Kathryn Ramey
El Signo Vacío (The Empty Sign)

EL SIGNO VACÍO (THE EMPTY SIGN) is a feature-length anthropological journey through the United States’ occupation of Puerto Rico. Mixing over a hundred years of found footage - tourism, agricultural and propaganda fi fi lms - with con- temporary portraits of local artists and activists and Puerto Rican punk rock/noise music, the fi fi lm reveals how carefully crafted American fictions of “democracy” and “debt” obscure a capitalist and military domination that is ongoing. Moving between old and new; Spanish and English; between paradise and environmental destruction the EL SIGNO VACÍO becomes “re-educational” film challenging the viewer to re-think about modern colonization, its mechanism and responsibilities.

“In 2014 while researching US immigration practices, I discovered a border patrol in Aguadilla PR with my last name. The base was named for a man who was not Puerto Rican and never even visited the islands, yet the name “Ramey” is everywhere in the northwest part of the country. I became a traveler in a place where everyone knew my name. I wanted to give back to the people who were helping me research and so I offered a 16mm fi lmmaking and hand-processing workshop at Beta-Local in San Juan. One workshop led to another, engaging me directly with the interests of the artists who had become my friends and interlocutors for the project. Their feedback helped me to create a more nuanced and far-reaching use of found material including working with images from reality TV and social media. Because the past is only past for people who have the luxury of forgetting, the film connects historic fi scal, agricultural, military and tourist activity with the present-day invasion of “crypto- bros,” opportunistic settlers and cynical and corrupt politicians and policies. History is being made today as my friends and their families continue to insist on their dignity and the right to control their future and the future of Puerto Rico.” — Kathryn Ramey

Kathryn Ramey (1967), Vancouver, WA / USA. A Guggenheim and Creative Capital fellow with an MFA in fi fi lm and a PhD in anthropology who has made over a dozen films and installations, contributed numerous articles to anthologies and journals and written the essential text “Experimental Filmmaking: BREAK THE MACHINE” (2015).

CONSULTING PRODUCERS - BIOs

Sofía Gallisá Muriente is an artist whose research-based practice resists colonial erasures and claims the freedom of his- torical agency, proposing mechanisms for remembering and reimagining. She has exhibited in Documenta, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, Queens Museum, Savvy Contemporary, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, and galleries like Km 0.2 and Embajada. From 2014 to 2020, she co-directed the artist-run organization Beta-Local. In 2023 she was awarded the Latinx Artist Fellowship.

Patricia Astacio Alvarez, PhD, Assistant Professor at Brandeis University, with a PhD in anthropology from UCSD and her BA in anthropology from University of Puerto Rico, Rio Peidras, Patricia is an anthropologist and fi lmmaker whose scholarly research and creative practice develops in the folds between ethnography, critical theory, sensory ethnography, and the documentary arts.

CREW

DIRECTOR & SCRIPT Kathryn Ramey
PRODUCER Kathryn Ramey
CONSULTING PRODUCERS Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Patricia Astacio Álvarez
CAMERA / DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Kathryn Ramey
EDITING Kathryn Ramey
ASSISTANT EDITOR Hogan Seidel
SOUND Kathryn Ramey
SOUND MIX Joel Rodríguez Vargas
COLOR GRADING Clovis Stocchetti
ADDITIONAL ARCHIVAL RESEARCH Richa Iyer, Félix Alejandro
ADDITIONAL IMAGE & SOUND Cheryl Hess, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Keely Kernan, Joel Rodríguez Vargas, Patricia Astacio Álvarez
TRANSLATIONS Teresa Córdova Rodríguez

kathryn@rameyfi lms.com
www.rameyfi lms.com
01 617 459 6362
INSTAGRAM: @the_rameyfi lms
FACEBOOK @Kathryn Ramey

DISTRIBUTION - LightCone, Paris, FR - https://lightcone.org/fr/fi lm-14263-el-signo-vacio