A few months ago, Paul Steveson of the soon to be launched, Haunted After Dark zine, came to us with an interesting proposal. Talk for three pages and be completely uncensored, talk about what you want, pull no punches, be brutally honest, and we will print it all.
Now, you might be thinking - 'Hey, Sylv, being uncensored happens all the time.' Sadly, friend I'm making up for this imagined back and forth, it doesn't and any time we get an opportunity to be a part of the battle against censorship on art, we are fucking there with bells on.
Haunted: After Dark is grabbing the paranormal bull by the horns, boarding the Horror Express and taking it in a new fun and fresh direction. We're confident that there's nothing else like it out there. We're edgier, extremer(!), darker, naughtier and cheekier! It's an horrific hamper of horrors, a plethora of paranormal putridness full of blood, gore and showcasing some of the best photographers, models and make-up artists out there.
Haunted: After Dark magazine is an online digital magazine. Our aim is to bring back alternativeism from heading into mainstream monotomy. People say alternative is the new normal. Why??? Alternative should remain alternative but should be accepted for what it is, that's the difference. Our love of the paranormal and horror saw us produce Haunted Digital Magazine, a fun and fresh take on all things scary and spooky. Whilst we were designing this we were getting a lot of interest from horror themed photographers, models and make-up artists keen to showcase their work. We didn't think that a feature on a 14 yr old ghosthunter would sit right next to a photo pictorial feature on lesbian vampires so Haunted: After Dark was born and created (fanfare please!).
A huge fucking thanks to the team at Haunted After Dark and to the sensational Paul Stevenson and remarkable Andy Soar for giving us this brilliant opportunity and for keeping alternative culture's balls intact. It's a very fun and rad read - I hope you enjoy checking out the zine, ladies and gentlemen!
There was a time that feels not so long ago when Jen and I were in the closet about our total geekdom, but everyone knew. We were teased for loving horror, video games, and comic books. My first crush was on Darkwing Duck. I knew that we would never be normal and, growing up, different makes you open season for assholes. And kids are fucking assholes.
But times have changed. Maybe because there simply are not enough fucks to give and that life is too short not to be who you are. Proudly. And it seems like the world is not only a more accepting place for nerds, but we are actually growing in popularity making geek chic.
I do love geeks. Some of the coolest down to earth folks ever and I was tickled pink (hot pink) to have the lovely Chris Screama of geekxgirls.com talk to Jen and I about horror filmmaking, twin powers, and all things that make my inner/outer nerd heart beat.
"I had the opportunity to interview two of Canada’s most talented ladies in horror, Sylvia and Jen Soska of Twisted Twin Productions. Not only are they talented but they are hot, they are twins AND they are geek girls! These film making twins are taking the film world by storm, recently making it into Cannes Film Festival debuting their latest masterpiece American Mary, which is featuring Ginger Snaps's Katharine Isabelle! In this interview I try to pick their twisted brains, enjoy an inside look on what beautifully morbid things stir in these gals heads!"
Wait, did I ^^ above mention twin powers? Shit yes, son, I did.
What is it like being a Twin? Do you ladies have any special "twin powers" we should know of?
S:Yes, totally! I'm so glad you asked that. So there is this weird version of the house we grew up in and this forest - neither of us have ever been there, but we both dream about it. In the morning, we're all like - I dreamt of the forest last night. Holy shit, me too!
I love being a twin. I would actually be utterly useless without her. It's like we're one whole in two different bodies.
When we work together, we divide and conquer, we pre-determine separate responsibilities and can talk without having to talk, just through looks. It comes in very handy. I honestly have no idea what it is like to not be a twin, I imagine it's very lonely and odd. I love have my sister there. We have a lifetime of in-jokes, it would be hard to get someone new caught up to speed.
J:It's awesome. I love my twin. I was born with a best friend who never bullshits me, a sparring partner, an incredible co-creator, co-writer, and co-director. We're very different, but we compliment and balance one another beautifully. People ask us if we'd ever work apart and we easily could, but why would we want to? We see things the same way, though we usually get there in very different ways. She's a real artist.
Twin powers? Yeah. We do. We can have a full conversation with a look. We can read each other so easily that we can very subtly communicate without others having any idea that we're even doing it. We do it right in front of people usually. If we're apart and something's wrong, we can feel it and have to call the other immediately. We've dreamed of fictitious place separately, but it's the exact same place. That's kind of weird.
Jen and Sylvia Soska made a big splash recently at Cannes with American Mary and Kristian caught up with the Soska sisters to ask them about their Cannes experience and upcoming projects. He also learned about their favorite movies, most wanted superpower, and their weapon of choice in a zombie apocalypse.
