Olalla, "Self", Weng's Chop, and my first music video!

Family portrait 1880

Last Saturday we had a wrap party to close the production of Olalla. It was great. I couldn't drink because I was getting over the stomach flu, but, because everyone else was drinking, the joie de vivre spread to me as well. I danced until 3AM. My cat let me sleep in, until 10AM, so nice of him.

The day after, I realized how important it is to close a film with a party like that. To experience again the companionship of the cast and crew of the film, this time without the pressure of making the film. I finally felt like I could move on from the production, begin anew, with another film of course.

It must be said that I have a really great team. The affection and camaraderie we feel for each other really helps to lessen the stress of production. Also, the fact that everyone is so responsible, talented, and great at their jobs makes a huge difference as well.

The other thing I always have a hard time letting go of with a film, is my character. In learning acting so young, and I began with Lee Strasberg's techniques, later with Stanislavski, and more interpretations on Method acting, it seems I never learned how to separate my character from myself. This is not to say that I create a character who is anything like me. But I'll take select memories, feelings, experiences of mine and combine them to make my character. But then I become only those experiences, those feelings. Everything I feel for that time while we're in production is based only on that information. When we're done shooting, it can take me weeks sometimes to find myself again. Anything I accomplish as Amy Hesketh seems so far removed from me. It's painful, I lose my sense of self completely. Like my soul has left my body and been replaced by another's.

I really need to work on that if I want to continue acting.

Moving on to less angst-y topics...

Yesterday, I received a copy of the enormous book-sized Weng's Chop magazine #5, in which I am mentioned as participating in the PollyGrind Film Festival (an awesome experience you can read about here), and there's an AMAZING review of my film Barbazul (Bluebeard) by Tony Strauss. Here's an excerpt:

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Mario Bava, Jean Rollin and Jess Franco had somehow defied the laws of nature and biology and produced a lovechild who became a filmmaker? Yeah, me too! Well, now we have our answer in the form of writer/director Amy Hesketh."

Totally awesome, right?! (I'm a bit overwhelmed). He goes on about Barbazul:

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"...everything about this film has the look and feel of much of the 70's output of the aforementioned three filmmakers, from the direction to the editing to the music to the production design. This erotic reimagining of the Bluebeard legend is like a sexy little time machine that gloriously transports your spirt back to the Euro-Horror glory of days past."

You can get your own copy of Weng's Chop right here! There are pretty pictures of me in there, as well as a bible's worth of interesting articles about bizarre, cult, action, and exploitation films, in addition to an amazing coverage of the PollyGrind 2013 Film Festival. If you're a fan of strange cinema, you pretty much need this 265 page magazine anyway.

You can get your hands on a copy of Barbazul on our site right here on download, or DVD, or on Amazon.com on download, or DVD.

And... a week after coming back from shooting Olalla, I directed a music video for Andrea Figueroa, for her song Mas Que Palabras. Here's the video below, and you can listen to more of her music right here.



It was so nice working with Andrea. She was a bit self-conscious about appearing in lingerie for the video, but as she put it, "if I was going to take my clothes off for anyone, it had to be you (directing the video)". She said that I made her feel very comfortable during the shoot, which made me glad.

I'm very proud of what we accomplished in this video, with no budget whatsoever. I feel like Art rises to the surface with challenges like that.

There's so much going on lately, that I'll have to write another blog post to cover it all. Stay tuned!

2013: The End of an Era (Catharsis, be my valentine)

So, you're wondering about the title? What I mean is the end of an era of emotional pain and suffering. In real life, not on screen. No worries.

Between 2010 and 2013 I had a lot of suck¹ happening in my life. Those three years were like a crash-course in hard knocks. What my mother calls, "An abrupt loss of innocence". I experienced a personal loss. I ended a long relationship. And my dad got sick, and suddenly I was entirely responsible for him.². In February of this year, my father died. Now I'm learning to live with my 50% chance of not going out like a zombie far before my time. Thanks, genetics. Hooray to living on the edge! Every day is a gift! Yay!

