Filmmaker, musician, writer, photographer, and clothing archivist Cesar Padilla lived in Louisville in the mid-90’s. As he was leaving town, he left stacks of his old films and outtakes sitting in the old Louisville Visual Art Association offices at the downtown library. By pure chance and serendipity, Ryan Daly found them. He since has used them to create his own films of found footage.
On November 25th, forces will unite again as Padilla visits Dreamland Film Center (810 East Market Street). He will be presenting an hour of his short films and music videos, followed by a performance of his band Ritchie White Orchestra with cinemanonymous providing a 16mm loop show. This event is $7 for members, $10 for non-members.
RD: You’re not only a filmmaker; you have a variety of pursuits. What else keeps you busy?
My main gig is in fashion. I had vintage clothing boutiques in New York for 15 years called CHERRY with my business partner, Radford Brown. Now we just operate out of our 4,000 square foot showroom by appointment.
I also am a regular writer/photographer for BUTT Magazine for the last 7 years, FANTASTIC MAN, and Hintmag.com. I have written for the NY Times Magazine, and last year I put out a book of my punk rock t-shirt collection called “RIPPED”.
I am currently curating a music compilation of gay musicians for BUTT. I also have a band called the Ritchie White Orchestra.
RD: You began making films and videos while growing up in LA. You also worked with a band called Brujeria – tell us about that.
I began making films when I was in high school with 2 friends. We made a bunch of films for the hell of it. Working with Brujeria was a direct result of these films and I went to high school with 4 of the members of Brujeria. I was suggested by the original lead guitarist, Lu C Fer and it just clicked.
Brujeria is an unbelievably brilliant hard rock/metal/punk supergroup and the brainchild of 4 of my fellow upperclassmen at high school. They promote pro-Zapatista Mexican nationalist political tendencies, which I share as a first generation Chicano, and also a very decadent life style. Not one song has a guitar solo and they are so heavy! The lyrics are incredibly powerful and empowering! Almost all the original members are first generation Chicanos with one Cuban and a white boy and are the products of a Southern California twisted Jesuit education.
RD: And when these videos came out, people thought they were real. Like a type of political snuff film?
Yes, a number of people thought I had used news stock. I was really obsessed with neo-realism in cinema and we went to the border of Mexico and shot those guerilla style. It was a great feeling knowing I had succeeded. They were never shown in the US. At the time there was no youtube, and the only possible venues were shows like MTV’s Headbangers Ball and they wouldn’t go near them. They existed for years in the underground circuit before YouTube made them accessible. The first video “La Migra” now has over half a million views and to date has never been publicly broadcast.
RD: You’re from LA, you live NYC; but you ended up in
Louisville sometime in the mid-90’s. How did that happen?
I had been through Louisville twice with one of my friends I made films with in high school. He went to Notre Dame after high school and one of his roommates was from Louisville. We drove through 2 years in a row from California and I loved it.
When it came time to move out of New Orleans where I was living at the time, I made a list of cities I would live in and Louisville was in the top. Radford, my boyfriend at the time, went to the library and looked all of them up and Louisville won. We moved here in December of 1992.
RD: While you were here you shot film on 16mm?
Yes, I made a 20-minute short film called “Squaresville” in black in white and I shot a music video for a friend’s electronic music act out of New York. “Squaresville “ is a reactionary film to the moral malaise that consumed this country in the post-Regan, first Bush term. I just wanted to make a film where people had fun, where they go out for a night, encounter obstacles and get home safety. I was trying to convey that people all over the world go out every night and have a good time and make it home. I just wanted to show it’s okay to have fun, that fun is good, FUN is not political.
RD: When shooting these projects, did you run up against any obstacles? Terrorists, police, unchained dogs?
Luckily, thus far everything has gone smoothly on that front. We did have to smuggle a number of copies of the videos into Mexico to get them into the underground market, as these videos were coinciding with all the Zapatista resurgence in Chiapas and San Cristobal at the time and the Mexican government was considering Brujeria a public enemy number 1.
Brujeria are very big in Mexico and Latin America. Commandante Marcos was also a big fan of Brujeria and was photographed in Brujeria wear. I did make a short film with artist Lydia Lunch that the film lab fucked up processing and I had to shelf it. That was a total bummer.
RD: Ritchie White Orchestra will be playing after the films. Who is the Richie White Orchestra, and for the uninitiated, how would you describe their sound?
The Ritchie White Orchestra is a group I formed during the disintegration of my former band, WHITE. It was meant to be the druggy-psychedelic-stoned-flaming stepchild of WHITE, but it has become my main musical preoccupation.
The Ritchie White Orchestra is anybody and everybody. There have never been 2 of the same shows. Different musicians/songs/instruments/arrangements, etc. with every show! There have been many Louisville incarnations of the Orchestra and they keep getting better! We seem to be arriving at an epiphany if we could only stop getting higher!
RD: After you finished the films and left Louisville, did you have any idea were you outtakes ended up?
Well, that is quite amusing. I had left all the extra footage on the floor and in a bin of the Louisville Visual Arts Association offices when they were at the downtown library. We’re talking almost 20 years ago and literally on the floor and just cut up everywhere. I assumed they were long gone.
By fluke I met you at Dreamland Film Center during Reel Soundz Film Festival a few months ago. Which was amazing by the way! All these years later I found out, in our conversation, that you had picked up everything at the LVAA when they closed those offices and made your own guerilla films with the found footage. Very poetic.
–Ryan Daly
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