The Ten Best Sellers of JUNE, 2016

While I wait for news about JUSTINE and Maleficarum II – Monxa Mala, I’d like to post something special, The Ten Best Sellers of JUNE, 2016. reminding you that we have a magnificent and brief INDEPENDENCE WEEK SALE! Up to 35% OFF !!!!!!!!! for the rest of the week!

This will be a monthly post. Kind of refreshing the memory about our movies, perhaps with anecdotes of how the movies were made. One anecdote at a time with one great picture or video clip. The previous post had an error, it omitted OLALLA! So, to make amends for that and to actually make this information far more interesting, here I go.

Number ONE with 33 points
Maleficarum (2011)

2010 was almost ending and we were about to produce a new film, directed by Amy: Barbazul. It was then that some fellow that goes by the name of Ralphus, was having some lengthy talks with Amy. It was then that he suggested that if we made a film with a roasting scene he would be willing to front some serious cash. Jac had an idea in the depths of his head. An inquisition movie to make up for the frustration of not having made an amazing movie about the subject with Carmen and Vero. He did not have that kind of money then and the technology in 1998 was not exactly where it was in 2010. At one point in 2006, Jac and Amy were looking for locations for a possible inquisition film. Jac remembered a club in a colonial street that looked like a cool dungeon so he set out to look for it. It was still there. The owner of the club told him he could rent it to him for a few days. With that in mind Jac thought that maybe one day he would make a film there. Years passed, and when Ralphus made the offer, Jac went back to the club and found that the club was gone, but the dungeon was there, unoccupied. He rented it. He cast Amy in the unwritten role of Mariana, he read about her during his research, and Mila as Francisca, a real victim of the inquisition that he also read about in his research. Without a script he began to plan the film. Amy was very experienced in the art of undergoing torture having worked with Jac in films like Agent X, but Mila was going to start her acting career with Maleficarum and Barbazul. Her first day of shooting was a simple one, on her second day she was going to be stripped naked and chained to a cold wall. That’s how Maleficarum started.

Number TWO with 16 points
Le Marquis De La Croix (2012)

After a few months of working in two movies, literally back to back, and having ended Maleficarum, Jac and Amy discussed the possibility of using the amazing location for another movie, one that would be directed by Amy with a story that Jac was planning for a while. One about a Marquis. After a very fast discussion they decided to keep the location, write up a story, fast, re-decorate the place to make it look different and convinced Mila to take the leading lady role as Zinga, the unfortunate gypsy girl that falls in the hands of Le Marquis de la Croix, aptly titled because he loved to torture his women and after having fun with them, crucified them. That was the story, and so, after a couple of weeks of rest and preparations, the third movie that year began production and thus Le Marquis de la Croix began.

Number THREE with 12.5 points
Barbazul (2012)

Amy had successfully directed Sirwiñakuy and this film had its premiered in 2010. She was very happy with the results, and particularly with Veronica’s acting in it. She remembered one of her favorite childhood stories, Barbe Bleu, (Blue Beard), and decided to adapt it to contemporary times and to Bolivia. She wanted Veronica in a leading role, as the first wife of the mad Barbazul and Mila as the younger and newest wife. At that time Mila hadn’t acted at all but she was going through some intense training with Jac. Amy brought the story to Jac and he started to turn Mila into the last wife of the famous killer. When they were about to begin pre-production, Sirwiñakuy opened in theaters and kept on running for SIX MONTHS. There was some extra cash coming in and we pulled together all the funds we could from the selling of our movies and by the end of October we were ready to begin. Maleficarum was already into a couple of weeks of production when Vero arrived from France to start her work in Barbazul. So, the inquisition film was interrupted for a month while everyone went to a distant location to start the new movie. It was an amazing experience. The best part, five wives were going to be killed and all of them were going to go through some intense suffering and also some good sex prior to their demise. Amy herself took the role of Jane, one of the unfortunate wives.

