Carrasco's Crypto-Judaic Music Video an Official Selection for the Silver City Film Festival
Story contributors: Blanca Carrasco, Joel Carrasco, Larry Lesser, & Kim Ryan
Joel Carrasco, a recent UTEP grad in Digital Media Production, reached the red carpet with his first-ever music video. His video of Larry Lesser’s song “Lights Lead Home” from Lesser’s award-winning album Sparks was announced as an Official Selection (from 130 entries) for the second annual Silver City Community Film Festival (https://silvercityfilmfest.org).
Featuring independent, regionally-produced films from parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Mexico, the festival is October 2-5, 2025 at the Silco Theater, a 1926-vintage beautifully-restored Art Deco theater in the heart of historic Silver City, NM.
The music video is an authentic southwestern borderlands product with El Pasoans Larry Lesser and Bill Radcliffe performing the music recorded at New Mexico’s Brainville Studios and the video filmed by Carrasco at Bodega Loya (in Socorro, TX), built on the Spanish Colonial frontier with roof supports (vigas and latillas) and adobe walls, plus historical clothing from the El Paso Mission Trail Association. Additional filming was at Los Portales Museum in San Elizario, TX.
The video tells a composite transformative story of lovingly-preserved family ritual yielding spiritual discovery of Crypto-Judaic heritage dating back to the Spanish Inquisition. Its sparks of ritual include coming across ancestors’ jewelry, a key to an ancestral (Spanish) home, and a family custom of discreetly lighting candles Friday evening.
Stills from the music video "Lights Lead Home" Lyrics and Music © Larry Lesser, Video by Joel Carrasco
In an artists’ statement Carrasco and Lesser wrote, “This music video quickly became a heart-opening journey to let others deeply experience and embrace a story that has played out in many forms for so many in our part of the country, with its often-fluid geographic and other borders. This video reflects our mission to uplift and voice these stories, transforming a history of unspeakable pain and loss into a present of walking openly with loved ones out into the world – an ultimately universal story of spirituality, heritage, discovery, healing, and empathy that our world needs as much as ever.”
The film festival is a new type of exposure for the music video, following the 2023 and 2025 national conferences of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, the 2023 Hispanic Heritage Month exhibit at UTEP’s Union East Gallery, the Old Pueblo Archaeology Center in Tucson, and YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4hcONJnxzo). Carrasco has contributed his digital media talents to the Anusim Center of El Paso and has published photography at https://www.instagram.com/joelcarrasco_photography. Meanwhile, Lesser will soon release a new original Jewish folk-rock album (information will be posted at https://larrylesser.com/nightwillend).
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