Why Jerez de la Frontera?

Here we are in southern Spain, in the city of Jerez de la Frontera, shooting a short independent film called "Domino:  caught in the crisis," and having fun doing it.

Octagonal tower in the Alcazar, the moorish fortress in Jerez.

Ok, so there's plenty of crisis in southern Spain...I'm referring here to the economic crisis.  But there's also plenty of crisis in California, where I live when I'm not in Spain.  So why am I shooting here?

A casualty of the economic crisis.

Well, the idea came to me here.  The setting that came into my head when I visualized it was the setting I see here.  And elements of the crisis here are more exaggerated here than in California.  Exaggeration (when based on reality) is good for dramatic impact.  So Spain it is.

One of the elements that makes this story perfect for Jerez is the importance in Spanish culture of large weddings.  (One subplot of the story line has to do with the upcoming wedding of our hero's second son.)  Some of the settings that seemed perfect are the traditional local bars here.  (A bar is southern Spain is more like a café in California--NOT a place for heavy drinking and NOT reserved for men sitting at the counter, staring into their glasses of whiskey.)

Some crew members having a well-deserved lunch break in a local bar.

Another excellent reason for shooting here is I have good friends here who are great actors.  And dominoes (remember the "domino effect") is something that a lot of people play here in the bars.

Bottom line:  here we are in Jerez, shooting a short independent film called "Domino:  caught in the crisis."  And having fun doing. it.

NEXT BLOG:  Part 1 of  an interview with our lead actor.

Public greed, public corruption and the crisis--part 2

[This is the second in a two part series.]

So what is the connection between public greed, public corruption and "Domino?"  And what is their connection with the crisis?

To begin with without public greed, public corruption and the misappropriation of funds, we'd have much less of a crisis, and "Domino's" hero would surely have a job.

Why do I say that?  To start off with, back in the "real" world, imagine that all those millions that have disappeared--and here, I'm referring not only to the millions that vanished from the Ciudad de Flamenco project, but the other millions that we can guess have disappeared from other large projects--imagine that they did not vanish, but instead were used for their intended purpose.

Next, imagine that those bloated salaries were brought down to a more reasonable level.  Imagine that public functionaries knew how to do their jobs.

Let's even imagine that political leaders decided not to engage in nepotism and that only those people were hired who were actually needed to run the city (or the region, or the country, or whatever).

Nepotism?  A former mayor had a brother-in-law who raised palm trees.

Well, I think we'd see a huge savings.  I think we'd see much less public debt.  (Public debt for the city of Jerez de la Frontera is now running at more than 6 million Euros, according to the newspapers--and that is a substantial chunk of cash.)

And with those savings, just imagine where we'd be.   Not only would the city not be in debt but...

A news article recently reported that 790 FAMILIES would no longer be getting public assistance.  These are families where no one is able to get a job.  They're victims of the high unemployment level (which runs between 22% and 50%, depending on the source you use).

That number of FAMILIES, here in a country in which divorce is very uncommon and the typical family has between 2 and 6 kids, means around 4,000 and 6,000 PEOPLE. With the savings realized by magically eliminating public greed, surely those people would get their public assistance.  The family head(s) might even be able to get a job and move OFF of public assistance.

The unfortunate Ciudad de Flamenco would probably still be under construction.

The Teatro Villamarta--the main theater of Jerez de la Frontera

The city would be paying its bills.  Right now, the city is in arrears on paying for garbage collection, paying for the electricity for street lights, and paying the artists who put on productions in the city's main theater.  That theater hosts the opera and other major public performances.  It also hosts the annual, world-famous  International Flamenco Festival which brings the city many, many millions of Euros from tourists.

In a word, if we used our magic wand and eliminated public greed, we'd be awfully near utopia.

NEXT POST:  Why Jerez de la Frontera?

Public greed, public corruption and the crisis--part 1

This will be a blog post about the public kind of greed, which leads to public corruption and is one of the major elements that led to the current economic crisis and helped inspire me to make "Domino:  caught in the economic crisis."  Other than providing some of the inspiration,  what, you may ask, does public greed have to do with "Domino?"  I´ll answer THAT question in the NEXT blog.

Since I´m in Jerez de la Frontera, I´ll focus on public greed right here at my doorstep, but in the back of my mind is the public greed I saw growing up in New Orleans;  the public greed in places like Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Washington, D.C. that used to make national headlines;  and in India, Mexico, Egypt, Japan....

In Jerez, I can see something out of my front window that is called the "Ciudad de Flamenco," or "City of Flamenco."  It is a construction project which is supposed to result in a major facility including theater, space for classes, etc.--a BIG theater, etc.  It has been in the works for years.

The Ciudad de Flamenco--the contractors recently left the site.

The city, the Spanish national government, and I believe even the European Union have contributed funds.  But a recent newspaper article revealed that of the 3 million Euros the city had for the project, 2.7 million Euros had disappeared before construction began.  Now, it didn't simply walk away.  It has to be in someone's pocket.

In the meantime, after four years of "being under construction,"  what we have is a massive concrete base covered by a fair amount of dirt.  And that's it.  So far.  (Since the building design is one I find to be extremely ugly and I think the entire project is ill-conceived, this may not be a totally bad thing, but WHERE are those millions?)

Local newspapers also reported, last year, that the salary for the mayor here (at least up until the last election) as well as for a large number of city department heads is greater than the salary for the director of the entire geographic region (Andalucia).  The region consists of many, many cities plus agricultural regions in between--surely more work.

Jerez' city hall

And many city departments are headed by people who have no background--and often no interest--in the work of the department they direct.  Excuse me, but this is also a form of greed...to be willing to be paid large sums of money to do something for which you are not qualified and in which you may also have absolutely no interest.

NEXT POST:  Public greed and...the Teatro Villamarta, the city's bills, even palm trees.  (Palm trees?  Sure.  Palm trees.)

P.S.  Check out the photos at the bottom of this post!

We were planning to wait until early August

We had planned to wait until early August 2011 to start this blog.  One reason is that we need our web master-design person to come back from vacation and change the banner.  (We want a photo of the lead actor in the banner, instead of a photo of the director.)

The other reason is so we could finish principal photography and get a jump start on some good articles with cool photos.

Well, we finished principal photography, although because the director (yours truly) doesn't like one set of scenes, we have one more half day of shooting to do very soon.

In the meantime, what the hey, let's go ahead and start this blog.

Our next two blogs will be about public greed.  Then, we'll interview some of the actors, and so on.

Don;t forget the neat photos down at the bottom of this.