Brielle: When did you first get interested in filmmaking? When did you realize that filmmaking wasn't just a hobby for you, that it was something more?

Valentina: I grew up in the town that the film [Pulsing orange, skinny youth] was shot in, and I'm not sure if it's too obvious, but it was an incredibly small town. We actually didn't have a movie theater. We had to drive two hours to go see a film in a movie theater. My step-dad's mom had a video rental store, so I constantly had access to films growing up on VHS and DVDs. Constantly watching movies was always a big passion of mine, but I didn't really know it. 

In fourth grade, I was assigned an English project that was just open-ended, and me and my best friend, we made this video project about “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Once we screened it, everyone thought it was so funny; it got screened three times as my classmates were asking for encores. For me as a kid, that was the best experience ever. Then my teacher was like, “wow, you're good at this.” In that moment, it felt like I always knew I wanted to do this. Ever since that experience, I've just constantly been trying to make films, even in high school and middle school. Whoever I could convince into doing this with me. I would try all the time to make films and then eventually go to film school. 

Brielle: How did you get specifically into directing?

Valentina: Honestly, that was kind of just part of it. The more I created, the more I directed without really knowing what I was doing. I was constantly filming, editing, acting- I did every aspect of it. And then when I went to Pratt, I realized that I'd developed myself as an artist through my whole life. 

Brielle: What inspired you to create Pulsing orange, skinny youth?

Valentina: The film was my senior thesis film. At Pratt, you work your way up to that, and then senior year, we spend the whole year working on one film. So the pressure was on! I put so much pressure on myself, just this whole time thinking in my head, “My thesis needs to be good. I need to make a film that represents me as a filmmaker while I have access to the resources.” I was constantly focusing in on that and then focusing in on what's important to me as a filmmaker.

During my time there, I went through a process where I wrote really complicated fictional stories. I've always been really involved with writing, but I realized that it was more powerful for me to take an experience that I had and that I felt had an emotional weight to it and then base a film and fictional story off of that. My films are really introspective and intimate in that way. I just knew that since I wanted this film to be representative of me, I had to go back to my roots. 

I wanted the film to really center [in] on the moment where Elijah gets evicted from his home and then the end with the beach, the scars, and the water. I spent actually six months writing the script just because I was trying so hard- probably too hard- but those were the two things that never changed in the nine versions. 

Brielle: Did you actually film in North Carolina?

Valentina: Yeah, that was the craziest part of it because it was a huge production aspect! While in film school, you just take who you can to work with you and whatever resources you can. You can't necessarily pay people at that point. 

So, I'm like, “Hey guys, we're going to drive 12 hours, we're going to film this in three days, and then drive back.” And then, somehow, I have people that are like, “Yeah, that's fun. Let's do it.” It was so stressful. I didn't think I would be able to do it, but then it worked out.

Brielle: What significance does the story have on you and what do you hope resonates with others? 

Valentina: The film was very introspective and probably one of the most intimate stories I've ever written, even though it’s incredibly fictional in the way that everything comes together. The most important thing to me in my filmmaking practice is achieving an emotional and authentic film. I just want it to feel a specific way. 

The tone of it is quite strange almost; it's not always easily happy, easily sad, or easily nostalgic. There’s very specific different feelings happening. That's what I care most about, and that's what I want to achieve with my audience. I knew I wanted to center the film on their friendship, too. So even though there's dark experiences, I want the audience to feel- if anyone should relate to it- almost a healing sort of experience while watching the film. 

Brielle: Can you address how you went about writing a script that includes really important topics while also highlighting a beautiful friendship?

Valentina: I feel like in the state of the country right now, it's almost great to see those two archetypes reconciled. My sister and I were the only Venezuelan people growing up in this town, and we didn't really grow up with any sort of cultural or racial diversity whatsoever. It was very much a small town experience. That's kind of where the character Danny comes from, just feeling that subtle racism happening. And when you're in that space, a sort of white space, no one out there is saying, “Oh, this is racist.” It's almost an invisible factor that you just grew up with and the Confederate flag is just there, and no one's really talking about it. Your best friend might say something that hurts you, but you're not going to say anything about it. That's exactly what I wanted to show with that sort of invisible thing: when you're a kid, you don't even know what it is exactly.

For Elijah, it was more an archetype of someone who's financially not as well-off, and perhaps he's jealous of what his friend has. Whereas Danny is struggling with being an outsider in the space and not having any voice to understand that. They sort of reconcile in the end where they both have to confront the fact that they each have these certain things that the other one doesn't necessarily understand, but because they're friends, they can still empathize with each other.

Brielle: What excites you about being involved with Visions 10? 

Valentina: I really love the experience! It's one of the very first few film festivals I'm a part of. I love the fact that the programming is by undergraduates and it's for undergraduates because it makes it feel so much more real rather than just this entity that decides if your film is good. And I love that it's a North Carolina thing too. It just has a homeliness that's really personal and intimate. Thank you guys for involving me in this experience, I’m having a great time!