Are you frothing at the mouth and loins for AMERICAN MARY? Fuck, I hope so. Want a few hints about what we have up our sleeveless sleeves? In this piece we talk about the upcoming film, our past first child - DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK, comics, zombie warfare, and our worldwide market premiere screening at Cannes. Here's an interview apply --
What inspired you to make a film like American Mary?
Sylvia:After we finished DEAD HOOKER and were working on distribution, I was talking to Eli Roth, who is literally one of the best, most coolest people on the planet and he asked me what other scripts we had in the works. I actually had nothing at the time, so I lied and threw a bunch of ideas for scripts that I thought I could write really quickly. He said that the one about the medical student sounded interesting, so I went with that. The idea came from an April Fools prank I saw online involving identical twins. It had creeped me out so much that I got obsessed with it.
Anytime something scares me, I try to learn as much about it as possible because I find educating yourself is the best way to dissolve a phobia.
The more I learned about this misunderstood and scapegoated community, the more I got to really dig what they were about. I used that underground group and mainstream society as a basis for the story with Jen. We were struggling a lot and had been for years to find our place in the filmmaking world and used that analogy for the situation Mary, a struggling medical student finds herself in.
Jen:There is a lot of personal material in AMERICAN MARY. Not exactly literal, but definitely inspired by our experiences working in the film industry. I find the topic of what’s on the outside as opposed to what’s on the inside fascinating. Appearances are incredibly deceiving in life and people rarely turn out to be what they appear to be. Much of that is incorporated in AMERICAN MARY.
I love Peaches Christ. Sensational performer and artist - and now, from personal experience meeting at the Cannes Film Festival - one of the coolest people I have had the pleasure of meeting in this crazy world. And having the sincere honour to have at our AMERICAN MARY worldwide market premiere screening.
"I've just returned from the Cannes Film Festival where I saw loads of movies and went to glamorous red-carpet premieres! I felt completely out-of-place amongst all the fanciness and was even a little worried I'd just sorta stand out as a rube, but luckily I fooled those frogs. I really fooled 'em! I even got to walk the Palais red-carpet at the famous Lumiere Theatre wearing formal attire to attend the premiere of horror legend Dario Argento's new movie Dracula 3D, which is a total hoot. The best movie I saw while I was there was something called Beasts Of The Southern Wild. It is sooooooo good and sooooo beautiful and the wee little child actress who plays the lead, "Hushpuppy", is incredible. Definitely go see this movie when it hits theaters soon. Loved it!!! I also saw some fun horror movies like American Mary and Excision and I stayed in a villa with mice that Roman Polanski stayed in for four consecutive years. The whole experience was tres bien!"
-Peaches Christ
If you can make it to the show, you simply must see Peaches' SILENCE OF THE TRANS show. And then message and tell me all about it. Dying to see it. For those of you being firstly introduced to Peaches Christ through this post, you are very welcome and enjoy!
The name Nia Edwards-Behi might sound familiar to you. If not, here is an interesting piece of information that you might not be aware of - the very first screening of DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK, when no one wanted to touch that film with a ten foot pole, happened at the Ghouls on Film Festival in the UK thanks to Nia. The admiration for this woman who truly supports the independent has only grown in the years that we have come to know her. It was a thrill to not only have her, Gaz Bailey, and Rhys Thomas Fowler at Cannes to make a pair of foreigners feel more at home, but an amazing honour to have them in attendance for the first screening of AMERICAN MARY. How appropriate that this sensational woman would reveal the first look of the film.
"Mary is a completely different beast to Dead Hooker. Where Dead Hooker is a loving tribute to B-movies and grindhouse cinema, Mary is a stylish, artful and darkly funny tragedy. This difference is the Soskas’ masterstroke – even the most doubting spectator would struggle to deny the absolute versatility on display between the two films."
I know we've been very hush hush on the flick and going to the Cannes market makes it difficult to check out the screening, but for those of you dying of antic..............pation, check out the full beautiful review. No spoilers - so you're surprises are safe!
Thank you so much to everyone who was a part of this. Very extremely fucking cool of you all.
Here is the first look at the AMERICAN MARY poster at the Cannes Film Festival. The film will be making her worldwide market premiere screening on the 17th.
Thank you for snapping this image, Nia Edwards-Behi!! You fucking rock. At the London airport right now, one layover away from hitting Nice, then Cannes.
Yes, it's an undeniable factoid. Mondays Suck, but we're doing our part to make them just that little bit more awesome.
The fucking incredible people behind AMERICAN MARY at 430 Productions are bringing you even more wicked awesome with RadioAmplifire.com, an amazing new experience featuring....
"DJ's from ALL over the world that will bring there own musical styles
and tastes... Entertainment shows, News, and live stream
Music and Pro Wrestling shows...... There will be something for everyone... Tune in and we hope you enjoy ...."
