Maleficarum Interview, Clip 8

In the eighth clip, I talk about the roasting scene in Maleficarum...  

Maleficarum is available for DOWNLOAD and ON DVD!

Maleficarum Interview, Clip 7

In this clip, I talk about the wooden horse, otherwise known as the Spanish Horse torture in the movie Maleficarum.

Maleficarum is available for download here and on DVD here!

Maleficarum Interview, clip 6

In the sixth part, I continue talking about the torture in Maleficarum...

The movie Maleficarum is available for download and on DVD!

Maleficarum Interview, clip 5

In this segment, I talk about the torture in the movie Maleficarum.

Maleficarum is available for download here and on DVD here !

And has been listed on IMDB here!

New Production!

The poster of Dead But Dreaming

I'm really excited to announce the new production of Pachamama Films/Decadent Cinema, Dead But Dreaming, slated to begin shooting in early 2012!

I'll be producing and acting in this one, much like Maleficarum. Veronica Paintoux, myself, Mila Joya, and Jac Avila are starring, and we're casting soon for lots of other parts. There are lots of interesting speaking parts in this one.

This movie is sizing up to be quite a production, read big. We're already looking at a lot of exotic locations in Bolivia. The diversity in Bolivia and the cost of production will give us some really spectacular scenes.

Since the movie takes place in different parts of the world and in different times, this is a real challenge for me, but one I'm happy to rise to.

I just love making movies!

Maleficarum Interview, clip 4

Here is the fourth clip of an interview with me about the movie Maleficarum, in which I talk about how it was to play Mariana de Castro.

Maleficarum is now available for DOWNLOAD and on DVD.

The art of suffering, or suffering for one's art.

Mariana looks up at her lover in torment.

I was looking at a series of vidcaps from the movie Maleficarum today and it hit me how much I suffer in that film. Yeah, yeah, it's not like I didn't realize it before, but I really cry a lot in that movie. And it made me think about suffering as an actor and the suffering of artists in general and whether we really have to suffer for our art or if it makes us suffer inherently.

Those are real tears people.

In my case, it is my choice, not only do I write and direct films with a dark slant to them, but I act in them as well. This means that I have to delve deep into my inner darkness rather frequently.

Some may ask why I would want to do that at all, ever. People don't want to feel bad? Right? We want to feel happy, like, all the time, and I'm no different. Feeling bad is not the goal of most, at least consciously.

But suffering in art is so different from suffering in real life.

When we were shooting Le Marquis de la Croix, I found out that my father had been diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia, that he was having hallucinations about a man upstairs in his house, whom he claimed was trying to kill him, he couldn't articulate very well, and he could no longer do various things for himself.  It was difficult maintaining my concentration during the remainder of the production, I felt like I was holding myself together with my own arms. When we wrapped on Le Marquis de la Croix, I went to Maine and spent 6 weeks assessing the situation, putting my dad in assisted living, dealing with his estate and living the horror that is having a parent with such a disease.

That looks like some dirt there too.

Before all that happened, I played the part of Jane in my second movie, Barbazul, who does not exactly have a happy ending. And I played Mariana de Castro in Maleficarum, who has it decidedly hard.

This is a sad scene.

Francisca doesn't seem to be waking up.

Suffering for a part in a movie is something that requires an actor to reach deep inside themselves and pull out the most horrifying moment they ever experienced.

For Mariana in Maleficarum, I had to summon up those moments, it was difficult, I had to think about the moments in my life when I've suffered, the moments when I've felt real fear (there were some moments in the shooting when I was actually afraid, like the roasting scene). In the end, I went deep into fear itself, the one that lives in our primitive brain, for my motivation.

For Jane in Barbazul, I had to imagine what it would be like to be murdered by a serial killer. When I was directing the other actresses, I actually cried silently while we were shooting one of the scenes. If you don't believe me, you can ask Miguel, the cinematographer, he saw me.

