In the time since my last musings, much has happened.
On February 2 I became a very, very proud aunt of Dylan. Much family time ensued. Here are a few pictures:

Currently, I am in the midst of working on and wrapping up:
1. Universal Digital Library documentary for Carnegie Mellon University
2. Nobel Science Laureate Conclave for IIIT-A University in Allahabad, India
3. Dominican Republic documentary “100 Fires: Living in a Landfill”

Because the above mentioned projects are all-consuming, I hired an editor named Seth Wood to finish two shorts for me that I’ve been meaning to get on the table for a while. I believe many of you will enjoy one or both of these:

1. Water Warriors, featuring spoken word artist Will Copeland.
Will delivers a kick-ass poem he wrote about the privatization of water in our communities.
http://www.izaca.com/film_warriors.htm

2. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 2, featuring four fantastic performers
who offer a modern dance rendition of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
http://www.izaca.com/film_shakespeare.htm

***AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST***
A new trailer on the new film website www.100FiresFilm.com

That’s it. Let me know how y’all like everything, and how you’re doing if you have time to update me.
Abrazos
Isabelle

The Eve of Inauguration – Jan 19, 2009

Through a friend of a friend of a friend, I got lucky and stayed some blocks behind the US Capitol building the night before the presidential inauguration. The roads had already been closed down, there were groups of young army boys on the street corners, sirens were going off at strange intervals, and the city was definitely bursting with an undercurrent of electrical energy. For those of you who were there, you know the feeling I am talking about. The anticipation was tremendous.

The Day-Of Jan 20, 2009

A normal 30 minute walk to the mall the morning-of took close to three hours. Throngs of people were swarming down closed city streets. We even had to walk down into the 395 highway tunnel to be able to correctly make the detour, treading where no non-suicidal man had dared to tread for a decade. Vendors covered in pins and buttons were selling their wares at every corner, as well as Obama themed gloves, scarves, t-shirts, sweatshirts, etc. I kept thinking, forget this souvenir stuff, I’m about to see the real guy and make a real souvenir.

My unticketed hands hiked to the back of the mall, in front of the Washington Monument. A jumbotron TV allowed us to see the proceedings, making my experience a mix of both worlds. I was there, lost in the crowd, standing on the mall, yet getting the up close and personal camerawork of the events on TV.

I was startled by the diversity of the crowd: young, old, man, woman, and every race and ethnicity I could guess and more. There were  no protestors, anywhere, only people climbing in trees, on top of snack stands, on top of port-a-potty’s. So this is what 2 million people feels like, I thought.

The jumbotron TV fed us images -  Cheney rolls by, Bush gets unanimously booed, and the Obamas are cheered one by one as they come out into the stands. Barack finally takes the stage and delivers as 17 minute speech chock full of eloquence, in which the  tone is serious, no-nonsense, somber and yet committed to change.

Yes.

This is our president. My president.

BARACK OBAMA.

Enjoy the pictures. And for those of you out there who are not pro-Obama, I respect that too, and let’s stay friends. ?

Not long ago, I got an email from a friend telling me that “I’d been quiet for too long.” There are many reasons for this. But things have changed. Quiet I will be no longer. Here are some updates, some may be more exciting than others:

1.    THE DR: The background hum of my work has been the Dominican Republic documentary, something which I am still working on. Obviously, my trip in August upset quite a few assumptions I had made about certain characters I had thought I had previously understood. I’m rebalancing, translating, editing. I set deadlines, but then opportunities come up, such as…

2.    TATTOOS: I have written a book proposal, and designed a mock-up for a photography book I’d like to publish, called A Canvas of Flesh: The Untold Tales Behind Tattoos. It is a first-hand documentary account of the reasons and personal stories people have behind their tattoos – instead of focusing on the art alone. Pretty fascinating stuff. The stories I’ve collected are wild. Stuff like: one 28-year-old Detroit native with metal caps on his teeth bares his forearm to me and reveals some black patches. It looks like a botched tattoo. The he tells me they are footprints of his dead baby twins. I’m submitting to agents right now to see who’s interested. Next up, straight to the publishers.

3.    INDIA/QATAR: The last, but definitely not the least, is that I’m on my way to India and Qatar. I’m doing a promotional documentary for the Universal Digital Library, a project and organization based out of Carnegie Mellon University. They are flying me out to India for their annual conference on the issues and breakthroughs of digitizing books, and then I’m going to Qatar to film the documentary at the Heritage Library. I’ve got pages more to explain, so I’ll keep it short and vague today and expound on the upcoming blog posts.