Number FOUR with 9.6 points
Sirwiñakuy (2010)

When Amy met Jac, she went to see his film Martyr or The Death of St Eulalia at a festival in a city she never heard about, Oruro. She saw the movie and was so impressed that she wanted to join Jac in his adventures. She did. Soon she was being tortured, whipped, crucified and so on. But she had something else in mind. She had a story she wanted to make into a film. In her original story, an American woman meets a much older French man and begin an s&m relationship. But after seeing Jac and Vero in Martyr and seeing their chemistry, she changed the story to Bolivia, where a beautiful young French woman meets a much older and sophisticated Bolivian man and begin an s&m relationship. Jac loved the script. He convinced Vero to join them for the adventure and cast Beto, his good friend and collaborator, who never acted in a movie, to play himself. Erik would play an ex of the French woman. That was all. Jac himself would do the direction of photography, using two cameras, an assistant would operate the boom for the sound and a young woman who wanted to learn about filmmaking would be the director’s assistant and make up girl. With that extremely small cast and crew, Sirwiñakuy was made. It went on to receive terrible and great reviews, participated of festivals and made Amy into a great director. Years later Jac would comment to Mila about the girl that worked as make up girl and that made their encounter possible. Thus, Martyr brought Amy into the company and Sirwiñakuy brought Mila.

Number FIVE with 9.2 points
Dead But Dreaming (2013)

For the next production after the three back to back movies, Jac decide to bring back an old vampire story he wrote in the 90’s tailored to Carmen and Vero in the leading roles way back when they were very young. He never got the cash or the means to do it, thus the vampire story was there, lingering in his computer. He had some means now, he adapted the old story to fit the times and the new actors he was working with. Vero returned from France to play a leading role, that of Nahara, the mysterious vampire. Amy took the leading role, that of Moira, the Irish rebel, Mila would take the role of a young and rebellious Vampire, Aphrodisia, the greek victim of a crucifixion, and Jac would be her creator, lord and master, the ancient vampire Asar. With the experience of setting up a period movie with little means, Jac decided to go even further, getting a lot more costumes, great colonial locations including the oldest Cathedral in the continent of the Americas, and the almost surreal Island of the Sun at the TitiKaka Lake. And ambitious production indeed. A great fan of our movies, that goes by the name of Santorum put some hard cash for a very specific whipping scene, which is the one that became the most famous whipping scene in our film history. And, our first Vampire movie was made.

Number SIX with 9 points
Olalla (2014)

After Dead But Dreaming was finished, there were some ideas floating about. One was the second part of the new vampire movie, another was another Inquisition Movie, and Amy had a story already written, based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s vampire story set in Spain, Olalla. There was one man, who had seen Martyr in Oruro, he was one of the organizers of that festival. He was so impressed with Jac’s movie that he asked Jac if he could get him a copy of that amazing film to write his thesis about it. He was so inspired. Jac gave him a copy and years passed and never heard from him again until one afternoon, when Barbazul was having its premiere, they met in the street. Jac invited him to the premiere. Rodrigo, that’s the guy’s name, saw Barbazul, was totally excited about it and during the premiere party later that night mentioned an old house where he lived, saying It Could Be A Great Location. A year later, after the premiere of Dead But Dreaming, he insisted that Jac and Amy visit his house. They finally did. Amy walked in and knew, immediately that it was Olalla’s house. And so, all plans were put aside to make OLALLA, the story of a family of genetic vampires. Something new was added to our brand of work. For the first time we started a campaign to raise some funds, specially to shoot a BATS scene in a location that was going to be expensive and that required a good number of extras, traveling and so on. We raised the money and off we were to shoot another masterpiece directed by Amy, her FOURTH feature as a director. She also took the leading role.

