We were lucky to catch up with Joel Valdes recently and have shared our conversation below.
Joel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Over the last year, I have been working with a talented group of people on a short film titled “Lips Like Fire”. The movie is a psychological thriller about a young man whose obsession with an ASMR artist starts having increasingly detrimental effects on his life. His obsession with ASMR is used in the movie as a conduit to explore the relationship between porn addiction, masculinity, and mental health.
The relationship between those topics is important and rapidly changing as we go further into the digital age. Even so, it is often considered taboo to talk about porn addiction and explore its side effects. Our goal with this movie is to help make those conversations easier and promote a healthy way to talk about it.
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 am a writer and director currently established in Houston. I enjoy making films that study a character’s social condition in an empathetic way and explore topics that aren’t talked about enough. I directed Lips Like Fire and co-wrote the script.
The entire production team behind Lips Like Fire was important to bring the movie to life, and this film is a celebration of the talent that can be found in the independent film community.
Our lead actor was Rey Francis, who also co-wrote the script. His performance was sincere and vulnerable, and I couldn’t be happier that such a skilled actor played this complex character.
Our producers were Jenerro Wade, Vicky Yap, and AJ Genzler. They were invaluable during every part of the production. With their help, we were able to attach an amazing cast and crew to our project. They helped make the show go smoothly and made sure that the intended vision of the movie came through.
David Mejia was our director of photography and led the way in making the movie look as great as it does. He was able to flawlessly thread between the grounded and stylized moments that happen in the film. His filmmaking instincts gave the movie a feeling of earnestness throughout.
The other acting talent that can be seen in the film includes performances from Kasey James, Amanda Jolie, Caroline Helander, Andrea Pister, and Lizzie Corona. From the first script reading, I was blown away by the level of humanity that each of these actors brought to their roles. I can’t wait for people to see their characters live and breathe in the movie.
The music in the movie is a feast for the ears. The soundtrack is composed by Brian Young, a versatile musician based in Nashville. The movie also includes a song from the band East of Eado and one from the band Toy Dinosaur. The music in the movie completely redefines the tone of each scene and beautifully accentuates the emotions. I feel so lucky to have gotten to meet so many musicians that I look up to for this film.
The crew for our film was made up of Juan Velasquez, Nickolas Flores, Tim Viesca, RaeAnna Rekemeyer, and Vic Hung. Their excellent attitudes were infectious during the whole production and they went above and beyond with helping the setup of the film come together.
The whole experience of making Lips Like Fire has been incredibly rewarding and it’s been great being surrounded by so many driven people. I’m excited for everyone to experience all the passion that went into this project.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Something that has driven my passion for storytelling has been the power that stories have to give a platform to human experiences that others may not be aware of. Working on Lips Like Fire was an immensely exciting process for this very reason. I haven’t seen other movies explore the topics we touch on for our film, which gave us the freedom to make bold decisions with the story. I am touched by the fact that the energy of excitement has been present in our cast and crew during the entire production process, and I can’t wait for audiences to experience our movie.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
Without question, the best way to support artists is just to experience the art. One of my favorite things about living in a city full of artists is how much art there is to enjoy, and it’s great seeing people come out to support it. Art doesn’t come to life until it has an audience to react to the work, so often the viewers are a big part of the flame that fuels the artists. I love going to open mics, popup galleries, and independent film festivals.
Our film Lips Like Fire is going to be submitted to film festivals around the US, and one of our focuses is to have it shown in multiple festivals in the Houston area. This city was an endless source of inspiration for creating the story and bringing it to life, so it is important to us to add another drop to the creative melting pot that makes Houston so special.
Contact Info:
- Website: lipslikefire.com
- Instagram: _lipslikefire
- Facebook: Lips Like Fire
Image Credits
Byron Duncan & RaeAnna Rekemeyer