But there's good news: people heal, and they actually have a bottomless pit of innocence, and strength, left if they know how to look for it, deep inside. Artists need their innocence, believe me. It's there, I looked for it and found it. Pure magic.

Between those years a lot of great things also happened, namely that my output as a filmmaker has been exponential, or at least it feels that way. The production company, in which I'm a partner, is going strong and we're making new movies all the time. I'm actually able to make the films I want to, with little compromise. Seriously? Yes. This is the most awesome thing ever, short of actually having lots of money to produce those films.

He meows like a tiny dinosaur. I'm not kidding.

This year Dead But Dreaming had its theatrical run and pre-release, I had a great interview published in Fangoria Magazine, lots of interviews in other magazines and blogs, traveled from coast to coast, went to the PollyGrind Film Festival³ with Barbazul, met some great people, had good times with old friends, a fantastic time with a new friend, helped out my mom with lots of manual labor, shot about 2/3 of my fourth film as director, Olalla, ran a pretty successful IndieGoGo campaign to raise funds for the other 1/3 of Olalla, and now have a distribution deal in the works for all of the films. And last, but not least, I found a very cute kitten in my garden, named Mitsou, after the Balthus drawings. When I only focus on the positive, it was a complete and utter blast.

Look at all the pretty awards!

On Saturday the 21st, I threw a party for much of the cast and crew of Olalla. We celebrated the Solstice (at least I did, having been raised by a pagan goddess (my mother)), and we found out at 6PM PST that we won a huge amount of lovely awards from The Beverly Hills Outlook!

Among them, I won Best Director (Gold) for Le Marquis de la Croix, Best Actress (Gold) for Dead But Dreaming, and Barbazul won Best Film (Gold). I really could not be more pleased! You can see all of them at this link right here.

It was wonderful to share that with the people who make everything happen, who believe in what we do, and put their hearts and souls into their work with us. I love them dearly.

I'm very excited to start 2014 with even more projects. We'll be shooting the 1880s sequence for Olalla, including the big scene, it looks like Jac Avila has an adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's Justine in the works, Erix Antoine has a great script we'll be shooting (I finally get to kick ass in an action movie!), there's a good chance I might be heading into the jungle to shoot something (huge insects! pretty birds!), I have a script for a horror film, and I'm making a horror short in collaboration with some PollyGrinders.

This year is ending well.

This is fantastic!

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1 For my non-English-speaking readers (who may be using Google Translate) "suck" = bad (mal)^↩

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Nonsensical ledge, be gone!
I will take out my wrath upon thee.

2 100 painful pages of the ups and downs of that story could be put right here. It would read like a horror soap opera.

The past few days I've been really angry, and didn't know why. I gave it some thought, and realized that this time last year was the last time I saw my father alive. I think he recognized me, he smiled a lot. I felt guilty for not doing more. I still feel guilty, even though everyone tells me I did a great job with him. Someday, I wish to feel at peace about that.

I cried, I smashed a ledge off of a wall that didn't need to be there. I feel better now. And have about 5 inches more space in that room. ^↩

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Barbazul in Las Vegas, baby!

3 I just realized that I'm a silly person for not writing about the PollyGrind Film Fest before now?! Chad Clinton Freeman has organized pure AWESOME there in LV! I went for the entire 5 days, watched tons of films, had my picture taken with Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (Dyanne Thorne), was completely dazzled by the weirdness of Las Vegas (my 2nd visit), and most importantly, connected with a bunch of very cool people. It's what a film festival should be, well-organized, well-curated, lots of fun. I got to Q&A after the screening of Barbazul for a whopping 25 minutes, probably to the utter consternation of the kind director, Chad, who had another film scheduled after mine. I loved every minute of PollyGrind... except for that wicked hangover I had one day out of the five. But, I cured it by watching more films.^↩

That's yours truly with Dyanne Thorne and Howard Maurer of "Ilsa" fame. Pretty sweet.