A day of shooting scenes like that left me with the impression that the world was falling apart at the seams. When you go so far into an emotion, it stays with you, it's like a thin invisible cloth that covers you, enveloping you in sadness. Hot showers and chocolate were mandatory after those days.

And now, now that I've experienced real suffering, and I'm on the verge of playing another very tragic role, I feel... not reluctant, but like I have more to work with.

Acting is about transmuting feelings into a performance. So, now that I have the opportunity again, I'm glad to be able to do that. Who, in the passage of normal, everyday life has the chance to transmute, or transform their feelings into something else? As strange as it may seem in the context of having to suffer, I feel lucky to be able to do that.

Mariana questions all this.

Realization,  hopelessness.

For me, it's like a kind of art therapy. I'm not sure how I would deal with those feelings otherwise.

In transforming suffering into art, I free myself from suffering, I can look at my performance from a place of strength. I feel proud of what I have done, and when it touches others, I feel even more proud to have given a strong performance.

I'm always writing about transformation, it seems, but as an actor, a writer, a director, I transform myself or others into something else on a constant basis. I think this is one of the more important roles of artists in society; we can speak for the soul.

Mariana is pretty convinced this is her fault.

At this point, you might be nodding your head, or thinking I'm a nut, but either way, art has made its way into most peoples' lives in one way or another. Art can also help us escape, like in a potboiler novel. Or it can entertain, or make us think, or feel something, or come to a greater understanding of beauty, or darkness. Art can help us find beauty or humor in that very darkness.

So, am I looking forward to suffering next year? Sure am. Pain has a place in the life of an artist as does its opposite happiness, because we can give it back in a different form, give it over to others. Artists should be givers, even if what we give is not pleasant to look at, it has a purpose.

Maleficarum Interview clip 3

Locations, locations, locations... Another exciting installment of me as a talking head. This time I talk about the locations in the movie Maleficarum.

Maleficarum is now available for download HERE and on DVD HERE! 

Maleficarum Interview clip 2

Here's the second part of an interview avec moi about Maleficarum. I talk about the props and torture instruments in this one...

Click here to buy the download of Maleficarum! To buy the DVD, click here!

An Interview with Jac and me about Maleficarum

I'm pleased to present an interview that Jac and I did with Mike Haberfelner about Maleficarum, you can read it RIGHT HERE!

I'm very proud of the work that we all did in this movie.

To download Maleficarum: CLICK HERE

To buy the DVD of Maleficarum: CLICK HERE

Maleficarum - Interview clip 1

Here's the first clip from an interview with yours truly talking about Maleficarum... in this part I talk about the costumes. Maleficarum is available for download HERE and on DVD HERE.

 

I really like that shirt. It was my mother's in the '70s. She finally relented last year and let me have it. Nice.

Happy Spanksgiving!

Francisca and Mariana in chains

Instead of taking a holiday like most Americans on Turkey Day here I am, at the computer, working as usual. We also shot more segments today of an interview with yours truly about none other than Maleficarum.

Tomorrow I'll be editing the first part of an interview we shot before, about the pre-production of Maleficarum, which I hope to share with you very soon on YouTube. The plan being to put up segments of the interviews with me, my fellow cast and crew over the next few weeks.

It's fun to talk about a movie after its release, because essentially, the pressure is off. It's out there in the world, and in the case of Maleficarum, it's doing well and we've had tons of really great comments and critiques of the movie on various websites and forums.

And something has happened with this film that's very interesting. People are discussing it like students do in film class. Analyzing, it, going over the details, asking why. It's super cool, and great for me. I love interacting with an audience that way, and the wonderful wide world on the internet has made that possible.

I'm also collecting questions from various forums about Maleficarum. So if you have a question for me about Maleficarum or a related topic, toss it on over into my Facebook inbox or write a comment right here! I'll be recording my answers on video and posting it up on YouTube.

So, stay tuned...

Maleficarum

We released Maleficarum the 31st of October, Halloween, so appropriate.  And what people have been saying on various forums is really heartwarming. Below are a couple of the very first comments, I'll be posting more as I collect them.

