WHO ARE YOU, AZURE VALENCIA?

Oscar Wilde once said “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person, give him a mask and he’ll tell you the truth.”*

So I’m going to write this in the third person, because I’ll be a more reliable narrator.

Azure Valencia is a writer, director, photographer, and video editor. He is originally from the borderlands between Arizona & Mexico. He studied film & television production in San Francisco. During his years living in San Francisco, Valencia wrote, directed, and produced 2 independently financed feature films as well as several experimental shorts. His feature films were made in the most indie way possible, guerrilla style, shoestring budgets, with the collaboration of up-and-coming artists and young filmmakers.

Azure Valencia currently resides in Los Angeles. He has worked as a production assistant on studio films and series. More notably, he has continued to independently produce his own film projects. In recent years he has begun collaborating with indie musicians on music videos. Valencia also does pro bono videography and editing exclusively for members of the queer community, such as drag performers, trans women, and non-binary artists.

Azure Valencia is a gay American-Mexican man with distant French ancestry. His work often explores queer identity and cultural divides. His cinematic style has the distance of a pop art painting & the strange emotion of poetry.

Azure Valencia’s work is recognizable by its bold aesthetic; artificial colors, bizarre beauties, retro fashions, disorienting patterns, on-the-nose homages, stylized texts, extreme contrasts.

Azure Valencia’s most explored theme is the union of opposites. He is deeply interested in the difference and sameness inherent in human nature. He approaches his movies with the intention that they be deciphered on two levels, a surface level and a subtextual level. Valencia’s fascination with visual symbolism & elaborate metaphors is questionable at times, but purposefully so.

Azure Valencia is currently making moves to produce more work. He has 2 feature film screenplays that are polished and ready for pre-production. He has a five episode mini series fully written. He has an expansive outline for 3 seasons of a television series. His 2nd feature film “Crush It.” is being released to the public in 2025.

If you are still reading this, perhaps you should consider working with Azure Valencia. You should allow yourself such a pleasure.

*in “The Critic As Artist”.