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Bio
Kristin Quintanilla is an 18-year-old San Antonio native with a love for capturing her hometown’s authenticity and vibrance. She discovered her passion for film and photography at the North East School of the Arts and proceeded to develop her skills attending SAY Sí’s Media Arts program. Since then, she has been able to find her own artistic identity and voice with the help of every opportunity presented to her by SAY Sí and NESA. Throughout her involvement in various film production processes, she has focused on writing, directing, and editing and loves to experiment with cinematography and different photography styles. Within her pieces, she wishes to share new perspectives with her audience through the power of film, and open up their minds to allow those to become more understanding of all types of different people and their struggles. Kristin plans to continue learning about the industry and producing films in New York at Syracuse University.
Artist Statement
“In Unison” is a piece I wrote when mask mandates were first being lifted in Texas, as our population was moving into a new sense of faux normalcy that felt more like ignorance at the time. However, I feel the pandemic has forced us all to take a deeper look within ourselves and the cycles we find ourselves trapped within that hinder our mind, body, and spirit from existing in harmony together. In an extremely capitalist society where “grinding” is encouraged, even necessary considering the unlivable minimum wage, we rarely take time for ourselves to be present and sink into our self-produced stillness and stability to escape the neverending to-do lists. With this, capitalism perpetuates a constant stream of commercials and media where the intent is to create a new insecurity to present the masses a new product to buy, which creates unhealthy and unrealistic societal expectations for all people. Due to this, we often don’t realize the importance of our mental or spiritual health until we hit a wall and we are forced to pick ourselves up and find the right path to fit each of our own identities. In my film, I present this concept in an abstract manner as the mind confronts the body and the spirit confronts the mind, creating spaces that feel more surreal to represent a plane beyond the physical space, but the planes we can access within ourselves. In the end, all pieces of the whole are equally important, each serving to provide us essential human qualities we can use to relate and connect with each other.
