Moving On – An encounter with History

Jac received a message from his ex, co director and co producer of his first film. The online message says:

The Oloffson was burnt down by gangs last week. It was built in the 19th century. I spent lots of time there, especially on its veranda, meeting the editor of the London Sunday Times there and Jolicoeur (whom Graham Greene immortalized, along with the iconic hotel).

She’s referring to the great Hotel in Haiti which is part of Jac’s film Krik? Krak! Tales of a Nightmare.

Jac had a nice meeting for lunch with Graham Greene at the writer’s apartment in Antibes, France, prior to the premiere of the film in Cannes in May of 1988. During their very long conversation over the best wine France can offer and some very tasty sea food, the writer talked about his book The Comedians, he mentioned the hotel, Jolicour, and the owner of the hotel.

The main character of Greene’s book, played by Richard Burton, was loosely inspired by the owner of that hotel. Greene also mentioned that Elizabeth Taylor was not easy to work with. Both, the owner and Jolicour, are also part of Jac’s film.

There’s an interview in Jac’s film, at that hotel with both of those characters, where they openly talk about their times with Papa Doc Duvalier and his manipulation of Voodoo for nefarious goals.

Greene also mentioned Duvalier’s comments about his book. Those comments, at least part of them, are also in Jac’s film in Duvalier’s own words. Historical, indeed.

History is a big part of our reality, in the past, in the present and in the future. We made history, were are making history and we’re recreating historical periods in time. Our favorite time in history appears to be the times of the Roman Empire and their nasty crucifixions.

A lot of our work shows that, even in the docu-drama about Haiti; even then, so many years ago, Jac had to include the scene of a crucifixion where a young couple are crucified in the sugar cane fields of Haiti. A symbolic scene.

During those days, when Jac was editing the film in Havana, he wrote a script where a nice young woman, in Colonial Cuba, suffers a crucifixion. it was the intention of making that idea a reality that he embarked on working with his actresses, beginning with me, and then Camille, in a series of crucifixion scenes that led to eventually making Martyr. The rest is history.

Meanwhile, a lot is happening in the background during this time in our history. Jac is extremely busy working on the new ways of increasing our resources for the near future. Lots of plans, little time, little money while facing the changes in the history of the world.

The historical and political situation inside and outside of Bolivia is making things a lot more difficult, and ironically, in some cases, easier. One example is the rate of the Dollar in Bolivia. It was kept at the same artificial rate for 20 years by the political party in government that thought that it was a good idea. The result was that dollars disappeared from the country affecting everyone, we can’t get our dollars out of the bank machines like we used to, and if we withdraw cash in the country’s currency at the official exchange rate we loose tremendous amounts of money; however, Erix found a way of transferring funds from the US to our bank account in Bolivia at a good exchange rate. Which means, our dollars have more value here… twice as much as a few months ago. Long story.

There are elections for president coming up in the middle of the crisis so, everything is kind of at a standstill until then. It’s a wait and see kind of situation. The elections are in the middle of August. No one knows what is going to happen then.

Add our home front economic issues to that uncertain situation and we don’t see a way of beginning to shoot a big film in August. We’ll see how things turn out in the country after the elections.

In the meantime Dani was with Jac to test her costume for Crucified Four. Jac mentioned to her that it wasn’t complete, some elements are missing, but the basic look is there. She tried it on, she felt that it was a bit big, it needs some fixing to fit her the way it should.

Mila is incredibly engaged in her new business and with little time, maybe none, until she brings it up where she wants her business to be, at least that’s Jac’s impression; the fact is that she hasn’t been around for these past many weeks, not even for a few minutes to try the Priestess costume. Dani suggested she should try it on and see how it looks and what it needs.

Dani and Mila are of similar height and although their bodies are slightly different, the costume should fit them both almost the same. Jac agreed and gave Dani the costume and she tried it on.

The costume looks cool. It has room for improvements and there are some additions that it should have to make it perfect. But it looks great.

A question came my way, privately, but one question from one person is probably the same for many. So I’ll respond publicly.

Are you going to release the the Crux Bound episode with Simmonne that was completed?

All the CruXbound movies will be released when completed. There are two versions of CruXbound IV, with Simonne and both of them will be out once they are ready. They will be part of our promo campaign for the production of Crucified Four, either to raise some extra funds or to run a campaign for those funds.

There are some issues that we are facing, other than the money situation. They have to do with our cast. As I mentioned Mila is busy busy with her own work. We don’t know if she will be able to be part of the movies, so we will have to do some casting, maybe. Ligia is under contract with the office of tourism until the 31st of August. That’s two members of the principal cast that at this moment might be not available for work.

Simonne has entered the world of film production, first producing and directing a short documentary and most recently, producing a short film in which she also acts. She borrowed some equipment from Jac.

Cruxlover24 Are there any news about the new film you guys are working in?

If you are referring to the one Dani and Jac are working on, all I can say is that they are working on it, but they didn’t do anything this week, they will resume the work this coming Monday, I should have some stills by mid week. The plan is to finish it by the end of the month. There’s so much going on that they can only work two or three afternoons in a week. But they do a lot in those few hours per day.

Most of our efforts at this period of time are directed to get resources coming our way and it’s not an easy task.

And a final note, we have a nice sale in our store, you can take advantage of it and get a couple of our films with a nice discount. The more films we sell, the more our bank account grows.