LOST MEMORIES - 10.10.2020

What if a storm were to just erase everything from your life? A futuristic film set in Paris...10.10.2020 
Directed by Francois Ferracci with Luka Kellou & Magali Heu

TIME OF MY LIFE

My BIG 10

I had the privilege to be greeted by Big Ben right in the first second of 101010 ...
It was a special moment because I arrived there exactly when the famous chimes have started to ring out across London.
For me it was like the New Year's Eve ...so Happy New 10 everybody ! Make it BIG TEN :)

LONDON , my stranger friend

'A stranger is a friend you haven't yet met'.



(full screen, pls)

The powers of 10

In 1977, Charles and Ray Eames made a nine-minute film called Powers of Ten that still has the capacity to expand the way we think and view our world. Over ten million people have seen the film, and it continues to be shown in classrooms, business meetings, festivals and retreats around the world. Starting with a sleeping man at a picnic, the film takes the viewer on a journey out to the edge of space and then back into a carbon atom in the hand of the man at the picnic, all in a single shot. It is an unforgettable experience.

Fantastic trip

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Making life decisions with the power of ten

During the split second when you hit the snooze button in the morning, a couple of competing thoughts may flit through your mind: first, it would be a good idea to get up now and push on with the day; second, to hell with it, I'm going to sleep for a few more minutes.

Buried in that larger decision are all kinds of micro-decisions that dictate the kind of person you are.

Are you the sort who can haul yourself off for a run each morning? Or someone who has been putting off a fitness routine for years?

Are you the kind who biffs out a novel for a couple of hours each morning, or one who just talks and hopes that eventually the time will magically open up to pursue a creative endeavour? Do you accept that extra glass of wine so as to enjoy the moment, or refuse it because it will impair your mind tomorrow morning?

The extent to which an individual moderates short-term pleasures in favour of long-term health and prosperity is the subject of a new book by Suzy Welch, a business writer married to Jack Welch, former chief executive of General Electric.

The title of her book, 10-10-10, refers to the framework by which Welch suggests we make decisions.

As you decide, consider what the consequences will be in 10 minutes, 10 months and 10 years. Hitting the snooze button and skipping the run may be good for the next 10 minutes, but not in 10 years as your health declines.

Spending time with your children may come second to work for now but how will you feel in 10 years' time? Might you want that time back?
Read more : http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23688586-making-life-decisions-with-the-power-of-ten.do

From Making life decisions with the power of ten by Philip Delves Broughton
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/ May 2009

Andreea Perminov, my second story

I met Andreea in 2003 during the casting for the The Fall. I didn’t pay much attention to her because she was an extremely shy kid, and had little in common with the character I was casting for. But her beauty did strike me, and I decided to keep her in mind for other projects. Meanwhile, she was selected to do a few commercials, and TV shows, but nothing special.

In fact, the persons who “discovered’ her were Laura, my colleague and Oltin, the photographer who captured her essence in the snapshots. In the beginning of 2006, after her photo shoot, Oltin requested another session with Andreea, ASAP. The result – general shock. I don’t think I had ever seen such a unique, such a sophisticated look. Pictures say a lot about the potential of a future character, but, surely enough, Andreea’s pictures were a character in themselves.

A friend of mine contemplated her picture and resolved that her eyes come from somewhere. He was right…. Andreea’s family history is quite peculiar. Her grandfather on her father’s side, Victor Perminov, a reputable physician and scholar, comes from an ancient military, and aristocratic, Russian family, reputed to have been among the founders of the city Perm during the reign of Peter the Great. Victor’s wife – a scientist and mathematician – has German origins, and comes from a well-known intellectual family. She is the granddaughter of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the former German foreign affairs minister, one of the architects of the German reunification. On her mother’s side, Andreea completes her genetic bloodline with the legacy of a typical Romanian family, natives for generations of the village Rasusceni, in Giurgiu County.

In the beginning, Andreea was almost alarmingly shy and detached. The only thing she liked to converse about was shopping, whereby some people’s conclusion that her “simplicity” alluded more to a modeling career, rather than acting. And yet, Andreea finished 6th grade as the top student in her school. That she is extremely intelligent, you can tell by just looking into her eyes.