Here's an excerpt from one:

Just finished watching "Maleficarum", and I must say that I'm very impressed with the work. The burning at the stake at the end is one of the best ever done, even for more mainstream films. The effects and the acting were superb!

...you won't be disappointed!

Lighting is very well done... There's enough (blood) there to get the message across, without making it look like a bad car accident.

Hopefully the revenue from this movie will be enough to get another one in progress. Maybe next time, the accused really is a witch and casts a spell over the Inquisitor!

And here's another:

Just watched Malificarum download. Amazing. 

The movie was extremely well done and very convincing. Both actresses were really good. Please more movies like this.

To say that I'm pleased is an understatement. We all, crew and actors, really put our hearts and a lot of time and effort into this movie. We labored over the details, and spent months on the post-production making the effects that are now being appreciated.

You can buy the DVD HERE  and Download it HERE

The official trailer:

The Second Teaser of Maleficarum

The First Teaser of Maleficarum

So... the very first teaser of Maleficarum has been released, enjoy!

La Montaña Interior (The Mountain Inside)*

The cemetery with the Huayna Potosi in back.

It's been a while since I've worked in a film that was directed by someone other than a member of our team, so I was pleased when my friend Diego Torres mentioned that he had a small role for me in his film La Montaña Interior.

The role I play is a tourist who's hiking with her boyfriend, played by Jac Avila, and comes across another hiker, played by Jorge Ortiz. A jealous situation erupts, I assert my right to do what I wish, my boyfriend becomes angry and then I end up chasing after him back down the mountain.

Rocky landscape, getting colder.

In order to film the scenes, which were located at the foot of the glacier on the Huayna Potosi mountain, about 5,300 (~17,400 feet) above sea level, we had to take a car to the foot of the Huayna Potosi and then hike up to the glacier. Our group consisted of myself, Diego Torres, Coca Guerrero, Jac Avila, Jorge Ortiz, and an architect who graciously drove us in his vehicle.

At the refugio, cold.

The car ride was impressive for a few reasons, leaving the city of El Alto, we were witness to a huge opaque cloud of smog hovering over the city. Disgusting. The color of coffee with milk. Anyone who tells you that it's less polluted in Bolivia is a liar. The other impressive view was very simple the beauty of Bolivia, lagunas of vary-colored waters due to algae and mineral deposits, an amazing cemetery at a bend in the road with the backdrop of the mountain, the stark harshness of the Altiplano, peppered with scrub brush, evoking a scene from a Western.

As we arrived at the foot of the Huayna Potosi, a turquoise colored laguna came into view, tapped by a dam on one end. As I was to learn later, the turquoise color comes from the glacier itself, which I'm sorry to say is melting away rather fast due to climate change and will most likely not be with us much longer. So go see it, it's really cool.

Going to shoot down near the turquoise laguna.

We parked near the dam next to the refuge, the Refugio Huayna Potosi, and went in for some hot coffee and a sandwich before we began the ascent to the glacier. We found a group of tourists in the cute little lodge, along with evidence of many other groups that came before, advertising their visit on various scraps of paper, banners, badges and other sundries tacked to the walls of the main room. I could already feel the change in altitude as the refuge is already 4,720 meters (~15,500feet) above sea level.

Crossing the dam.

After the coffee and sandwich, we headed out to shoot a couple of things near the turquoise lake. The wind had picked up. It was cold. But beautiful as we looked over the lake to this huge mountain, blue sky hovering over the snowy peak. After shooting near the lake, we headed over the dam and to the trail up the mountain to the glacier.

The dam was small, but impressive for the view off of the side, which dropped off several hundred meters and poured out into a rocky valley. The height of the mountains here never cease to amaze me. I was in Maine recently and the mountains I thought so high when I was a little girl seem flat now after living in La Paz for almost 6 years. Upon looking out over that view, however, we saw clouds beginning to roll in.

(See glasses).