When 430 Productions asked if we wanted to invade the airwaves with totally UNCENSORED content, how could we possibly refuse? Our very first show is TOMORROW. It's our very first time, so forgive any truly Amish moments, grab some refreshments (I highly encourage your favorite tasty beverage), and tune in for our very special brand of inane banter. It's about to get wicked up in this bitch!
And if that's not cool enough, NEXT MONDAYwe will be coming to you LIVE from the Cannes Film Festival!! You don't want to miss out, be there or be in the suck of Mondays. Tune into our show, MONDAYS SUCK, every Monday night 7pm (PST) to 10pm (PST).
UPDATE!!! The Kickoff first episode of MONDAYS SUCK will start next week on Monday, May 21st, live from the Cannes Film Festival at 7pm PST -- hope to have you listening in!!!
AMERICAN MARY is getting its world wide market premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, aka the filmmakers field of dreams. To spread the glorious news, we decided to celebrate, independent filmmaker style, as we, the Twisted Twins, will be accompanying the film to the festival.
GORE~geous photos by the insanely talented Shimona Henry (http://www.facebook.com/shimonahenry.photographer).
As know should be well aware, us Twisted Twins are off to the most magical place on Earth. No, notDisney Land. Well, not unless they have beer gardens there now... We are off to the gore~geous Cannes Film Festival with our much loved, highly anticipated feature film, AMERICAN MARY, which will be having its world wide market premiere at the festival.
In celebration of the film making it's way all the way to Crème de la Crème of film festivals, we are at long last giving out a little taste of the feast that is AMERICAN MARY.
Here is the official first look at our leading man in the film, the talented, the beautiful, and to die for Antonio Cupo as Billy Barker.
Please enjoy and stay tuned. There's SO much more to come.
In celebration of AMERICAN MARY making its world wide market premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next week, we have released the first official screenshot from the film featuring Katharine Isabelle as Mary Mason meeting with two potential clients.
Some girls dream of kids and weddings, Jen and I dreamt of horror stories and film festivals. In a very real way, AMERICAN MARY is like an offspring and the Cannes Film Festival is better than a wedding, prom, and all that shit squished together. On the 17th, her world market screening premiere will take place at the Gray D'Albion Hotel with a very exclusive invite list, the first ever look at the film will be available at our booth - Riviera B3 - in the form of a stellar Cannes exclusive trailer, along with potential private screenings at our own theatre at the booth.
I have never left North America, I feel beyond honoured to have the privilege of taking the film to Cannes and showing them what kind of great independent films can be made from the fucking fantastic cast and crews we have in Canada. Last night, we got together with our AMERICAN MARY team for a special pre-Cannes send off.
The film was a labor of love - everyone took a hit and worked their asses off to make something that was beautiful and at the highest level of quality. You can tell the passion of these professionals in every frame. I will never forget the team that made this possible, this isn't a usual story - you don't get too many happy endings in life like this, I'm going to make the most of this privilege to do good by the team and the people who have supported us to make this possible.
Thank you so kindly from the bottom of our hearts. You've opened the whole world up to us!
Photo shoot with the brilliantly talented Shimona Henry coming to promote what is one of the biggest events of our lives, AMERICAN MARY hitting the Cannes Film Market and having her World Market Premiere screening. Not too many independents get such an honour, it's been a long time dream of ours to take a film over there.
With the support of a great team - the people who have killed themselves to make this film great - we are going to work our asses off and make the most of this incredible opportunity.
Thank you to everyone who has supported our insanity to get us to this point. We did it, you guys!
BIG, epic, sexy ass news, boys and grrls. Do you enjoy our Twisted Twins inane banter? Well, NATURALLY, "inane banter" is in the eye of the beholder and what about uncensored inane banter? Get ready for the mother load, as the Twisted Twins have joined forces with HAUNTED MAGAZINE, getting 4 pages of UNCENSORED bliss to speak about whatever we please. Our first piece is coming directly from the Cannes Film Festival. Sexy as hell? I think so.
But, wait, there's actually more....
Everyone who purchases
the current issue of HAUNTED £1.69 for over 160 pages of the BEST
paranormal and horror that you can shake a scary stick at and go Grrr..
and emails the paypal receipt back, mentioning the Soska Sisters gets a
FULL years subscription to HAUNTED (normally £11.99) for just the price
of one issue...
so all you gotta do is visit www.haunteddigitalmagazine.com follow the instructions, when your email arrives for you to download the magazine, you email their receipt to payments@haunteddigitalmagazine.com mentioning the Soska Sisters and you get a FULL years subscription.
Get ready, darlings. Something wicked this way comes...
In this world, you've got to have balls to make it and that goes double for us ladies. When I first heard of an edgy little flick called IN MY SKIN, I thought it sounded chalk full of balls. When I discovered that this film was written by, directed by, and starring a woman named Marina de Van, a film so disturbing many claim they can't even sit through it, I was enthralled. When I discovered that this film was her debut feature, I was floored.
