Great French review of my film Barbazul (Bluebeard - Barbe Bleue)

You can read the review right here: Barbazul



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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 Like my soul has left my body and been replaced by another's.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!

Barbazul (Bluebeard 2012) Movie Review by S.E.

Checkout this review of my film Barbazul (Bluebeard)!



S E Lindberg: Barbazul (Bluebeard 2012) Movie Review by S.E.: Barbazul (Bluebeard);NR 7/10 Stars. Review by S.E. (on IMDB.com) Recommended for (1) mature audiences who (2)  enjoy literary, pac...

Another Fine Review of Sirwiñakuy! (And some notes on cameras, and creativity)

The DVD front cover

Yesterday, a positive review was published of my first film, Sirwiñakuy, in The Beverly Hills Outlook (link here).

Here's an excerpt below:

"What is most significant about this remarkable film from 2010 is how completely director Amy Hesketh absorbs and makes cinematic conventions her own, breaking them at will, such as her insertion of sped up footage though back streets to bridge scenes, as opposed to standard editing practices. Though her approach is an exercise in masterful storytelling, she boldly turns to documentary techniques when her fiction leads to an open Andean market, where whips are sold as common merchandise. Despite her employment of cinematic narrative traditions, her approach is also symbolic, with the Andes, whose culture she drew upon for her basic premise, hovering over the landscape in the background, and in red high heels that represent Woman’s sexual nature."

I love going back, now that I'm directing my fourth feature film, Olalla, and looking at what I accomplished in the beginning. It's been an amazing outpouring of creativity since then. I've had the luxury of writing scripts, and see them made into films, things of beauty. I'm very proud of the work I've done so far.

Often, a director can be forced to make certain choices in the cinematography, and the way a story is told, based on the camera that is used. This can be especially true with low-budget independent cinema. When Sirwiñakuy was in the planning stages, Jac and I discussed cameras. He had a professional Canon camera that had a great sensor on it, but only shot in SD. I really wanted to shoot Sirwiñakuy in HD. And the only HD cameras our company owned at the time were two Canon prosumers. But, they had CCD sensors and a great look. I convinced Jac that the film could be made with them. We had shot test footage with them, and it gave the film the voyeuristic, hazy look I was going for.

What those cameras also did for the film was make it easier to experiment with shots, especially in the taxi, and in the market in El Alto. When you can take a camera off of a tripod and do handheld without the necessity of a huge crew, you can achieve different shots. You don't call attention to yourself, your crew, it's more on the fly, and you'll be surprised with what you get.

I've been thinking about a new camera, something that can be taken off the tripod, held in the hand and go out into the street, the jungle, anywhere, and how that will change the way a story is told. It's time to loosen up a little.

You can find this film on VermeerWorks.com and Amazon.com

An Inspired Review of Barbazul!

(Veronica) "portrays death throes with disturbingly believable authenticity"

Yesterday a very positive and insightful review was published in The Beverly Hills Outlook by editor Charles Lonberger. To say the least, it was well received by yours truly. The reviews says many complimentary things about the film and the acting of Veronica Paintoux, Mila, Joya, Jac Avila. Well, everyone in the cast. And this is what it says about me:

"The most interesting role, an otherwise minor part, of Jane, is assumed by director Hesketh, slyly referencing an inside joke by assigning the role to herself. It is a self-portrait of the Artist as masochist, handcuffed and whipped. In this role, as a fictional author of S&M novels, Hesketh wants to be hit “harder,” and ends up buried beneath, and thereby literally lower, than dirt. The assignment of this role to herself is transparent. Her interpretation of this very dark role is as girlish as it is disarmingly and deceptively casual. Most importantly, it voices the central dialectic of Hesketh's creative self: as filmmaker, she is very much in control, yet the fiction she imagines, as in a dream, celebrates control being forcibly taken from her, here in the form of her own death, which she eroticizes, due to the manner in which it is realized.

Extremely dark, ultimately introverted and intelligent entertainment, Barbazul is distributed by Vermeerworks."

You can read the whole review at this link right here!

