Vassar alum calls for student participation in ambitious film

Judy Jarvis Senior Editor

Don’t feel sorry for Raul Gasteazoro ’04. Sure, he lives in an aging El Dorado mobile home, and yes, some of his burlap costumes are moldy because of a leak, and no doubt it’s supremely frustrating to be making a film on such a low budget. But this man’s got it all figured out.

Gasteazoro is fanatically intent on making his pseudo-kung fu epic film Black Pearl, no matter what. “You can’t relax, it’s the most insane urgency of your life...it’s become an obsessive-compulsive problem,” Gasteazoro said with a laugh. His girlfriend, seated across from him, nods.

Gasteazoro has chosen autumn at the Vassar Farm as the backdrop for about a quarter of Black Pearl, including a dug-out sweat lodge, lean-to’s, and other structures made of fallen branches and twine. Excelling at subtlety, no one (including Security) has noticed his sets, or at least no one has taken issue with them.

Parts of Black Pearl have already been shot in Panama, Puerto Rico, and nine United States National Parks in an effort to “do away with some context...we’re trying to go global with [shooting] because we’re doing global issues,” said Gasteazoro. And certainly aesthetics factor in: ”I want every vista of this film to be beautiful, visually compelling.” He is stationed at his alma mater for the next month to rouse Vassar students to participate in the digital film, especially in set-building and to play plebian extras in the elaborate culminating fight scene. Black Pearl is further connected to the College, as the Vassar Student Association awarded him $2,000 for equipment last year. The film is costing Gasteazoro between $15,000 and $20,000 to make, coming from small personal grants and his pocket.

But before you write off Gasteazoro’s action feature film as another manifestation of a tired and over-hyped genre, you should know that Gasteazoro has written the film not as an excuse for racy violence, but rather as an extended metaphor: “It takes place in a mythical realm all in reference to the social and political environment of the present,” he explained. The plebian characters, dressed in burlap kilts, feather necklaces, and rabbit fur represent the “five billion common people on the planet who are essentially just trying to get by.” The Huron are another breed of people that parallel affluent Americans: “They consider themselves to be of an elevated importance...They are protectors of the earth and keep peace between the plebian peoples.” They dress in white cotton and are decorated in bear hides, fox tails, and porcupine quill armbands.

Gasteazoro plays Ergo, one of the Huron elite who advises and teaches Kerupi in a vein similar to the Jedi Master training in Star Wars. Kerupi is played by Julian Perez, a Yale grad who Gasteazoro met his freshman year while Perez was visiting his sister at Vassar.

“He’s like a dolphin gymnast,” Gasteazoro said of Perez, who studied Capoeria in Argentina and is thus prepared for the multiple and acrobatic fight scenes. The film follows Kerupi on his advanced “scavenger hunt—his destined path is unfolding before him,” explained Gasteazoro.

Gasteazoro’s inspiration for Black Pearl began simply and deliberately. “Sophomore year I realized I wanted to make a movie...I went out to the woods [on the Vassar Farm] and built a camp and a sweat lodge.”

The next year he went abroad for a semester to New Zealand and went hiking for about eight hours a day alone; the movie came to him. “I feel like I channeled it in some cliché, New Age manner...I don’t feel like I wrote this script, I feel like it was sent to me.

Through the film’s format of metaphor, Gasteazoro is able to tackle a multitude of current issues like terrorism, war, and the need for awareness about the world’s depleting resources: “We don’t even know we’re coming upon the brink,” said Gasteazoro. Black Pearl warns that, without aggressive change, we will end up like the dream sequence towards the end of the film (which will be shot at Vassar) that tracks the last human alive. He is barely breathing, emaciated, has a cancerous tumor on his neck, and is trying to sustain himself on polluted air.

But why metaphor? Why not tackle the current issues in a more realistic way? Gasteazoro’s Assistant Director, Cinematographer, Editor, Co-Producer and hometown best friend Giovanni Messner explained, “People don’t really want to be told how to think, what the problems are. They don’t want to feel like there’s some lesson...forced upon them.” But entertainment value factors in as well: “You want to have a good time, take a few steps away from reality,” added Gasteazoro.

Gasteazoro and Messner began making films together in their junior year of high school in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2000, they went together to a summer film workshop at Oxford where they completed a 12-minute film, Romeo and Juliet. This year Messner’s Casualties was selected for the Paris International Film Festival, his Remote won third place in the Movie Gallery Student Video Competition, and he just completed a documentary titled Ghana Is In Africa. Gasteazoro’s Tell Tale Heart was chosen in 2001 for Rooftop Films Fest as well as the Home Grown Films Festival.

Though Gasteazoro came to Vassar to study film, he never took a film class at the College because he took issue with the structure of the major.

“You can’t get your hands on a camera until you’re a junior, which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s counter-productive...It was disheartening,” he said.

At Carlton College, Messner was shooting his freshmen year. Instead, Gasteazoro created his own independent major, Men’s Studies, with Colleen Cohen as his advisor and shot movies on the side.

“She definitely gave a lot of support,” said Gasteazoro. He also credited Mark Cladis, “a spiritual and open-minded professor” and Jamie Meltzer, his film department sponsor, who has been helping with editing labs and production questions, with encouraging his vision.

Though these professors are invaluable, Gasteazoro is also relying on Vassar students, needing 100 to 150 of them to play the role of revolting plebians fighting five Huron at Vassar Farm. “If you liked Braveheart...that’s what we’re doing. Come take part, put on some fuckin’ war paint. It’s gonna be fun.” Gasteazoro had only recruited about 40 students before October Break, about which he is incredulous, “It’s so easy! When do you get to be in a feature film?!”

One of Gasteazoro Vassar actors, Alice Sackey ‘05 who plays Baria, an important secondary character, echoes his sentiments. “I’m a film major and it’s always amazing to me to see people who have ambition in the film industry, specifically indepen t of major studios...it’s the easiest way to get involved...get a taste of production,” she said.

Screenwriter, Director, Producer, Costume Designer, Supporting Lead Actor of Black Pearl—essentially everything—Gasteazoro has had to put so much of himself into this effort that looking past the film into the future is difficult. “I’ve basically been making this film by myself for the last two years...It’s literally mind-numbing.”

Gasteazoro no doubt wants to make Black Pearl famous and use it as a catalyst for global awareness and change, but his goals for now are more immediate: “I just hope Vassar shows up.”