Number SEVEN with 8.9 points
Martyr or The Death of St Eulalia (2011)

Jac and Carmen were collaborating for a few years, beginning with the mini series The Man From The Moon and all those well known Red Feline movies. Jac had one big frustration, his impossible dream, The Passion of Maricelli, a film that needed a large budget and a great number of actors and one that had to be shot in the Caribbean. The main character, Maricelli, was the one character Jac wanted to create with an actress. First it was with me that he tried, time was not on our side, then Carmen appeared in our lives. In both our cases, Jac shot a series of sessions where he would study the mechanics of how to shoot a crucifixion scene, the actress, in this case Carmen would go through the suffering and so on. After a few months, Red Feline on the Cross came about as a result of those sessions, and when the business began to peak up in grand style, Jac finally had the means for a larger budget production. He wrote the script for The Death of St Eulalia and went to France to cast a couple of the French characters. The leading role was, of course, Carmen’s. Veronica, who had by then had done the Inquisition Series and was about to do Seven Days on the Cross, was chosen to take the second leading lady role. There were three more roles for the film and two of the actors were cast in France, soon after 9/11. In fact, the film was going to be shot in 2001 but 9/11 stopped that plan. In February 2002, on the date when Eulalia, the martyr, was born, the movie about her exploits as seen by the mind of a young and passionate French woman, began. That film was perhaps the end of an era, what we call the Carmen Era. And the screening of this film in Oruro marked the beginning of a new Era. The Amy Era. This film premiered at four festivals in 2005/2006 but it was officially released in 2011.

Number EIGHT with 6.7 points
Agent X (2009)

When Amy met Jac, back in 2005 and began to live and work with him, she started a process of training with The Training, and The Via Crucis of Jane, and soon after with more elaborate stories like AristoCrux and Romana Crucifixa Est. It was after she directed Sirwiñakuy that she began to work in a very intense spy story. Agent X. It was going to have a lot more of a story, more than AristoCrux and Romana Crucifixa Est. And there were going to be some quite dangerous scenes, like dunking her head in water while hanging upside down. It took some hard work and some really tough moments for Amy who had to be electrocuted, raped and whipped spread eagle and then suspended from a cross, if that wasn’t enough, she was going to be put through water torture hanging upside down and finally, she was going to be nailed to a wall, forming an X. It took about two weeks to shoot. In the already tested style of one man, one woman cast and crew, with a bit more lights than previous productions and with four cameras. The results were great and the film still holds its appeal.

Number NINE with 4.3 points
Romana Crucifixa Est (2009)

After AristoCrux Jac wanted to make another outdoors crucifixion. One afternoon Amy and Jac went looking for good locations to an area where they thought they could find a great place. They did. It was not very far, about an hour away by public transportation, it was totally deserted, there were great trees all around. They took a number of photographs with Amy in all kinds of situations and decided that yes, that was a good place to crucify a Noble Roman Woman. Days later, with equipment, a bag of effects, nails, whips and so on, and very early in the morning, they took public transport to the location. They got off at the stop in the avenue and walked far into the location for another half an hour. It was a bright sunny day. They used two cameras. Again, one man, one woman cast and crew. The story was simple. A barbarian, angry and bent on revenge because his daughter was crucified by the Romans, kidnaps a noble woman, forces her to go to a far off place where he whips her suspended from a tree branch, tortures her with thorns while tied to posts on the ground, by an ant hill, and nails her to a timber and makes her walk, practically naked, barefoot, over rocky terrain carpeted with thorny sticks, up a hill to a tree where, after setting her and tying her feet up, leaves her to die. The film itself came out very poetic and it looks wonderful.

Number TEN with 3.5 points
Fantom (2010)

After Agent X, Amy and Jac wanted to work on more elaborate but not too difficult scenarios where the one man one woman cast and crew would work. This time they decided to use more rooms in the house, to set up situations that required a bit more effort. They had a mask they bought in New York not long before and they wanted to use it, badly. It was a nice mask. And so they came up with the Fantom idea. A masked man that invades a woman’s bedroom, drags her out of bed, takes her to an empty room where he proceeds to torture her until finally tying her to a timber, cross like, to strangle her. The strangulation scene served as a great training session for what was going to be the execution scene in Dead But Dreaming. The film was not received as well as Agent X, but it’s beginning to pick up, passing other films that were near to Number Ten before.