Me, celebrating my loss of control.

Fantastic Review of Le Marquis de la Croix in the Beverly Hills Outlook!

Mila Joya and Jac Avila in Le Marquis de la Croix

"(Le Marquis de la Croix)... is a master class in film direction, courtesy of Hesketh herself.". Nice! Right?

You can read the full review by clicking right here!

I'm very pleased with this review, it really could not be better. A big thank you to Charles Lonberger for this. Quite frankly, he understands my films 100%.

Haven't gotten your copy of the movie yet? You can find the DVD Here, or the Download Here!

A fabulous review of Barbazul will be coming out in the same publication very soon, I can't wait to share the link!

An Interview, and Review of Le Marquis de la Croix

What was in that tea?

I am so pleased to see today that an interview with yours truly about Le Marquis de la Croix has been published on Obscure DVD and Video Blog!

But that's not all, there's a fantastic review of Le Marquis de la Croix there as well, in which I'm again called the "female Jess Franco", and Jac Avila is compared to the late Klaus Kinski!

To read the interview with moi click here!

To read the fabulous review, click here!

Mila Joya and Jac Avila in Le Marquis de la Croix

Review of Barbazul by Dean Andersson on IMDB

What joy to wake up this morning and find a great review of Barbazul (Bluebeard) by the renowned horror writer Dean Andersson on IMDB!

Here's the link to the original or you can read it here below:

Amy Hesketh's BARBAZUL is an effective horror film of great style and insight that would give Hannibal Lecter the creeps!, 12 February 2013

Author: C Dean Andersson

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

One of the love scenes in Barbazul

Based upon the classic serial killer horror of Bluebeard, BARBAZUL presents a new and chillingly effective original version of the tale. Jac Avila skillfully plays Barbazul/Bluebeard with a charming sophistication that seduces innocent and worldly victims alike. As the advertising promo for the film says, he loves women, he just can't stop killing them. And some of those murders in the film are written, staged, and directed by Hesketh in such a way that they crawled under my horror movie radar and jumped me from the inside. I have seen so many scary movies, but the kind that play it easy, using gore and jump-out-at-you scenes, fade as soon as the film is through. Others, like the suspense classics of Hitchcock or the shadowy mood pieces produced by Val Lewton, slip up on you and instead of making you react by looking away, keep you watching, even when it begins to feel like you are intruding on something very private that you would really rather not see. But then it's too late. You saw. It's in your mind. And it keeps coming back to you at odd moments the next day, and afterward. It is obvious Hesketh impressed me, again.

Amy Hesketh's character getting the treatment in Barbazul

Each of her films thus far, Le Marquis de la Croix and Sirwiñakuy, have been a unique and strong example of how entertaining artistic films that break the mold and defy convention can be. Being a writer myself, of course I credit the way Hesketh creates the underlying story with how effective the work becomes. And her character in BARBAZUL is a writer whose demise is every writer's nightmare! "Come on, just give me another minute to finish this, I'm almost done, just a moment more, don't interrupt me right now, come back later, let me finish!" It is a diabolical scene for a writer to watch. But at least, all of us who have been interrupted while trying to write do not, hopefully, have happen to us what Hesketh has happen to her character! And then, of course, it gets worse.

Beto Lopez as the sinister butler, Walter

All of the actors turn in excellent performances. Jac Avila's stylish interpretation of Bluebeard was aristocratic and cultured even as the sociopath within him does cold-blooded Evil, reminding me of Vincent Price's best performances. Roberto Lopez's Walter is one of the creepiest butlers on film, sinister without being overt, very subtle and effective, one of those "there's something wrong here but nothing I can put my finger on so it's probably just my imagination, but--" kind of things...if there were an anti-Batman, this is the anti-Alfred,or even more, "Klove" in the second Christopher Lee Dracula film Hammer Films made, Dracula Prince of Darkness. Come tothink of it, this could almost have been Bluebeard Prince of Darkness!