Aware of her refined beauty and intelligence, she can become very manipulative in close circles; she is one who always gets her way. But her attributes do more than make her conspicuous; she has that je ne sais quoi that makes her extremely intriguing.

She is highly sensitive, but she has developed numerous ways of hiding it. Thus, she can manufacture quite a devious persona, acting downright impervious, cold, distant, and even arrogant, but that is just a form of camouflaging her emotions, to protect her delicate nature.

She has a fantastic potential, and can can seduce anyone on the spot. Joel Schumacher, who discovered giants like Collin Farewell, Julia Roberts, Kiefer Shuterland, gave her first role in a Hollywood movie. Schumacher is one man who thinks Hollywood spells a great future for Andreea. When Schumacher first saw her picture, he stared at it for a full half hour. The video session that Andreea had recorded set her aside as completely unique and unexampled, and granted her the part in Town Creek on the spot. In fact, Schumacher didn’t ask for anybody else to come in to audition. She makes a very good role in Town Creek as a girl who rescues her family, metamorphosing from the victim that she was at the beginning of the movie.



In 2007, she was distributed in the Clown by Marco Valerio Pugini, producer of The Sopranos, Angels in America, Rome. She did a very complicated role as a homeless girl who dies at the end of the movie. Her interpretation was so amazing that she was compared to Charlize Theron in Monster. One thing that moved even the director was that she wanted to immerse herself into the life of the homeless child she was portraying on film. She often went into the dark alleys, and smelly sewers, squatting down on her feet, and talking to these unfortunate children, touching their pain and anguish. She was never satisfied with what she imagined a homeless one would feel, think, and bear, but she wanted to know the reality of their lives. She endured the cold, the stench, and dreadful privations of these children as she got deeper into their underground world. One would almost never suspect this strong human dimension in such an exquisitely beautiful girl.

Andreea is not a conscious actor, she is a believer. She not “schooled” in acting; all that she has to give in front of the camera comes naturally from the inside, from a deep understanding of hers of the character she interprets. She is genuine, and real. I have a strong conviction that she is a special talent able to take on the most difficult roles. There is an aura about her, and she explodes in light. Andreea Perminov is a natural born star.

Catinca, Lula and The Magic

This year in february, I received a request for Catinca from Lula Magazine, a poetic and somehow cinematic fashion magazine. Later in the summer, one day, one photographer from New York wrote me an email telling me that he is assigned by Lula to do the fashion editorial with Catinca. From his emails he seemed to be a very kind and warm person. I met him in the airport and I knew from the very first time that he has wings.

His name is Martin Sanmiguel and here is a glimpse from our magical journey in Bucharest and Sighisoara.










Today I checked some statistics about Catinca on Twitter. From Twitter a link has challenged me to search more. Then the algorithm of Google has brought me a lost story. It was Catinca's blog on Myspace and a post that she made on September 2008, 6 months before Lula's request. I was stunned. Her powerful subconscious has predicted almost perfect her story from Lula Magazine. Only a pure soul can create this kind of magic.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendId=408712038


Wednesday, September 03, 2008

sasha and the town

She has big blue eyes. long dark hair in two pony tails. She is wearing a beautiful girl dress and I always see her in a field with tall grass and multicolor flowers which smell exactly the same as the flowers on the field where I have rode beautiful Luck at Sighisoara.
She is named Lula and she is 5, maybe 6 years old. I see her calm, I look at her in the eyes and I saw she is sad. I thought she was always happy, so then I saw her big blue and sad eyes I refused to believe that Lula is somehow unhappy." I am just dreaming "I said to myself. Lula always laughs, about everything. I've never saw her sad. I went to her and asked her what happend, why is she sad." Leave me alone Sasha!" She said. After that I realized that Lula was the child inside of me and that she needed all my affection. From then I always remembered about the child inside me and accorded him a lot of attention every day.-story by Sasha (a girl who published her story in a magazine)

Catinca Untaru, my first story

My first words about Catinca written on myspace blog one year later

I have never written about Catinca, but I spoke of her a million times. Catinca comes from a fairytale. I often look at her and and have the feeling that she is surreal. She inspires me to believe she is an elf.

Catinca is the resort that set things in motion with my project, 10. She has special powers that she is not aware of yet. I have always known that she would bring something special in my life and in the lives of those around her.