Please send me your address if you’d like a personal postcard!

I’ll have pictures posted as I go along, and I’ll always provide links to my blog. If you have any comments/questions, you can either post them on the blog or email me. I love to hear from you, so don’t hesitate.

Finally: IF ANYONE HAS ANY SORT OF CONNECTION OR KNOWS A BOOK AGENT OR PUBLISHER PLEASE PASS ME THE INFORMATION!!!

All my love
Isabelle

I have several projects going on right now, in different stages of planning/starting/finishing -

1. *** Finishing the DR “100 Fires: Living from a Landfill” documentary ***

2. Starting Drew De Four’s “music on the road” documentary

3. Finishing the screenplay for the movie “Confession”, featuring argentine tango.

4. Researching for the “Plastics” documentary. I’m collecting material for this, and hope to write up a treatment by the end of the summer/fall so I can get funding secured by next summer.

Other than those 4 main projects, I have a few smaller ones that need polishing… Polynesian Dancers short, Will Copeland short, Vietnam> the 4th poem, Iraq Veterans short.

Time – the most precious commodity. I often have wished I could create time, as if it was some kind of substance that could be made, pulled, stretched… elastic as it is even in its regularity (some hours pass in minutes, some minutes stretch on as hours), I wish I could mold it. As it is, I live intensely and productively. I could wish for nothing more.

Abrazos

Isabelle

The Obama ad actually scored the 91st percentile, out of 1100 ads that were submitted. Top tier. Not bad. I’m still hoping to submit the ad directly to the campaign so all my work can still get used.

Hey New Yorkers,

A redux version of my film “Mexico: Chasing the American Dream” is being shown at the New Filmmakers Latino Anthology Screening tomorrow night (wednesday May 7) at 6pm, at 32 Second Avenue @ 2nd Street (at a theater called Anthology Film Archives). See below.

I’d love to see all your faces and reconnect… and I’m still hunting for a one night stay on a couch

Much love,
Isabelle

Update: have scored a place to stay. Thanks for the offers!

NEWFILMMAKERS is America’s National Screening Series.
NEWFILMMAKERS NY screens Weekly at Anthology Film Archives, one of the leading theaters in New York City, located at 32 Second Avenue @ 2nd Street.

Admission for the entire evening in New York and in Los Angeles is still only $5.

MAY 7TH
NewFilmmakers & NewLatino Filmmakers
Edwin Pagan, Series Director / Curator

6:00PM DOCUMENTARIES

THE GUARANI MBYA NOMADS OF THE ATLANTIC RAINFOREST
Marcia/Norbert Gomes deOliveira Suchanek, Writer, Directors

MEXICO: CHASING THE AMERICAN DREAM
Isabelle Carbonell, Director, Producer

SHIKASHIKA
Stephen Hyde, Director

7:00PM SHORT FILMS

RED PRINCESS BLUES: THE ANIMATED PREQUEL
Alex Ferrari, Creator, Writer, Director / Dean Cregan, Director, Producer

COOKIE
Francisco Ordonez, Writer, Director

OUTLOOK
Derek Velez Partridge, Writer – Director

8:00PM FIRST FEATURE

BUSCANDO A MIGUEL
Juan Fisher, Writer, Director
Miguel is a young Colombian politician blinded by his own privilege. Victim of a violent attack, he loses his memory and finds himself living in a very different world, a world inhabited precisely by the kind of people he had once.

9:45PM SECOND FEATURE

SALSA LESSONS
Antonio de la Cruz, Director
Two people meet by chance in New York City. Pedro is a salsa instructor and Rosa wants to learn how to dance.

Way to go Convergence magazine for publishing an awesome zine last month full of great poetry and my perhaps most obscure non-mainstream, non-photojournalism, non-eye-candy work. All photos shown in the zine are taken by yours truly. Sometimes magazines will email me and ask if they can use my photography. I always tell them to pick through my site as it’s usually a pretty good bet they’ll find what they’re looking to publish. It can be quite a surprise what they decide to pick sometimes. I’m pleased that this kind of work is getting out there – makes you feel like you don’t always have to sensationalize everything. Check out the zine here.