The trail was relatively easy for an experienced hiker, but the lack of oxygen can be a bit disorienting at times and there's a need to go slowly and steadily up the mountain. If you hurry, you can become light-headed and fall. So, channel your inner tortoise, the hare already fell off the mountain. There were some nice views in various places on the trail, one of which is of a neighboring mountain, Chacaltaya, also snowy-peaked.

After about an hour of climbing we reached the glacier. At last, my burning question as to why the laguna below is turquoise was answered, the glacier is turquoise! It's blue, baby. Amazing. Particularly since I had never seen a glacier. It's icy blue goodness stretched high above us and into a bend in the mountain, where it disappeared from view. I was so taken with this big chunk of ice that I walked up to it and licked it. Thousand year old bacteria? Blueberry flavored? In truth, a bit dirty and it tasted like pretty much any other ice cube. But now I can say I licked the glacier on the Huayna Potosi. And I have a photo to prove it.

Um, yeah, it's awesome.

We set down our burdens and started to shoot. Diego is using black and white Super 8 film for the movie, no sound, in order to get back to his roots, so to speak, when he began making experimental black and white silent films in the '70s. Coolness. It's not easy to find black and white Super 8 film nowadays, I'm pretty sure the sole reason it hasn't died out altogether is courtesy of a bunch of film students and a few die-hard French.

Super 8 film is pretty sensitive, but clouds were coming in as we were shooting and in moments, we couldn't see more than a few meters in front of us. I started getting a bit worried about hiking back down the mountain. A group of hikers stopped on a ledge above us to watch the shooting. One of the scenes I shot was pretty demanding and I was freezing, we had to hurry to get everything done before we couldn't see at all. And before I contracted hypothermia.

At the foot of the glacier.

We shot everything, got momentarily lost on the way down, eventually made it back to the refuge and had some hot quinoa soup. The drive back was in approaching darkness, the cemetery was silhouetted against the sky, and we closed in on El Alto and La Paz with the lights on. I love seeing the lights of a city from above.

Yes, I really did that.

Shooting a movie is always exciting, it never loses its charm, no matter how often you do it. And our team shoots often. Even when you're just making a little piece of a whole, it's fun. And shooting outdoors is especially challenging, climate, weather, and in this case altitude, all play a factor in what you can do out there. But it's a great feeling to defy the elements simply as a human being, and even greater as filmmakers.

My overall impression was one of wonder. Living in a city you tend to forget how much beauty there is in the world. And how much we're affecting it by polluting. I'm not going to get all preachy on you, but it's frightening what you see when you go to a place far out of the city, that logically pollution should not touch, and 'lo, the destruction is right there in front of you. Go visit a glacier before they disappear. Thousands of years old ice. It's amazing. And give it a good lick while you're there.

*If this reads like a travel blog entry, deal with it.

Transformation and catharsis in Jac Avila's Martyr

I've thought a lot lately about what causes a person to transform. I've done some transformation myself recently because of my father having dementia, having to put him in assisted living, deal with his estate. And it also looks like I'll have to be buying a house for my mother soon as well, since hers was not built to last. I've undergone something of an abrupt transformation from child into parent, very quickly, and out of need.

But what causes someone to transform? If they do it out of necessity, what dictates the necessity? Is it a personal need, such as the character of Camille in Jac Avila's Martyr? Or is it something greater than themselves? If it's personal, does that make the transformation narcissistic? And how do we achieve catharsis from transformation?

Martyr is punctuated by photo sessions which provide the structure of Camille's transformation, and Camille's subsequent catharsis. In all of Gabrielle's shoots, we see the camera, the flash, we hear the clicking of the shutter, and the first of Camille's photoshoots has these elements as well. But as Camille approaches Eulalia through her work in the studio, the camera seems to fade from view, the click of the shutter is less frequent, we pass through the veil into Camille's private world, where she is becoming Eulalia, and nothing else matters or exists.

