Laida Lertxundi
Laida Lertxundi (b. 1981), still from Cry When It Happens, 2010. 16mm film, color, sound; 14 min. © Laida Lertxundi; courtesy the artist
Video: Laida Lertxundi
Born in 1981 in Bilbao, Spain
Lives and Works in Los Angeles
The enigmatic cinema of Laida Lertxundi resists easy categorization. Her works could be described as landscape films, set as they are against the backdrop of Southern California’s deserts and mountains, its blue skies and wild shores. These environments are sparsely populated with non-actors, who are sometimes wandering, sometimes still. Sequences are repeated and reframed, calling back to one another; recorded music plays within the world of the film, taking on the character not of a soundtrack but of a field recording. Narratives are hinted at, flirted with, yet never realized. Her films function as both exactingly arranged experiments with the syntax of film language and lovesick daydreams, fragmented and full of longing.