The film itself may be difficult to watch for some. If you're reading this and thinking, "gosh, I wonder if it's too harsh for me" it probably is. Please don't come telling me it gave you nightmares or turned your stomach. My only response would be, as always, "you're welcome".
The following description does involve a few spoilers, so be forewarned.
IN MY SKIN, "Dans Ma Peau" follows the lovely, self-conscious young woman, Esther, superbly portrayed by the mesmerizing Marina herself, who works for a public relations firm. Her life appears to be on the up and up. Her boyfriend wants to live with her, she's in line for a promotion, things appear to be going well for her. One night at a party, Esther wanders into the backyard and stumbles, scratching her leg on a piece of scrap metal. She goes back to the party, and later realizes that her injury is much more severe than she had initially thought. There's a deep, ugly gouge all the way up her shin from which she bleeds profusely. Reasonably, she goes to a doctor, who patches her up and tells her she might need a skin graft. But Esther becomes obsessed with the wound. She won't let it heal. She finds herself sneaking away during work to cut herself. As her leg becomes an ugly scarred mass, she begins to notice a problem with her arm. And I'll stop there as I can imagine you can see where this is heading.
It is a beautiful piece. What starts as morbid curiosity soon devolves into obsessional mutilation. The film focuses on self-mutilation in a very sickening way. This is a compulsion that can't be controlled. The psychosis is very real and upsetting, but in a strange way beautiful, like a masochistic voyage of self discovery. She truly feels through these mutilations and to have such a strong and defined vision for her debut film is exceptional.
And where did this fascination come from for Marina? Like the best of art, it came from what she knows and her own experiences. When she was 8 years old, a car struck her and broke her leg.
"I didn't faint and I didn't really feel pain. Instead, I saw my leg as if it wasn't part of my body, as if it was an object. For me, then, it was a fascinating deformed object."
When her mother showed her X-rays of her leg, she pointed out that part of the bone was missing and had been thrown away after an operation.
"That really intensified my feeling of estrangement from my leg. It wasn't mine but I was obsessed with looking at it.
As I grew up, I began to think that in our society we are utterly alienated from our bodies. Think of the work we do in offices - it's as though our bodies could have their own lives and we wouldn't necessarily know about it. There is a split, and sometimes our bodies are utterly absent from us.
I became more and more struck by this during my early adulthood, how alienated we are from our bodies. I was also struck by how little it takes for our bodies, or parts of our bodies, to suddenly become alien objects, but ones which fascinate us. All you have to do is see your leg at an unusual, unfeasible angle, for example, for it to become a strange spectacle that's like looking at an object that in some ways has nothing to do with you. Of course, in another way it does have something to do with you and you know it does."
I think we can all relate to feeling at one time or another, trapped in our own bodies. Feeling alienated from them even. A broken limb, for instance. It is so brave of Marina to tackle a subject so common, but is such a relenting manner, completely unconcerned with the fact that it puts some people quite off. Any subject matter that speaks directly to her is fair game. She is not a woman to shy away from anything. And the reason she decided to play Esther in the film?
"Because the film is about my obsession with my body. I had a great desire to explore it by putting it on film."
Here is the trailer. If you're someone who can handle it, you should definitely seek out the film. I highly recommend it.
Marina's fascination with identity and feeling disassociated with ones own self are the themes of her second feature, DON'T LOOK BACK, with screened out of competition at Cannes and starred the enchanting and bold Monica Bellucci. Though it didn't receive the same praise as her first film, it is an intriguing look into one's own self and one's own identity. It is beautifully and bravely directed and, like all her work, provocative.
There is a phrase that I've heard tossed around. I've even seen it tagged up on buildings in my home haunt of Vancouver. Fear is ruining your life. And it's true. Fear holds you back, fear makes you give up, fear can keep you from even trying in this life. Marina is a striking example of how to live one's life and create one's art without fear. Be true to yourself and your work will reflect that honesty.
I look very forward to Marina's next piece and highly encourage you to be fearless and check out IN MY SKIN.
American Mary is soon to be off to the South Of France with co-producer Evan Tylor and IndustryWorks Pictures, traveling to this year's 64th annual Cannes Film Festival. Our teaser poster will be paired with a newly designed, full-sized 8.5" x 11" trade-ad featuring the delightful Katharine Isabelle. The ad is a mash-up of images torn from iconic American magazines. - FortyFPS Productions, artwork and design by CJ Wallis
Feeling very cool about AMERICAN MARY making her way to the market at this year's Cannes. The festival is one of the world's oldest and most prestigious festivals and it is an honor to be represented there. If you are in attendance on business, please do visit our friends at Industry Works and get the low down on this upcoming new flick.