It is here, in that world, where we only hear Camille's breathing, her agony, her cries and pain, and suffering, that her transformation really begins. She distances herself from the other characters and slips from this plane into one in which she relives Eulalia's martyrdom. It is beautiful, ugly, bloody, frightening, and sexy all at once.

We begin as Camille lets herself be disrobed, we see her letting go of herself, the person she pretends to be day in and day out. As she drops to the floor, it is as if she releases her burden. The burden of her soul, her problems with her boyfriend (which are mostly caused by this personal search for fulfillment); the world falls away.

At first, the camera is still present. Suddenly, with the first strike of the wooden stick, Camille begins to know Eulalia, her pain, her suffering. She twists and turns underneath the rod that beats her. The images are like paintings, they are beautiful to behold, and that beauty is emphasized by Camille's contortions, the pain she evokes. Camille takes us along in her journey. The sounds make us flinch, but Camille is using the pain, the experience, for her own ends.

Camille chooses her next ordeal, she is on Eulalia's path, so she must hang from a tree and be raked with a sharp iron claw. In Camille's version she is strung up with her hands spread in the studio. Her hair hangs silky and long, her body taut with tension. Tadeusz moves the claw down the front of her body, leaving behind a trail of blood, Camille screams. When she is taken down she lies very still, the world has not yet returned to her. when she revives, it is with more determination.

Continuing on Eulalia's path, Camille hangs from her ribs. This is mimicked with a chain placed under Camille's arms, her hands are tied behind her back with course rope. The chair is taken away and we see Camille suspended in the dark, her body hangs in blackness, as if she is suspended in the vacuum of space.

In this scene, Camille begins to connect more deeply with Eulalia, she whispers to herself, she wants to see something, she wants the saint to show her something. She wears an expression of deep spiritual striving. The chain cuts into her skin so deeply that she bleeds, causing concern and wonderment in Tadeusz and Elisa. Camille strives for something tangible, she wishes for the pain to bring her something. In moments, we forget about the image-making, the click has ceased, Camille swings in space, hanging by a spiritual thread.

The progression continues when Camille is tied to the X-cross. She challenges Tadeusz in this moment, by telling him that she has her period, that in fact, the blood is running down her leg and that she wants him to use it on her body, like make-up effects. He puts his finger in her blood and she takes it into her mouth, asking for him to kiss her. In this moment she shows that this fight for catharsis is hers alone, selfish and perhaps narcissistic. She is trying to transform what her boyfriend shies away from (the blood), into something daring and revolutionary.

As they continue the session, Camille's figure taut with tension, her legs look fragile, but the strain in her muscles and tendons evokes strength, resistance. She uses the pain to reach Eulalia, to force Eulalia into her body. To coerce a revolution in herself. She is coming into being.

In the story it wasn't over for Eulalia, and thus, it's not over for Camille. She plans to follow this road to the very end. As Eulalia was turned upside down on the X-cross, so is Camille. The next day her tense body hangs from her ankles, her ribcage forming a hollow. And into that hollow, Elisa pours hot wax from a tall red candle, simulating the hot oil that was poured onto Eulalia. Again, Camille shows her hand, who she's really doing this for. She tires of the game, she's cranky and ends the transformation, even before it has begun this time. She leaves, saying that it's over.

But something is happening within Camille. Her transfiguration is affecting those around her, is affecting her. She shows that she doesn't know what is happening to her. She expresses doubt in what she is doing, and then a new strength enters her, she leaves her boyfriend. She separates herself from the one who is holding her back, Julien, and goes back to the facilitators of her transformation, Tadeusz and Elisa.

Camille returns to more pain. Eulalia's pain and her own. She is tied with her arms over her head and whipped.

The final photo shoot is the last act of Camille's passion play, her ultimate effort to fully become Eulalia. We see her nailed to the cross, writhing, spitting blood, a dove finally rising from her mouth. There is no snap of the camera, but we're so horrified, or mesmerized, by what we're seeing that we don't really notice the absence of the shutter. The end, the resolution, the catharsis is happening. Camille becomes... herself.

