Isabel Rising!

The Passion of Isabel is officially a success for us. It has gone well beyond our expectations for the first month of its release. It is very possible that from now on sales will level to what I consider to be average, the place where JUSTINE is now. A solid and consistent place.

I don’t know what the future holds. I know that Jac is going through a difficult process in his life right now and it’s not very clear yet where we will go from here. We are having meetings and more meetings.

One person that has become crucial to all of this is Danielle, who spends the most time with Jac right now. She works with him in everything he’s doing, from moving furniture in the office or holding the shelves he’s setting up on the walls, to discussing the strategy for the film festival we are organizing, or the scheduling of future films, and so on.

She has seen most of our films by now, she is becoming deeply familiar with Jac’s work. She’s very impressed with Amy, Carmen, Vero, Bea and Mila and their daring and intense performances. She would love to do as well as they do.

The transition for Jac … and the rest of us… is not complete yet and that’s the difficult part for everyone. It is always hard to go from one cycle to the next, it takes, literally, years.

While we debate the artistic merits of her efforts, I hope we’re all appreciating the vision of beauty that Bea truly is. It doesn’t get much more stunning than that.

When I worked on the VidCaps, putting those titles and copyright info on them, I was very, very impressed by Bea, her expressions, her body, her beauty. I was also impressed by the quality of the images, the lighting, the atmosphere, the composition, all of which highlights Bea’s features in dramatic ways. When I consider that Jac worked alone, setting the lights, the cameras, everything, to such perfection, I’m in awe.

There was a comment a while ago, something about a frame that had some kind of problem… A FRAME! There are 24 frames in each second of the film. There are 60 seconds in every minute of the film, there are 96 minutes in the entire film … and if we count the hours of footage… you get my meaning. Each picture I post is ONE perfect frame of the 138,240 frames the film has… I saw that ONE frame with the problem, after it was discussed here. It took me a while to find it.

I very much doubt that The Passion of Isabel will ever be in the sights of film festivals, unless we organize our own Fetish Film Festival where Isabel could be well received, specially by the organizers. We’re happy that The Passion is having a good, growing audience that fully appreciates Bea’s beauty.

Some thought-provoking news. Agreed, it wouldn’t be good to just try producing more of the same. But you’re such a talented and creative team, I’m sure you’ll try something adventurous. And it’s certainly praise of an unexpected kind that you’re being taken seriously for the Oscars circus, though I can understand Jac’s reservations!
Eulalia (From CruxForum)

Jac doesn’t think he makes movies that could ever be considered for the Oscars. He makes anti-Oscar movies, I think. If there’s something critics and commentators who discuss Jac’s films, regardless of which movies, can agree is that he’s a transgressor. Maleficarum, Martyr, Krik Krak Tales of A Nightmare, JUSTINE, OLALLA, Sirwiñakuy, they all went to international film festivals and were discussed in mass media, not only in forums such as this one. So, our films are sought after by festivals, JUSTINE has two requests for festivals now, it was already featured in one at the end of las year, and if we add the Oscar’s selection, that will be FOUR. Jac will decline politely the Oscar request, that’s for sure.

**AND THAT’S FOUR! (No Oscar for JUSTINE)**

Thanks, Margot, for the video of Sounds of Silence. In addition to being a timely remembrance, there are two things that have special significance to me. 1. There’s a rule in popular culture–hell, in most of art–that you don’t try to cover a masterpiece. But there is no doubt in my mind that Disturbed’s version of SOS is whole levels of power above the original. What was a thoughtful song in the original shows the astonishing emotional power that was way beyond the range of S&G. It doesn’t work often to take another shot at a classic, but the recent remake of True Grit and Disturbed’s version of SOS both prove the value of taking a shot at it. 2. I’ve read that David Draiman was strongly opposed to even trying the project. He’s a heavy metal singer in a heavy metal band (and a rather derivative one at that), but his band-mates pushed him to stretch into something beyond his comfort zone. And thank god he had the balls to go for it.
petelobo

That song moves me every time I hear it, and I’m in tears when I see the video because the memories of those days come flooding to me. I saw that video for the first time when Jac shared it in FB a year or two ago. I cried. I saw it again when it appeared in my FB memories yesterday, so I had to share it. I too am glad that David Draiman recorded this song, it is powerful. The Simon &g Garfunkel original is extremely beautiful, I heard it for the first time when I was a kid, probably I was 5 or so and I probably heard it on the radio. Later on I learned to appreciate it a lot more. The Disturbed version is now part of those terribly sad memories of the people and all that we lost that day. Something was definitely lost in humanity that September 11, and it was such a sunny morning. The sun was covered by the black smoke and white deadly powder that covered the streets of NYC.