Trials And Tribulations Part 1
Well… things have a way of going their own way, and it’s not the highway. It’s more like the long and winding road. Everything was getting ready for the Wednesday preparation where the Foursome of Cruxing were going to get together to discuss the new idea… the Female Christ movie with high production values and big, elaborate scenes leading to a nasty crucifixion of the three of them, when Simonne contacted Jac and said that she can’t make it because of … Covid… Yes, she tested positive for Covid and she’s quarantined for the entire week. If she tests negative on Monday, she’ll be good to go next week.
So, instead of the meeting of four, it became a meeting of three where they went over the possible costumes for the pitch he’s planning, and they also went over the plans for the production of 69 Année Érotique.
I was truly impressed with the response to my previous post that I feel the need to quote everyone and since there are so many issues in each comment, it would be as long as a book, so I’ll be doing it in parts. Some of those parts will be something akin to a history lesson…
Btw, I have a phd in anthropology so I have the tendency to dig deep. I’m even tempted to sell my thesis to raise funds … anyway…
Awesome post Margot! It is great to hear about the possibility of an awesome big production female Christ type movie.
When I discovered you guys for the first time on the GIMP forum back in 2015, I was not a CRUX fan, but watching all your red feline and feature films got me hooked into the genre. Red Feline on the Cross and Martyr made me fall in love with Camille and the crux theme.
joek0
Your discovery of Red Feline On The Cross happened when more than ten years have passed since we released that film. When I think about it, I feel like it was only yesterday when we were in a basement apartment in Astoria, NY, with the first laptop Jac had, with a external gadget to capture images from the video tape. It was a weird little thing. And the quality of the pictures was not great, but that’s how we started, in 1998, in the middle of winter.
I seem to enjoy the movies that have financial backup from fans to be your best films That I enjoy watching over and over. Maleficarum, your first fan supported film is still my most favorite film of yours and the best Inquisition film ever. Even though it had no crux scenes, I enjoyed it. Dead but Dreaming is a good film, but not the best compared to the other fan supported films in my opinion.
joek0
The Big Production Value movies, like Maleficarum, were always a goal. The first one to have that kind of big production values work was Martyr or The Death Of St Eulalia, we could say that it was fan supported because at that time, at the beginning of this adventure, we were selling our first film, RFOC for 70 dollars a VHS copy and a lot of people were buying it. That and our members only website was giving us some good income, which in turn we could use to get better computers, better cameras, better everything. The attack to the towers in NY changed everything; not immediately, in time. Things got harder and harder. By 2006 we were struggling, but things were changing as well. We were in transition. Camille had stopped working in films, she was involved in theatre in France and we had no new films since Martyr, which was produced in 2002 and had a theatrical release in 2005… That’s when Amy saw it and … well… you know.
I myself supported Justine financially and enjoyed it as a film, but found the crux scene at the end lacking. This disappointed me as I was a major backer for the crux scene, but enjoyed the other scenes I had backed for with major backing. I understand that it was cut short for reasons, but I wish it could have been edited a little bit longer on screen with the whole process.
joek0
Like Martyr before, JUSTINE closed a cycle, the Amy cycle, which started ten years before when the dynamic duo met in Bolivia, of all places, when Jac was visiting his country of birth, invited to a film festival to show two films, Martyr and Nocturnia. While in the country, he was contacted by NatGeo to make a documentary about the hemorrhagic fever that killed thousands in the late 50’s early 60’s. Amy was passing through, on her way to Chile, when her friend saw a casting call flyer at a trendy restaurant in La Paz calling for North American actors to play the doctors that were involved in the investigation of that pandemic. The guy was Irish, but he convinced Amy to coach him to fake a Texan accent. He was hired… and so was Amy, to play his wife. Her entire scene was of the wife giving the doctor a kiss when he was almost dying of the fever. They were about to leave for Chile when Jac invited them to see Martyr at a second festival in a near city… they went, Amy saw it and decided to change her life… yes, I told that story already…
At this point, I had lost interest when Amy left. for the US I however found renewed interest and picked up Monxa Mala last month and really enjoyed the film. It is still not as good as the 1st Maleficarum film, but a great film for me none the less. It also had an awesome Passion Play scene at the end which makes up for the short one in Justine which I mentioned that it was lacking.
joek0
Like it happened with Camille ten years before, many people were disappointed that Amy was moving on into other less dramatic but exciting, just the same, adventures. And it was really disappointing for Jac, of course, he felt at a loss. Not only Amy was leaving. Miguel, the director of cinematography, was hired by a magazine/agency to direct commercial spots, a full time, permanent position, big salary too.
Mila also left the team because she was going to do something else with her life. And, adding to the irony, NatGeo contacted Jac again for another extensive documentary, this one about the killing of jaguars in the jungles of Bolivia for their teeth to smuggle them to China and give rich Chinese men a hard on.
In 2016 Jac was out there, in the jungle, shooting the documentary with an American crew, going after poachers, suffering the attach of a billion mosquitoes, sometimes protected by Bats.
While in the middle of the jungle, he was still working in the post production of the two films we produced in 2015. Pygmalion and Justine.
Justine was released in 2017, Dani saw it at the Cinemateca and called Jac. Like Amy before, Dani wanted to be in his movies.
In 2017 Jac was back producing his favorite films. This time with Bea, who played an impressive role in Justine, a smaller role in Pygmalion, and a smaller role in Olalla, the first film she did with us.
Jac returned to the old set from Justine, Maleficarum and Le Marquis De La Croix, where some of the props were stored, to make the now amazing film The Passion of Isabel.
The next step was Monxa Mala, with Bea in the lead.
Mila returned to the fold and Dani had already been tested by Jac and was ready to take a major role. In addition, a new actress impressed Jac, Simonne.
For personal reasons Bea had to leave the production and was replaced by Simonne in the lead role.
A new cycle was beginning.
I can’t wait to hear more news about the Female Christ movie. I would love to support the new movie financially with a pre buy. Covid still makes it tough to spend money these days. Good Luck with your 2 new films in production.
joek0
Please let the crux community know where they can assist to realize a potential Female Christ Theme production! It would be amazing if this came to fruition.
trevorc
We’re going to begin a campaign to raise funds for the Female Christ movie very soon. We’re working out the details. Perhaps in my next post I will be informing of the campaign.
In the meantime, one way to support our work is by watching our movies! We have great films, as you all know and I know that most people didn’t see them all…
Some people saw ALL of them, Some people didn’t see any, but most people didn’t see them all…
Be one of those that saw them all!
Download our films
Get the DVDs by mail
Enjoy them!