When we change, we transform. The simple passing of time can do it, we see the evidence in the mirror, but sometimes it's internal, a deep need, a necessity, an urgency to become who we really are, regardless of anything or anyone else. And while we may think that personal striving for catharsis and change is narcissistic, the self is more complex than that. The people around us are affected, but can also be inspired. Changing ourselves may make us fit into the world in a different way, but maybe we fit a little better.

Martyr is available on DVD and for Download HERE!

Life is not all roses sometimes...

but it always gets better! Right?!

I'm back from a grueling six weeks of dealing with family issues and the estate issues that go along with that. My dad has dementia. I know, it's really sad, but I've tried to take the opportunity to develop a different relationship with him and remember the good times we had. Today I sent him a postcard, one of many. I hope he likes it.

So, onward and upward! I got back to the office to find a rough cut of Barbazul. I really like what I see, it needs a lot more editing work, but it's a very powerful film, and very good looking. I'm really excited about that. And was pretty surprised, since my absence meant that everyone else had to do my work as well as their own for the past six weeks.

The subtitles of Sirwiñakuy appear to be finished, we just need to put them on the film and voilá, it shall be released very soon on VermeerWorks, and some time after that on Amazon. Hooray!

Maleficarum is plugging along, we were hoping to have a release date by now, but it's a complicated film, with a complicated structure to edit, lots of effects, visual and sound, and so, it'll just have to take the time it takes. Good things do take time.

And Le Marquis de la Croix will have to wait for the others to be edited. We seem to have a backlog of movies to edit, which is a good thing, but leads to some impatience...

All in all, I've accomplished a lot in the past six weeks, and now that I'm back to work, where I'm happiest, I'm looking forward to everything we have planned, future releases and new productions! Stay tuned.

More about the photoshoot scenes in Martyr

The last time I only talked about the photoshoot scenes in Martyr involving Gabrielle, played by Veronica Paintoux. Now, I'd like to say a little about the photoshoot scenes involving Camille, played by Carmen Paintoux.




There is a certain moment in Martyr when Camille becomes the subject of Tadeusz's camera, played by Jac Avila, and Gabrielle feels pushed aside. He decides to divert from his usual style and to try something more involved with Camille. Gabrielle resents that he sees something in Camille that he does not see in her. There is something in Camille that Gabrielle simply cannot give.




In a way, we see these two women through Tadeusz's lens. We see what they give to him, that they give their bodies to make images, but they also use him to develop a part of themselves, a symbiosis. The scenarios that he makes for them, and the scenarios that the women make later on, are part of how they wish to see themselves, or perhaps also how they wish to be seen.

We do not sense in the movie that Gabrielle is merely a model, but rather that she is someone who wants to see herself as a beautiful image. Gabrielle's choice of clothing in other scenes of the movie, when there is no camera on her, speak of how she wishes to be perceived. And also connote that she is not a Puritan, they speak of her freedom, of her possessing libertine values.





Tadeusz makes it plain in the movie that he finds his inspiration from his models themselves, through his constant question and answer sessions, through his "education" of his model's by watching documentaries, research and looking at other images. By observing how they react to stimulus.





What he sees in Gabrielle and what he sees in Camille are different personalities entirely. But he views them as sources of, rather than objects of, creativity.

When we first see Camille from the perspective of Tadeusz's lens, it is with some of the same seductive qualities that we have seen before, with Gabrielle, but Camille brings a different sort of seduction to the images. There is something grittier, another kind of sexy. Tadeusz introduces iconic elements of sadomasochism; a blindfold made of red silk, he then uses the same red silk to tie Camille's hands together.




Later on in this shoot, we get a little closer to the theme Camille and Tadeusz develop later on in the film. In the image, she is straining toward the camera, we sense that in this moment, Tadeusz sees this special something in Camille, her arms spread, she looks like she might rise up off the floor and fly, yet her hands seem as if nailed to the very floor. Her expression is angelic, yet speaks of mortality, the fragility of humans.