It happened while I was doing the casting for The Fall. It was a fortunate coincidence that I got to do a casting at her kindergarten and the principal recommended her insistently. I agreed to see her, even though she was older than what we were looking for. Our first meeting was incredible! I was casting in a kindergarten classroom, where all furniture was very small sized; I felt like Gulliver in the land of the dwarfs. When she came in, she sat in a little chair in front of me and gave me a photo album with pictures from when she was a baby. For minutes, I wasn't able to ask her anything because I was somewhat hindered by her reaction. She looked at me, curious, shy, unbelievably attentive… I was absolutely struck with her gaze that I could feel burning on me, and I was too embarrassed to lift up my eyes to her, as if I had just entered a forbidden world of the elves where the roles of investigation were inverted irrevocably. She was dainty, and ethereal, but I was looking for someone else – a small, thin, dusky little girl, with big, dark eyes. We had a simple discussion, and it was enough, because her state was so special that I needed no confirmation of her intelligence or acting talent. I decided to call her for an audition, well knowing that directors can change their minds about the outer appearance of their characters.

We saw each other again at the beginning of December 2003, after she had passed the first selection. At the first video session she came with her grandfather. I remember I had just read a book about Nadia Comaneci by Ioan Chirila, where Bela Karoly, Nadia's coach, said that a very important tool for him for selecting gymnasts was observing their parents. If the parents were not corresponding physically and empathetically, he would refuse the young gymnasts, as talented as they had been. I often applied this method, including in the case of Catinca. Her grandfather looked like a fairytale grandfather, like a character from the interwar period in Bucharest that I could almost see standing in the doorway of a candy store, surrounded by hordes of children, smiling, affable, and generous.

We saw many children that day, but the image of Catinca with her grandfather were by far the most special to our minds. This association served to bring even more focus on her little figure, and the audition strengthened the conviction that she was perfect for the part. I realized that it was not at all acting with her, that she was merely playing, with the most heartwarming candor. Watching Catinca, so genuine and pure, so innocent and powerful, I remembered just how incredible childhood is. I could write volumes on this subject! I think, when I have the time, I will.

Evidently, the long series of casting calls ended with her as the absolute winner. She had competed with children from around the world, and her success was on the emotional level rather than the more rational questioning. We were wondering how she was going to hold up during filming (3 months long, on 3 continents.) We discovered she has a fantastic strength, that she is extremely resilient and very serious. Almost like an adult. Catinca has the mindset of a director rather than an actor. During filming, she would spend time analyzing what was going in every shot, then she would build her own frames, and use her ebullient imagination to conceive small scenes inspired by what was going on on the set and the discussions of the adults…

Catinca was raised in the fairytale world. Her grandfather confessed that he must have read a thousand stories to her growing up, and that she never grew tired of them, and of stepping into that otherly world. She learned English from a flight attendant who kept her attention vivid to a story about her air travels, about how she would borrow the accent from every country she visited. It's quite a smart story that became hilarious during the filming of The Fall, because Catinca would "steal" the accents of the country she visited. The director ended up having to redo all of Catinca's lines in the film, because her accent changed from country to country.

Catinca is a total fairytale addict, without even suspecting anything unreal about them. She is both happy, and sad, laughing and crying when she goes deep into the story. Her sensitivity is extraordinary. Probably this sensitivity is her key to the imaginary and the supernatural. I think she inherited it from her mother, with whom she has a wonderful relationship. For Catinca, the greatest joy is being cast in The Fall and set on a marvelous journey with her mother. Many times I felt like they were more like sisters or the best of friends than mother and daughter.

When she wants to, she can be extremely funny. The trick is for her to feel comfortable and safe. She can make you fall down from the chair laughing. She is very self-reflective and honest. I remember that she loved listening to Tarsem tell the story of how she was first perceived on the movie set. The entire team was expecting to see a skinny, woebegone little girl, but to the amazement of many, this fluffy little girl shows up, striding around like an elephant shouting, "A butterfly! A butterfly!..." She laughs with thunders when she hears this story.

Catinca is a very special child. She is not a mere child actor or a child star. She is entirely a fairytale


Here is her first headshot