Celebration!

We have reasons to celebrate. Amy has a birthday today! and her interview with Fangoria came just in time for the celebrations. We can also celebrate that the Cinemateca is going to have a kind of Bluebeard film fest around Amy’s second feature Barbazul. Yes. They are going to show 5 or 6 Bluebeard films with Barbazul as the main dish, with discussions, debates and talks. They are organizing it for August 10, 11 and 12th to coincide with the Book Fair that will take place in those dates. The reason, Barbazul is an adaptation of a literary work, so the discussions will be centered on the subject of literary adaptations to film.

If that’s not enough to celebrate, it looks like there’s already one contributor to Amy’s new film, Olalla, we can’t discuss much of that, but the crowdfunding effort is already beginning to show results, even if it hasn’t been launched yet.

And yet, there’s another reason to celebrate. Awesome Magazine will run an interview with Amy and will have her on the cover.

Another reason to celebrate is the attention Dead But Dreaming is getting. We’ll be shooting the missing sequence next weekend, but in the meantime we have received news that City Hall is going to be sponsoring us big time. We’ll have a big premiere where the mayor of the city will be present. At least that’s what they said.

We have a date for the theatrical release. July 25th. The world release will be prior to that date, so, July is the month for Dead But Dreaming. We’re very anxious and stressed out.

Dead But Dreaming, as most of our latest productions, is a mainstream film. It simply means that we can offer it in mainstream outlets, like movie houses, and Amazon.com, where even Maleficarum has a place now, and as YikYakker says:

I propose that the fifth criterion for elevating a GIMP scene to classic status should be the scenario itself. Is there something about it that makes it stand out from the crowd? For example: ~ Amy Hesketh whipped while riding a wooden horse in Maleficarum.

Maleficarum is already a classic of great GIMP in mainstream cinema, not only for that scene alone, but because of the entire movie.

Jac was commenting recently, to Beto, the famous inquisitor, that he didn’t expect Maleficarum to grow the way it is growing. He thought that it would be very well received in our then small world of Red Feline. He didn’t even want to go theatrical. He wanted a quick run at the Cinemateca so the actors could take their friends to a nice premiere. But no, it wasn’t like that. It became the most polemic film in Bolivian cinema history, and it’s steadily reaching farther and farther. Yes, it is a classic of GIMP in a mainstream movie.

I have to admit that there are some resemblances amongst the ladies in Pachamama Films. I remember well the day when one of the actresses in the miniseries Jac was directing back then, saw a picture on the wall and said to me. “That’s a nice picture of you“ … and I said to her, “No, that’s Carmen“… and she commented “She’s a younger version than you”. I was not very pleased with that.

I’m not saying that Carmen looks like me, but there’s something in her that has some similarities. YikYakker is not far off when he has to guess that it is Carmen Paintoux in the pictures. She has unforgettable eyes. The intensity she projects in Martyr is unforgettable, the same intensity is displayed in all her films, including El Hombre de la Luna, (The Man From The Moon) the miniseries.

Gog: Damn! I think Ralphus is right. I didn’t really think it looked like Amy, but thought the make-up was overdone for purposes of promotional pic, thereby giving a different appearance (lIke Lindsay as Marilyn for example) .

It’s easy to mistake them sometimes, not all the times, some of their features are very similar. There was another actress who also worked in the miniseries, and worked on a video with Jac and when Amy was looking at all of the work of that time, she thought that woman was Carmen. Even tough they don’t look a lot like each other. Maybe it’s the way Jac uses the camera sometimes, the angles he chooses, the poses. Or maybe not, maybe he just likes that type.

Gog: If I were Amy, I’d immediately send in a complaint in to Fangoria and get this rectified ASAP! Her fans deserve to get an issue with the correct picture on the cover……and giant poster on the inside. 🙂

The complaint has been sent and Amy has been promised better coverage next time around. They are going to be reviewing the films, so Amy expects a proper cover with her face on it.

Gog: And I agree….not only about Fangoria, but about the DVD’s selling on Amazon as well. It does my heart good to see Amy & crew do well. I can now wear my pervertedness with pride. Now if someone can do the same concerning my dementedness.;-)

We have three DVDs in Amazon and they are being considered for downloads as well. We’re slowly building an audience in that market. We’re thrilled with the idea of reaching a much, much larger audience. We are seeing that. Not only in Amazon.com, but in Vermeerworks as well. It’s fantastic. It’s not translating in millions of dollars yet. Just a few hundred here and there, but it grows. We’re hoping that as we release new films, and we become better known in the larger world, we’ll see our audience grow to millions. One film that might do its work for this growth is Dead But Dreaming.

Ralphus to Gog: Cool Fangoria cover! But in this case, I’m afraid the joke is on you. I’m pretty sure (although not 100% certain) that’s Camille, not Amy. Same with the upside-down chick on the cross, Robert. I would imagine both she and Amy get mistaken for each other quite a bit. They’re both beautiful women with slim figures, small breasts and long brown hair, and their facial features are quite similar, too. It probably happens a lot. It just shows you what a charmer Jac Avila must be to snare not one but two doll babies as his partners. Most of us would be lucky to have just one. And some of us would need a stun gun just to do that.

Yes, the lady in the pictures is Camille, aka Carmen, as I mentioned before, and she is in both pictures, the Fangoria and the upside down cross are from Martyr. Is Jac such a charmer? his ex wife has an uncanny resemblance to Amy, in fact, when Amy saw the pictures she kind of froze, it was an eery experience for her.

The picture below is…. not Amy, not Vero, Not Carmen, NOT me … that’s the ex-wife, I’ll call her Vany, circa 1970’s

And then there’s Vero, Carmen’s fraternal twin sister. Who, being Carmen’s twin, resembles her a bit, but they are not identical twins. Mila was scanning Jac’s old photos and diaries, to get all those pictures he has there, and she came across a lot of interesting and historical pictures. I made a composite of three pictures: Carmen, Vero and Amy. You might be able to tell the difference.

Ralphus to Gog: Nonetheless, I like your cover a lot better than the one they came up with. An ugly guy with a skull face and dreadlocks doesn’t make me want to pick up the issue. A naked chick tied AOH? I’m there!

I agree of course, ugly guy vs beautiful chick… no discussion there.

But getting back to Fangoria, I don’t think anybody has mentioned what an incredible accomplishment it is to be featured in that magazine. … So the fact that Amy is now in the current issue is proof that she (and Maleficarum) have finally arrived. They’ve made the big time!

It is a great thing, of course, to be in Fangoria and it won’t be the last time. When Amy thanked the editor of the magazine he replied “We love you at Fangoria!”, it may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It’s also the starting point of a totally new faze on this wonderful road.

Gog: The Fangoria issue is fine and all…..but this is the issue that I’m REALLY looking forward to:

And maybe the picture below could be in the cover of a future Fangoria issue.

carnyx: Hi Amy- Is that you on the upside down X cross in “Martyr”? Take care.

Just in case some might not have gotten it yet, Camille is the protagonist of Martyr. She’s the one that is crucified three times in that movie, once upside down, she’s the one that plays the role of Camille in Martyr and in all of the Via Crucis movies, she’s the star of the mini-series El Hombre de la Luna, and she’s the one that started Red Feline.

And so, I come to the end of my incredibly short post, I leave you with one picture from Jac’s Diaries. This is from the very old days when Carmen and Vero were living with Jac in La Paz in 1996. They are both seasoned actresses now, Carmen is a filmmaker as well and a regular theater actress in Paris. She runs a yearly show.

I hope to have some amazing pictures from the shooting after May 12th. Until then!