We were lucky to catch up with Israel Perez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Israel thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

It’s always the project I’m currently working on. Whether it’s a film or a photographic project, it’s the latest idea, and its development, that informs and gives meaning to the present endeavor. I rarely pay attention to older projects. Once they’re finished, I have no interest in revisiting them. The end of a project feels as though a part of me has finally been completed, like a serpent shedding its skin. One invests so much into the work that, when it’s done, it feels like a relief, and I can move on to the next thing. That’s what excites me: the next thing.

My projects almost invariably touch on themes of identity, memory, and transcendence; finding that opening through which we can get rid of our old selves, leaving behind the materialistic thinking that bind us to suffering.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I’m originally from Barcelona, Spain. When I came to the United States in 2010, I began taking film classes at San Francisco City College and quickly fell in love with the medium.

My early influences included filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Chris Marker.

Around that time, I began offering my services as a videographer to companies as a way of making a living. Eventually, that work led me to photography, as many clients needed both video and still images. Wanting to do the job well, I immersed myself in the study of photography and it’s history.

Through that process, I discovered the work of Helmut Newton and Todd Hido, which inspired me to explore portraiture and the nude.

Photography and film can complement each other, but they are ultimately different mediums, each with its own language. I find photography easier to engage with because it’s similar to playing the guitar: if you feel inspired, you can simply pick it up and begin. Film isn’t as immediate, at least not the kind of film I like to make.

At the same time, film possesses a dimension that photography does not, namely, time. Photography captures only a fragment of it, a single moment suspended. To me, film is primarily about time, while photography is about space and the act of freezing a moment within that time.

But both photography and film do something unique: they document things happening in front of the lens that can be experienced again and again. The thing that was captured may be forever gone, yet we can still relive that moment, or perhaps the ghost of that moment.

It reminds me of ancient rituals in which stories were reenacted to make the past present once more. Who knows? Maybe that’s one of the reasons we have photography and film today: to satisfy that deeply human desire to reconnect with the past, to fulfill that atavistic need to make what is absent present again.

Regardless of the medium, I believe the task of the artist is to present an image of the world, the same world people often take for granted, and reveal it in a new light, anew. Almost like the Titan Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and brought it to humanity so that they could see.

The tools of our medium allow us to break the world into fragments, then reconstruct those fragments in ways that generate new meaning. To do this, the artist must draw upon the uniqueness of their individual soul and offer that gift to the world. Through that act, the world becomes enchanted once more, like the mythopoetic world of ancient Greece, filled again with spirit, beauty, truth, and meaning.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of what I do is knowing that I’ve touched someone’s life. Sometimes that happens through the work itself, and other times through the act of creating it.

I remember that after making my last film, Love Wants Us Dead, the lead actress told me that the experience had inspired her to pursue more of her own artistic work. I remember thinking that perhaps the true purpose of the film wasn’t the film itself. Perhaps its purpose was simply to inspire someone else to create.

And if that was the case, even if it was only one person, then it was worth it.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Several books have significantly changed my perspective on life, but it all began with the work of Alan Watts and Joseph Campbell. Those two thinkers completely transformed the way I saw the world. Through them, I discovered different ways of being, expressed through the myths, symbols, and stories of cultures across time.

I became fascinated by the narratives and motivations that shaped entire civilizations, and by the realization that myths are not merely stories, but frameworks through which people understand themselves and the world around them.

Later, I moved on to philosophy, particularly existentialism. I was drawn to thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus, whose work explores the challenge of taking responsibility for our own lives in the absence of divine certainty or predetermined meaning.

I also enjoy reading novels, especially those written by authors who share a similar sensibility, such as D. H. Lawrence and Hermann Hesse.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/israelperezofficial/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Israelperezimaginary

Image Credits

Israel Perez