2012

2012 was a year full of changes and packed with work. It was also a year of personal stress for me. Only now am I climbing out of that darkness into a better place. It's been a year of growth, that's for sure.

My dad and I

In 2011 I had to put my dad into assisted living because he was diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia (Pick's disease). Over the span of 12 months he deteriorated fast and I was faced with the task of finding a home with more care for him, from several thousand miles away. In September of 2012 he moved to his new home and now has the care he needs along with a loving staff to help him. They're very accommodating and set up times when I can video Skype with my dad. I was able to visit him during the holidays and was pleased when he recognized me. Although he could not say it out loud, his smile said it all. Though I feel guilty much of the time that I'm so far away, I know that my dad would be proud of me for doing what I love to do, make movies.

This holiday season I also had a good visit with my mother and we baked cookies together, just like we did when I was a little girl. My mom was really sweet and told me how proud she is of me for doing what is in my heart and putting myself into what I do. I stacked a lot of firewood for her. It was a very special time, and I'm grateful for it.

My favorites, molasses cookies

This was also a year chock full of movie releases and screenings; Sirwiñakuy in CineKink 2012 (NYC, Las Vegas, & Chicago), Maleficarum and Barbazul (Bluebeard) in movie theaters in Bolivia, and Le Marquis de la Croix on DVD and Download.

We received lots of great reviews, interviews, made friends, and connected more with the world and our fans. A positive year overall!

So, what's up for 2013? We'll be releasing Barbazul (Bluebeard) to DVD and Download, Dead, but Dreaming will come after that. We're planning to shoot the second chapter of Dead, but Dreaming, and my fourth film (4th!) as director, Olalla. So, stayed tuned for the flurry of activity that we have planned for this new year!

Le Marquis de la Croix, a review by Dean Andersson

Dean has been so very wonderful in his reviews of Maleficarum and Sirwiñakuy, and now he has turned his literary hand to a review of Le Marquis de la Croix. It's simply marvelous, and you can see it on IMDB right here or read it below!

Dean has been so encouraging with these reviews, and I'm really glad we connected. In an abundance of reciprocity he has sent me several of his amazing books, which I am reading now and will comment on in different posts here on my blog, so stay tuned!

You can Download Le Marquis or Buy the DVD at VermeerWorks!

Amy Hesketh creates pull-no-punches art undared by ordinary filmmakers., 15 December 2012

Author: C Dean Andersson

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Amy Hesketh's Le Marquis de la Croix impressed me on many levels. Her extraordinary, pull no punches approach to filmmaking creates stories the timid would never dare and the ordinary could never conceive.

Le Marquis de la Croix captures a pure essence of the Marquis DeSade's defiant, revolutionary writings. Its challenging subtexts worked subconscious magic to remind me both of a personal experience of death and the disturbingly innocent opening scene in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch where "innocent" children gleefully torture a scorpion.

Hesketh gives the reality of a single death more potent impact than a hundred slash and burn action film deaths shown in forget-'em quick video cuts, sudden, violent, and gone. Yes, prolonged violence in the form of torture causes death in Le Marquis de la Croix, but that death is shown to be defiantly slow in coming. It forces viewers to realize that, given the chance, Life makes Death work hard for its victory, the way I remember death coming to a friend at whose bedside I once waited.

Jac Avila's chilling performance as the Marquis makes clear the imprisoned aristocrat's clinical detachment as he scientifically records his observations of the young woman's suffering. But in contrast, Avila also drives home the intimate involvement of a torturer with his victim.

Mila Joya's Zinga is poignantly believable as the helpless victim whose initial hope that she can escape public execution by surviving the Marquis' private depredations slowly fades, forcing her to reluctantly accept that death alone awaits her, an end to all her hopes and dreams, an outcome not unlike that of the doomed protagonist at the end of DeSade's Justine.

Another nice touch is Hesketh's selection of background music, including the ironic choice of an historical chant-song voiced by revolutionary French peasant-citizens while they executed aristocrats—as the sadistic aristocrat in her film executes his peasant-victim.

But wait! There's more! Hesketh adds a wonderful and unexpected Twilight Zone ending that would make Rod Serling proud. In an IMDb review of Hesketh's film, Sirwiñakuy, I compared her direction to Hitchcock's, who famously appeared in cameos in his films. Hesketh does more than a mere cameo in Le Marquis de la Croix. Her performance in the framing sequences at the beginning, middle, and end makes dear Uncle Alfred's cameos pale by comparison and zaps viewers with a viewpoint revelation, casting the entire cinematic narration into an unexpected context.

Then, too, there is a commentary track by Hesketh and Avila that you can activate, containing fascinating, informative, and entertaining information.

I have no idea what Amy Hesketh is going to create next, but folks, if you've got any sense left at all, you'll fight me for first place in line to see!