “You know, you're self hating 
I'm so tired of white women being blamed when they held so little power in their continuously being disempowered.” I was like, “Look, I'm not talking about you.”
It's, like, Christians, right? Christians need to look at other Christians and say, “Your behavior is not Christlike.” You know? “Your behavior, if you believe that immigrants aren't people and don't need to be welcomed, your behavior is not Christlike. If you believe that people whose skin is not white are not human and don't deserve to be treated the way you would like to be treated, your behavior is not Christlike.” I think that for too long, we've looked at people whose behavior upsets us, and just said, “I'm not like them, and I'm not gonna be like them,” and thought that was enough. I actually think people who have any amount of power and privilege actually need to use that power and privilege to call out people who are adjacent to them, and say, “You're not upholding these values. You're undermining these values. If that's who you want to be, then you're out of the union.
You're out of the women's union.” Or, “You are out of the good people's union,” because, you know, you're upholding values that really undermine true caring for other humans and seeing other humans’ lives as valuable as your own. We're in a very sad and scary situation right now, because people are totally fine turning away from their neighbors, or from the people who take care of their elderly parents, or who clean the hospitals, or who pack their groceries, and say, “Oh, their problems aren't my problems.” 
And that's a larger question, but at least in terms of BETTER LIGHTING, I wanted people to say, “Okay, I take this on. I'm gonna have those hard conversations with my community.” 

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AL: Yeah, I think that's definitely evident through not only BETTER LIGHTING, but I think also a lot of the work that you’ve done. And my final question for you, to kind of encapsulate this conversation, is that as you are looking at this recent and these upcoming generations of feminist filmmakers, is there anything that you feel we’re doing particularly well that maybe you're excited about? 
Or are there things that we're lacking that you were hoping we would have by now?  

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KR: I don't know. I feel like everything is really fractured right now. I grew up in the “riot girl” era, right? And so I definitely felt like there was a possibility for more political power, activism, and community amongst women.
And I don't really feel that way right now, but I'm also not 20. So I don't know. I mean, I hope so, but I also think social media and us all having access to screens constantly has really done a number on everybody, and especially on people who identify as female. I hope that energy is out there, and that women are pushing for better rights, but I don't know. I'm an old lady now, so I don't know. I hope so, though. I try, as an educator, and as a mentor, to do my very best, to empower women, non-binary, BIPOC, to hold space for that. But I do think that right now, there's a lot of fracturing, and we need to come to those people who believe in basic human values and treating people with kindness and love, and we need to actually reach across all our differences. That's my big message.
So, it feels very bleak right now, unfortunately. It's hard. And I know that young people feel that, too.  

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AL: Yeah, I think it definitely helps getting to see the work of and to speak to people like you, hearing and seeing the ways that you deliver your message. Recognizing how very fractured things are and working to do something about it or to make sure that other people are as aware, I think is something that I look up to very much. So thank you so much for all of your insight. 

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KR: Thank you for talking to me. I'm always happy to talk about my work, and I wish that I could be out there.