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Minute Movies
Minute Movie daily videos
Minute Movies database
Minute Movies installation
Tending to the Archive workshop
1000 Waters
 1000 Waters videos
1000 Waters installation
The Julie Movie
 They have a name for girls like me. film
 They have a name for girls like me. flat films
Community-Based Media
It Did Happen Here podcast  
 It Did Happen Here: An Antifascist People’s History book
 The Gentleman Bank Robber: The Life Story of Butch Lesbian Freedom Fighter rita bo brown
 Arresting Power: Resisting Police Violence in Portland, Oregon
Video + Film + Art  
Portland Diary Summit community event
“Blank Cassette” music video
  Artist on Artist: Julie Perini on On Kawara talk
→  We Do wedding art show
→  Bingo Cheetah
→  Music videos for Grand Style Orchestra
→  Alley Bath: Spring
→  Alley Bath: Fall
→  The Hills Are Alive flat film
→  Portland Summer 2017 flat film
Video + Film + Art : Oldies But Goodies
→  BIG FILM installation
→  and much more!

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Minute Movies

daily video process // 2011-present

Daily Video (08.13.12). New York, New York
Minute Movie (01.24.16). Portland, Oregon
Minute Movie (04.13.16). Portland, Oregon
Minute Movie (09.19.17). Trastevere, Rome, Italy
Since April 1, 2011, at least once per day, using a small handheld camera (originally a Flip camera, now iPhone), I compose and shoot a 60-second, single-take shot of what is going on around me. I have accumulated more than 80 hours of video, over 6,000 individual shots. These are tiny moments, fragments and notes from my life. The videos almost always document private moments, solitude. When I am with other people I am usually so absorbed by them that I forget to grab my camera and document the moment. Over the years I have used this archive to create video art pieces such as White Lady Diaries and Julie Time. Currently, I am working with the database to create a suite of short video art pieces and photographic works. 

What began in 2011 as an exercise in creativity has developed into a daily ritual, a mindfulness practice, a way to accumulate memories. Most videos are meditative with minimal compositions, taking a long look at the present moment. Some videos resemble home movies, capturing intimate moments with friends, family, and pets. Minute Movies have become a background rhythm to my life, a place to create freely with no pressure to make a finished product. Each month I label the month’s videos with the date and tuck them away into a hard drive. This work offers a model for a slow, thoughtful, savored cinematic practice.

Since fall 2021, I have been archiving the first decade of these shots into a huge database, so that I can sort the shots by date, subject, color, location, and other keywords. I built my database from the ground up, developing categories such as “How does this shot make me feel now?”  I eschewed traditional filmmaking language like “close-up” and “medium shot” in favor of terms that more accurately describe my unique style such as “camera against something: wall, window” and “from the bed.” I have been studying my own work through aesthetic, emotional, and socio-political lenses. I have also studied the work of other diary video/film artists, photographers, conceptual artists, and written memoirists in an effort to contextualize and get inspiration for the work. The late great diary filmmaker and poet, Jonas Mekas, is a major influence on my work.

As the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic, people are searching for ways to understand and express complex, layered experiences of time and emotion. During the pandemic, I witnessed an explosion of online projects creating communities around introspective daily practices: daily writing, daily drawing, daily photo/video shooting. I am inspired by these trends and believe that my multimedia methods for expressing time and experience model new ways for narrating the self. 




Julie Perini is a filmmaker and artist in Portland, Oregon.