So, what does this mean? I can tell you what it means to me, what it has meant to me.

Most overpowering is the feeling that we're there, that we're part of these moments, that the actresses are looking at us, that they're giving themselves to us. Which they are, because the act of giving is very strong in Martyr. Carmen and Veronica give a lot in this film. Something that I found, and still find every time I watch it, incredibly inspiring, so much so that I try to give more every time I act. It is in the act of giving myself to the viewer that I myself am freed.

Martyr can be found on DVD, and very soon as a download HERE!

A Second Trailer of Martyr

Here's a longer trailer of Martyr, enjoy!

Martyr is available on DVD HERE!

The photoshoot scenes in Martyr

I'm not a person who watches the same movies over and over again savoring the details and finding new things with each viewing. But I've done just that with Martyr. I've seen it in 3 different theaters, on DVD, and even almost frame by frame helping Jac to subtitle.

There are elements that I savor every time I see this movie, and I'll try to talk about them one at a time. The first is the photography sequences with Gabrielle, played by Veronica Paintoux.




One of the 3 subplots in Martyr revolves around Tadeusz, a photographer played by Jac Avila, and his model, Gabrielle. The lighting, the way the imagery is presented, each photo shoot is presented in a different way. Just as it would be in a real photo-shoot.

In the first shoot the lighting is darker, more blue, mysterious, Veronica looks like the sexy bohemian libertine from times gone by, but at the same time rooted in the contemporary. Her expressions draw something from the viewer,
they tell you to look at her, to enjoy what you see. The texture draws you in, you can almost smell the make-up, feel the heat of the lamps. The camera draws close to her, we feel like we're part of this glamorous moment, that we don't want it to end. The scene seduces us. This seduction is key to the seduction of the movie as a whole.

The second photo-shoot is lighter, brighter, white and colors flying, we see how fun this is; grown-ups playing like children. Again, Veronica looks into the camera, embracing the moment, reaching out and grabbing us. There's a visceral feeling that comes to the forefront. The moment is so beautiful,



we're there, we're part of this beauty. Almost as if we're making her do these fantastical things, like we're the photographer drawing these expressions out of her, and not the other way around.

I love beautiful images. For me, a beautiful image is something a bit rough, imperfect. It makes the illusion stronger. For instance, I'm a fan of Terry Richardson's photos. And the images created in these movie photo-shoots in Martyr have that quality, something real: the reality of illusion.




We see glimpses of how this illusion is made, but there's something else that we're not seeing; it's a movie and there are people behind another camera.

And still more behind those, watching this delicious movie.

Martyr is available on DVD HERE!

Jac Avila: El primer avance de Barbazul, toda una pequeña ave...

Since I'm too stressed out to blog today, I'll share this. It's all about me anyway. Cool beans.


Jac Avila: El primer avance de Barbazul, toda una pequeña ave...: "Jac Avila es Barbazul Un lunes que quedó en el pasado, en la mañana, estaba decidido a cortar un clip con escenas de Barbazul . La noche..."

The DVD Release of Martyr!

I'm very enthusiastic about announcing that Martyr is now available on DVD at VermeerWorks.

Now the whole world can see the film that changed the very direction of my life. I'm extremely proud of my co-conspirator and the director of Marytr, Jac Avila, for releasing this wonderful movie. It is truly a labor of love and the result is a film that is simply stunning a shocking. Yes, shocking, I'm still shocked after seeing it 5 times.

Sometimes someone creates something that is so powerful and so close to them that it touches you. It reaches right out and gets into your soul, it affects the way you see the world, and other people. That's Martyr.

Martyr is available right now in two versions, one with English subtitles, and another version with Spanish subtitles. Since the spoken languages of Martyr are French, English and Spanish, those who don't speak all three will want a DVD with subtitles.

And... very, very soon Sirwiñakuy will be available in the same store. at vermeerworks.com!