The very long journey

Mila Joya as Soledad

The ride to get to Barbazul's plantation (castle) over the twisting, turning road (like the one leading to Castle Dracula) emphasizes how far from any kind of help the women he takes there are. And the countryside through which the road passed reminded me of the beautiful, vast emptiness of the high desert of Northern Arizona where I once lived. Mila Joya's innocent and noble character totally sells her growing unease and alarm as she becomes more and more aware that she has been trapped by a monster (like Jonathan Harker in Castle Dracula!--and it just occurred to me that Hesketh's Dracula, if she ever chooses to do one, might finally nail Stoker's classic better than anyone ever has...). Another "victim," convincingly portrayed by Veronica Paintoux as an aggressive and worldly counterpart to Joya's character's helpless innocence, makes you believe she can damn-well take care of herself, which makes it even worse, for her, when she suddenly discovers that, no, not really, she can't handle Barbazul, either.

Veronica Paintoux as Annabelle

Original music by Brad Cantor and La Negra Figueroa added just the right touch to the film, reminding me, somewhat, in the best way of a Goblin score for an Argento classic. Finally, "Superb" does not really do this film justice. "Eros and Thanatos" writ large might be a better description, "Sex and Death," "Beauty and Horror," like the face of the great Barbara Steele's "Muriel" at the end of NIGHTMARE CASTLE, or the visage of the Norse Goddess Hel, half beautiful and seductively alive, half dead and nightmarishly decayed. In BARBAZUL, you can't have one without the other, see? As if you'd want to, right? And one extra bonus--if you happen to have seen Richard Burton's portrayal of Bluebeard in that famous old film, Jac Avila will finally make Burton's face stop flashing into your mind at the mention of the name, "Bluebeard." So, in addition to this great new film, thank you, Amy and Jac, for that!

Jac Avila as Barbazul, effectively erasing Burton's face from your memory

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!

1st Review of Le Marquis de la Croix

Le Marquis de la Croix

Bolivia 2012
produced by
Amy Hesketh, Jac Avila, Roberto Lopez L. for Decadent Cinema
directed by Amy Hesketh
starring Mila Joya, Jac Avila, Amy Hesketh, Eric Calancha
written by Amy Hesketh

review by
Mike Haberfelner (re)searchmytrash.com

A young tourist (Amy Hesketh) stumbles into a museum dedicated to the (long deceased) Marquis de la Croix (Jac Avila). She catches the guide (Eric Calancha) depicting the last years of the Marquis, when he was held in solitary confinement - well, solitary confinement in theory at least, actually, against a healthy sum of bribe money, he was given an endless supply of beautiful young condemned-to-death female convicts to torture and kill at his leisure ...
The Marquis's latest victim is Zynga (Mila Joya), a young gipsy who might be innocent of the crime she has been accused of, but her innocence only attracts the Marquis all the more to her, as he forces her to fellate him. whips her, strips her naked, puts her on the rack, humiliates her in every way imaginable, and whips her some (well, a lot) more, until he has broken her spirit and she begins to feel her torture and humiliation as normal and accepts him as her master. And then he crucifies her ...
Of course, this story can't be verified or falsified, as it only exists in the Marquis's memoirs, which might be 100% made up. Then again, this could happen to everybody, even our young tourist ...

One thing up front: Le Marquis de la Croix is not a film for everybody, as it doesn't shy away from showing exactly what it's talking about - which means you see a naked woman being tortured and humiliated, a lot. And while Mila Joy does look just gorgeous in the nude, you might not want to see her treated that way ... but on the other hand, at the end of the day, this is just a movie of course.
With the obvious out of the way, Le Marquis de la Croix, despite its very graphic content, is more than just mere torture porn, as in its off-screen narration (by the Marquis himself) it mines the de Sade-like philosophy of its villain and gives fascinating insights into his depraved mind - but in a twisted way that reminds one of Nietzsche's "if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."
So once again, this film isn't for everybody - but if you can stomach it, it's also a quite fascinating little film.

Oh, and if my review at all got you interested, you may want to get the movie from here:http://movies.vermeerworks.com or http://vermeerworks.com/store/dvds/

review © by Mike Haberfelner