essay films & talks

Jean-Pierre Gorin once said that the essay film presents “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected).” Essay films are difficult to define as “experimental,” “documentary,” and “narrative” all chafe against their generic confines when applied to the essay film form.

What remains consistent across all variations of essay films is the dialog the footage has among itself and with the viewer. Essay films are not seeking to explain a topic to you; it wants to explore the terrain through your interaction. These essay films are meditations on topics through mostly archival footage that is intended to communicate with the viewer and inspire discussion themselves.

May directed and edited each of the essay films. Final Girls Film Festival edited, recorded, and hosted the Queer Authorship & Monstrous Feminine talk.

Ausencia is an essay film made that has played around the world at Ax Wound Film Festival (USA), Final Girls Film Festival (Germany), Wench Film Festival (India), and Panama Horror Film Festival (Panama). Ausencia is an essay film that explores the concept of horror and gender within Puerto Rico’s film and colonial history. It was named one of the best video essays of 2024 by Sight + Sound. The film can be viewed at this link.

Desidentificación is an essay film that interprets José Esteban Muñoz’ concept of disidentification, using early Hollywood films made in and about Puerto Rico as its backdrop. The film can be viewed at this link.

Screen Stars: Aubrey Plaza is a queered essay film tribute to Puerto Rican-American actor, Aubrey Plaza. May interpolates Charli XCX’s queer posse track “Shake It” as the audio track with additional production and vocal recordings by May herself. It was named one of the best video essays of 2024 by Sight + Sound. The film can be viewed at this link.

Reno in Caution is a personal essay film that was edited in-camera using a super 8 camera. It documents a journey across the country to see The Killers in Reno, Nevada during the fall of 2023. I shot and color-graded the footage myself. The film can be viewed at this link.

On Spectacle is a one-hour long essay film inspired by the writings of Debord and Baudrillard. Some included credits are Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor, Jeff Orlowski’s The Social Dilemma, Marshall McLuhan, Gabrielle Tillenburg’s Fantasy Land, and more. The film can be viewed at this link.

A Tempest is an essay film adaptation of Aime Cesaire’s A Tempest, itself an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Some included credits are a staged version of A Tempest, Roberto Fernández Retamar, The Battle of Algiers, Frantz Fanon, and more. The film can be viewed at this link.

La Tele en America Latina is an essay film that is part of a larger digital history exhibit. The exhibit focuses on the ownership, dialogs, and textual content of Latin American television properties in the 1990s from Chile, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. The essay film is adapted in a sitcom-like format to express the juxtapositions in media representation between these different geographic regions. The film can be viewed at this link.

Queer Authorship, Spectatorship, Gaze, & Sensibility is a talk that was featured at the Spring 2022 exhibition of Final Girls Film Festival. May examines the use of queer bodies in horror films, specifically how horror films differ in context when the author (director and/or writer) is queer or non-queer, and how that figures into spectatorship & the gaze. The talk can be viewed at this link.

Severance: The Political Economy Cut is an essay film re-interpretation of the 2022 Apple Original Series, Severance. Some included credits are congressional hearings, footage from Apple workplaces, BBC News credits, and more. The film can be viewed at this link.

Social Control is an essay film inspired by Foucauldian ideas of social control. It winds through the dangers of ideology before leading into forms of social control and how they have shaped culture and society. Some included credits are Angela Davis, Black Mirror, The Dropout, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, The Story of Television, and more. The film can be viewed at this link.

The Monstrous Feminine & Political Abjection is a talk that was featured at the June 2022 virtual conference organized by Final Girls Film Festival, Brain Binge. May reviews the feminist horror theory, the monstrous feminine, as theorized by the seven archetypes created by Barbara Creed. She also proposes a new archetype based on political abjection. The talk can be viewed at this link.

Insights into Puerto Rican Cinema: A WIFV-DC Panel is a panel organized and moderated by May featuring Puerto Rican filmmakers: Carla Cavina (Extraterrestrials), Mariem Pérez Riera (Maldeamores, Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It), and Macha Colon (Perfume de gardenias). Over the two-hour panel, May moderates a discussion regarding the challenges and successes of maintaining an independent film industry in Puerto Rico through the different perspectives of these filmmakers. The panel can be viewed at this link.

Transculturation is an essay film made as part of the workshop exercises for MAI’s Doing Global Women’s Horror Film History issue. Using colonial travelogues from the Caribbean as an introductory framework, the film explores female rage and agony written, directed, and starring Caribbean women with interpolations from Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession. The Cuba/Puerto Rico production featured in this film is Juliana Maité’s Agon. The film can be viewed at this link.