Hello Everyone!

I wanted to do a quick shoutout to my fantastic web designer Ariela Steif, who between the two of us finally nailed down an awesome design and layout of the new Somos Buzos website. It’s really spiffy while still remaining accessible to most of the world’s browsers (i.e. not flash-based).

www.somosbuzos.com

Kickstarter money went to creating this! Thank you again!

As for the rough cut we are slogging through it – slow, but steady. I’m due for another session with Fernanda Rossi, the story consultant in NYC as soon as I have a visual cut ready! Stay tuned.

Abrazos

Isabelle

 Tags: Dominican Republic, Trash, Trash Divers, Somos Buzos, Buzos, Garbage, Landfill, Dump, Trash Dump, Trash workers, Website Redesign, Ariela Steif, Isabelle Carbonell, Izaca Productions, www.izaca.com, Izaca, Fernanda Rossi

Massive progress on the rough cut! We are hovering at right under 70 minutes. I have a subtitling company in Argentina, who is currently going through and making the subtitles (albeit with a few issues). It’s a huge step to having any english speaker be able to watch and understand the film… and an absolutely necessary step for us to submit to foundations for additional post-production funding/support/other reasons! The subtitles being made a direct result of the kickstarter funding!

On the homefront, we’re at the stage to fill out the visuals and start building scenes visually (not just audio-interview-content). It’s super overwhelming, but according to my story consultant, she’s never seen anyone shoot a feature length documentary with less than 40 hours of footage at the quality of visuals I made. Hm. Still surprised about that comment.

Did I mention we officially have DCIFF fiscal sponsorship as well? It’s nice as it allows us to submit to more foundations and grants, and opens a few other doors as well.

I’m currently based in Dubai for another month. It’s been a little nuts watching the news, feeling close and far away to everything happening in the middle east re: revolutions as Dubai is geographically and culturally close, but politically so far away. No protests or issues here!

Over and Out,

Isabelle

After some massive work over the story structure in the past month and a half, we are finally almost settled on an arc. It’s shorter, snappier, falling at around 70 minutes for the rough cut presently. Lots of good work and more to come ahead! We hope to finalize the structure in the next two weeks and then begin working on visuals!

Thanks again to everyone for the amazing kickstarter support!

xoxo

Isabelle

Powered by Qumana

Thanks to each and everyone for your support. I feel totally invincible to finish this film!

Dear Friends,

We have raised, fantastically, up to $10,136 for my film “Somos Buzos.” See description below. We need $15,000 total, so we’re missing $4864. Kickstarter will not take a cent out of your account, nor give me one cent, if I do not reach my goal. Seriously. Help me make some magic in the next two hours.

Please, lets do one FINAL push in the next two hours. Please send, email, share, this link to anyone who might be sympathetic, want a cool reward, would like to learn filmmaking, free DVDs, a trip to the Dominican Republic and more. Thank you SO MUCH.

http://kck.st/hVso07

Thank you to EACH AND EVERYONE OF YOU to donated, shared, posted, linked, talked, you are absolutely amazing.

PLEASE VISIT THIS LINK TO DONATE  http://kck.st/hVso07

and then click on the green button on the right called  “BACK THIS PROJECT” and enter your information.

SOMOS BUZOS is a documentary about a community of people who live, breathe, eat, and die out of the trash in Cienfuegos, Santiago, Dominican Republic. It follows one buzo (their term for trash diver) who taught himself how to read and write at the age of 20 and considers the education for his kids as their way out. The last stages of production are very expensive and I just don’t have the funds or resources to cover what it takes. This started grass-roots and will end grass-roots. I’m determined to get the story of the buzos out there effectively and loudly. They deserve it the world over.

ABRAZOS
GRACIAS THANK YOU MERCI DANKE SHUKRAN DANIEVAD

Love
Isabelle

The best part is that along with your donation, you get to pick a cool reward: Film DVD, film poster, vintage screenprinted T-shirt, original song, framed art, filmmaking lessons, industry credit, or even a trip to the Dominican Republic. Back me up. Chip in. Become part of my team. Spread the word! The best part is that along with your donation, you get to pick a cool reward: Film DVD, film poster, vintage screenprinted T-shirt, original song, framed art, filmmaking lessons, industry credit, or even a trip to the Dominican Republic. Back me up. Chip in. Become part of my team. Spread the word!

http://kck.st/hVso07

As part of my kickstarter campaign for Sumos Buzos I wanted to share with you some crazy photos from my time filming in Santiago. Starting today.

Right now.

Today’s photo is from a part of the dump that is semi-sorted–I jumped in to try to get a good shot but was covered up to my chest in plastic bottles. It’s an ironic name for the pile of garbage because “semi-sorted” makes it sound like there’s some level of sanity going on here–nope. Just chaos and grime. Nothing about it is “sorted” in terms of the bigger picture of the environmental and human impact. Not sorted at all.

Wow. Who knew that fundraising was so hard? I mean, I knew. I did. Now I know more.

I just got one mantra: for the buzos. For the buzos. For the buzos.

Here’s some more behind the scenes!!!!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/izaca/100-fires-living-from-a-landfill

For those of you who are not new, major things have been happening since last I wrote. In terms of travel, I went to Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Qatar, Dubai, and Kazakhstan. In retrospect this sounds crazy, but it wasn’t.

Most recently – the rest can bubble up to the surface when appropriate – I went to Kazakhstan to do some ethnographic work for an educational company. Kazakhstan blew me away – talk about undiscovered. It’s the 9th largest country in the world, larger than Western Europe!, and almost no ones knows about it beyond the asinine impressions of one movie (to remain unnamed). If I get a look of recognition it’s usually because they’re thinking of another ‘stan (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan…). “Stan,” actually, means, “land of.” Kazakh, means, “the free” so literally, Kazakhstan means “Land of the Free.”

It’s a wide, open expanse of steppes, my new personal definition for infinity. The south backs up to breathtakingly beautiful snow-capped mountains… the northwest has a canyon as big as our Grand Canyon, and in between… more steppe. I made a short video of my 6 days there (to be continued hopefully in a few months with much more in-depth research): http://www.izaca.com/films_6days.php
But I’ll pick up my stories from Kazakhstan in the next one. Back to Kickstarter here. For real.