
Gabriel Lizama (Liz Taylor)
Directing
Biography
Gabriel Lizama Sangüeza AKA Liz Taylor (Santiago de Chile, 1990) is a Chilean artist and academic who has dedicated himself to: music, cinema, film criticism, research, photography and audiovisual teaching. Since 2010 he has created short experimental, fiction and documentary films, music videos and audiovisual research. He is a member of the Film-maker's Cooperative (NYC, USA). After a 10-year hiatus from making short films, in 2024 he returned with his saga (still in development) "Chilean Chants", short films that explore various traumas and events related to the fragmented identity of Chile, through the moving image and its eternal dance with time. Some of his films have reached festivals and markets in the U.S., France, Perú and Chile. He's the coordinator and programmer in the Sala Sazie Cine Club of the University of Chile, the oldest and most prestigious in the country.
Known For

An unemployed man wanders the streets of Santiago de Chile in the 80s (Pinochet's Chile), looking for a chance to be a hero. In an old cinema in the center of the city, it may has his opportunity. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.
My Name is Bruce

A middle class couple in Chile at the night that Cecilia Bolocco becomes Miss Universe. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.
The Night & The Universe

Documentary-essay short film about a inner/outter trip to the flowery desert in the north of Chile. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.
Todos tienen algo Desierto

The military in the air and the people on the ground. Two dances. A "panorama" of still photos of the Chilean independence day celebrations in the former Cousiño Park, emblem of the Chilean popular party for more than 150 years . Photographed on September 19, 2024, the infamous "day of the glories of the army". Flicker Film. 35mm B & W Still Photography. Silent.
Celebrations at O'Higgins Park

People leave (and return) from a church after Sunday Mass more than 120 years ago. The creaking of time and the darkness behind the ancient ritual of praying for our existence dance eternally, like a river of souls. Liz Taylor's visualy noisy reinterpretation of the film "Congregation Leaving St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral, Dublin" (1901) by the Edwardian filmmaking duo James Kenyon and Sagar Mitchell.
Congregation

Documentary tells the story of the Chilean football club Colo-Colo, exploring its profound impact on popular culture and the everyday lives of its fans. Throughout the film, it shows how the club has transcended sport to become a symbol of resistance, pride, and class struggle in Chile.
El Equipo del Pueblo

A young girl from the town of Chillán (Chile) marries her cousin in 1962. In reverse, the moment and its ghosts emerges from oblivion and returns to it. This is a 8mm family film compiled and re-structured by Gabriel Lizama (AKA Liz Taylor)
Marriage in the Chillán style

The marks of the violence of the Chilean state, against its own compatriots. Flicker Film. 35mm B & W Still Photography. Silent.
Stone Wound

Pablo Deformes is a dreamy child who lives in Santiago in the 1960s. Little by little, reality begins to enter his childish world of fantasy, forcing him to grow up. A student film by Gabriel Lizama AKA Liz Taylor.
Deformes

Don Luis Valdez is a luthier of traditional music instruments, who embarks on the task of teaching a group of inmates from the "Santiago 1" prison (Chile), to build a guitar.
Sons of Wood

When there is no body, the voice becomes light to continue burning in existence. Sometimes a light that illuminates, other times a dark light that moistens the stone and the memory. By decoupage, those voices can move through time again. Photographed in the General (1821) and Catholic (1883) cemeteries of Santiago, Chile. Flicker Film. 35mm B & W Still Photography. Silent.
Voices of Light

For about a dozen years, Lizama has traveled to southern Chile during the summer, mainly between the cities of Valdivia and Osorno. Years of observing birds and their collective movements, trees and their swaying, the sea and its rhythm, the rain and its whisper, the mist that turns into fog and the boats that shatter the calm. Memories and lessons embedded in cinematic time, of someone who yesterday embarked on the journey as a stranger and today does so to reach the family home. Starting from a recognizable world, we enter a more dazzling and abstract one, playing with the pixels in the frame. Recorded and (mostly) edited on a cell phone.
overthere: Part I

In a living room filled with people, Enrique, aged 48, partakes in his daughter’s birthday party. While her family and friends talk cheerfully, the man, absorbed in his thoughts, barely celebrates; he remembers how just a few days earlier he received an unexpected visit, and in his mind he goes over the things that happened during this encounter.
Perdido

From the sea that invades the frame at the end of the previous installment, we move towards an upside-down glitched world that struggles between form and essence. The city shapes battles nature in a back-and-forth that seeks light within the profound darkness, giving birth to a new way of seeing; the camera transforms the present into an instantaneous memory. Recorded and (mostly) edited on a cell phone. Part II of the "overthere" project, a saga about the relation of the digital pixel with the natural world.
overthere: Part II

Light through the stained glass, spiritual architecture, musical light for the eyes. A prayer for times of war. Recorded with a cell phone at the Apostle Saint Matthew Cathedral, in the City of Osorno (Chile)
I Desire Mercy, Not Sacrifice

Five ways to capture a sunset. Five ways to make the eye flutter and fly. Practical exercise on a central idea: how to generate a montage without cutting the material or how to cut with the movement of the camera. Flicker Film. Silent. Color. Digital. Recorded with a cellphone.
Five Camera Rehearsals of a Solstice

The military statue is absent, yet its presence reigns; it seems like an open wound. With each turn, more buds of time bloom. There are multiple rhythms and points of view in a brief, eternal moment. An exercise in the effect of speed and its personal interplay with the viewer. Photos taken at the scene on October 18, 2024, the fifth anniversary of the 2019 Social Uprising. 35mm B&W Still Photography. Silent. Flickering Lights.
Monument

Without language or before it, forms wandered without contours. In the light, fire guides a path to vision.