I am pleased to announce that “Gods and Kings” is extremely close to completion. Four years from my first solo shooting trip in January 2008, a 93 minute fine cut has been sent off to try its luck at several important festivals. But while we wait to hear which ones we got into, [...]]]> Dear Friends,

I am pleased to announce that “Gods and Kings” is extremely close to completion. Four years from my first solo shooting trip in January 2008, a 93 minute fine cut has been sent off to try its luck at several important festivals. But while we wait to hear which ones we got into, we need your help to make it legal, and make it pretty. That’s why we’ve launched a kickstarter campaign to raise $15,000 in finishing funds by the end of January. For those of you not familiar with Kickstarter, donations begin as pledges and only go through if the project reaches the goal it has set; in other words we get it all or we get nothing! We’re pretty sure we can get there, but it’s going to take everyone’s help.

Your contribution will go toward finishing touches like color correction, a sound mix, special effects, and licensing historic archival footage. They’ll also allow us to make one last trip to Guatemala to share the movie with the community that helped create it. Donations above $30 reserve you an early edition of the DVD, complete with deleted scenes and an in-depth look at Momostenango’s festival tradition.

As you gather with your family around the menorah or the yuletide hearth this year, think of Momostenango’s Christmas “Diablo Dancers”, who will soon be donning their rubber Beavis and Butthead masks and silver body spray to dance half naked in the chilly mountain air. Let’s get this timely story of Maya magic and mass media off the ground for 2012, and reach the world before the world ends!

Thank you for being a part of this strange little project – and have an amazing holiday!

All the best,
Robin

Momostenango Diablos Dance in the 90s, photographed by Kermit Frazier

The multitalented Rachel Lears has signed on as co-producer. Her first contribution was to cast our fantastic voice over narrator, Anais Alexandra Tekarian, who is continuing to record with us, as we [...]]]> I know it’s been a dog’s age since you heard from us, but let me tell you what’s happened since the last post:

The multitalented Rachel Lears has signed on as co-producer. Her first contribution was to cast our fantastic voice over narrator, Anais Alexandra Tekarian, who is continuing to record with us, as we finalize the script.

Ryan Blotnick has returned from the wilds of Maine to compose and record an original score. We’re supposed to start working on that today in fact.

We’ve been digging through archival footage all summer, and unearthed some rare beauties, like “Desafio 10” a USAID-produced reality TV contest starring Guatemalan gang members – a spectacular and tragic failure. Many thanks to filmmaker Rob Davenport and former contestant Sergio Nix for that footage. Next week, we’re making a trip to the National Archives to grab the final pieces of our film’s historical jigsaw puzzle.

As of this moment, we have a watchable two hour rough cut, but we’re trying to chop it down to ninety minutes this week, to prepare for Madison avenue-style focus group screenings. Expect your invitation soon!

With all this momentum, we are boldly setting our sights on several festivals with October and November deadlines. The next stop will be a return to Momostenango to share the project with the participants.

Oh yeah – and thanks to our Associate Producer Josh Weiss (happy birthday Josh!), with the help of our friend Marvin at the Hotel Otoño, a Utah woman named Letty Perez was able to locate her husband’s long-lost family in Momostenango. Here’s a clip from her letter to Josh:

“His sister almost fainted when she found out she had her little brother still alive. She says she had been dreaming of him … It was an awesome experience and I have you to thank. May God bless you and your family always! Thank you!”

If that won’t bring some good fortune to the project and everyone involved, I don’t know what will!

All the best,
-Robin

J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: [...]]]>

“The sight of the masked figure … carries us beyond ‘ordinary life’ into a world where something other than daylight reigns; it carries us back to the world of the savage, the child and the poet, which is the world of play.”

J. Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture

Click here to view the embedded video.

the password is the same as last time. email me if you need it repeated. note:  the voice over narration is currently performed by a robot. eventually we will [...]]]> for the collective only:  here’s an updated, extended version of the 10 minute rough cut I posted last month:

Click here to view the embedded video.

the password is the same as last time. email me if you need it repeated.
note:  the voice over narration is currently performed by a robot. eventually we will enlist a human professional, but in the meantime the OS X text-to-voice robot is actually an improvement over the voice of the director.

also, some of the things the robot narrator says in this draft are simply not true. The final piece will be thoroughly fact-checked.

want to be part of the collective? make a donation.