💥 Trainwreck Gloria Tesch / Sofia Nova - Author of the Maradonia series turned Republithot

[CyrusKissFanClub]

According to her definitely not self-authored IMDb bio, she was born in 1994, so she's 26 this year. Definitely not "One of the Worlds Youngest Novelist" anymore.

2022 - 1994 = 28

ETA: My bad. Stupid me responding to a 2-year-old post.

 

[For The Internet]

It's a movie based on a novel (unwillingly) written by a 13 year old girl that was then self-published by her father(a German minister involved in all kinds of strange activities regarding finances) and her Russian mother.
They then filmed the whole movie with mostly a shoestring budget (that apparently included not paying the actors etc.)
The whole thing was basically the quality of an essay at middle-school level with lots of padding and repetition made into a b-movie with atrocious acting and production value.
Her father tried to sell it to Hollywood but no one was biting and eventually a screener copy leaked(we've watched it here during movie-night years ago)
It's well worth a watch if you're into that sort of thing, although the star of this thread really is her father and his life of scams, including religious ones and exploiting a loophole that allowed them to stay rent-free in their Florida home for years before they could be evicted( I made a post about that somewhere in this thread).

Actually, it wasn't a shoestring budget. 10k is a shoestring budget. Gerry blew 800k on Maradonia's cinematic debut. It's not mega bucks but for an indie of this level of unprofessionalism it's an unprecedented, enormous budget. Kind of like how The Room had a budget of literally millions (around 8 is the estimate) and only had professional crew members working on it because they felt they needed to help the rich sped who BOUGHT the cameras instead of renting them from their business. Both productions look way cheaper than their actual budgets would suggest they should look.

Hell, Apollyon is literally wearing a Pinhead halloween costume. I just noticed that last time I watched it. Check it out for yourselves.

Think of Maradonia as a church play with an 800k budget. It's actually a fortune for what it is,

 

[Least Concern]

Think of Maradonia as a church play with an 800k budget. It's actually a fortune for what it is,

I don't know if I buy the 800k thing. Maybe the dad was just saying that for sympathy points. But if it were anywhere near that much, where would the money have come from? They apparently had no real wealth, their credit was probably shot after never making a mortgage payment for however many years, and I doubt they found any investors willing to drop that much money on an inexperienced team like that. None of the actors got paid, and neither did at least some of the staff. So if there were really $800k involved in the production of that thing, where did the money come from, and where did the money go to?

 

[January Cyst]

So if there were really $800k involved in the production of that thing, where did the money come from, and where did the money go to?

Gerry's pocket would be my guess.
The Maradonia thing and a lot of his businesses (including the charity that supposedly used donations to supply bibles and religious education to Chinese children) had more than a smell of money laundering operation to them.

 

[Kiwisee]

Out of all the things Gloria has produced over the years, this song isn’t too shabby; sounds like something that you’d get away with playing at a Tropical themed bar or restaurant.

I wonder what the backstory behind the video production is

Edit; I could’ve sworn there was a different version of the music video itself with some guy in it.

 

[Constellationzero]

Whatever happened to Kyle Kendrick, host of "Celebrity Soup"? He always served up the hottest dishes of hysteria.

I heard his job offers were just flying off the shelves like...nothing.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

Gerry's pocket would be my guess.
The Maradonia thing and a lot of his businesses (including the charity that supposedly used donations to supply bibles and religious education to Chinese children) had more than a smell of money laundering operation to them.

Considering that nobody who acted in the movie got paid for their work and a lot of the stock footage was free or from low cost places it's pretty obvious he pocketed a lot of it.

Or he just said it cost $800K and was trying to make it look like there was more there than there actually was. Problem is we don't really know and obviously Glo-Glo... I mean Sofia... isn't talking.

 

[For The Internet]

I don't know if I buy the 800k thing. Maybe the dad was just saying that for sympathy points. But if it were anywhere near that much, where would the money have come from? They apparently had no real wealth, their credit was probably shot after never making a mortgage payment for however many years, and I doubt they found any investors willing to drop that much money on an inexperienced team like that. None of the actors got paid, and neither did at least some of the staff. So if there were really $800k involved in the production of that thing, where did the money come from, and where did the money go to?

Gerry had a lot of grifts going on and they lived very, very comfortably for quite a long time. It all ended after his death for Gloria.

Without powerlevelling I used to be in the industry and have worked on indie films and you can see this had money behind it, especially when you realise nobody professional was working on it to make that money look like 10 times more than it is (which is why you see so many crazy low-budget films and never realise they had miniscule budgets). They didn't deign to spend money on craft services and actors, they spent it on filming in locations, getting aerial shots, hiring animals and their handlers, getting filming permission for locations, that kind of thing. Obviously they skimped on the costumes too, and the sets, but they paid someone to shoot it surprisingly well and edit it together with a decent level of professionalism. They paid someone to write songs just for the movie, quite a number of them. The person who got the copy of Maradonia that allowed us all to watch it talked extensively with Gerry and that was the ballpark he was given. I don't think Gerry was talking out of his ass about spending hundreds of thousands.

 

[Least Concern]

Without powerlevelling I used to be in the industry and have worked on indie films and you can see this had money behind it, especially when you realise nobody professional was working on it to make that money look like 10 times more than it is (which is why you see so many crazy low-budget films and never realise they had miniscule budgets). They didn't deign to spend money on craft services and actors, they spent it on filming in locations, getting aerial shots, hiring animals and their handlers, getting filming permission for locations, that kind of thing. Obviously they skimped on the costumes too, and the sets, but they paid someone to shoot it surprisingly well and edit it together with a decent level of professionalism. They paid someone to write songs just for the movie, quite a number of them. The person who got the copy of Maradonia that allowed us all to watch it talked extensively with Gerry and that was the ballpark he was given. I don't think Gerry was talking out of his ass about spending hundreds of thousands.

Okay, thanks for the insight, but again, there were two sides to this; if he really did spend all that money, then where did he get it in the first place? Do you think he had investors, or did he just somehow pull 800 grand of unsecured credit out of his ass?

 

[Constellationzero]

They paid someone to write songs just for the movie, quite a number of them.

Huh?????

Mara DONIAAAAAAAAAAAA Mara DONIAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is not "quite a number of them." Hell, that wasn't even one entire song. Russell Greer has written more complete songs. I watched the whole screener myself and I never heard this "number of songs."

 

[Kiwisee]

An interview with the guy who played King Apollyon in the movie.

 

[For The Internet]

Okay, thanks for the insight, but again, there were two sides to this; if he really did spend all that money, then where did he get it in the first place? Do you think he had investors, or did he just somehow pull 800 grand of unsecured credit out of his ass?

I think he liquidated assets and it came from his personal wealth. As I mentioned they lived to a pretty high standard at around that time, but it seems like after Maradonia they downsized and then he died and they were left with basically nothing. Just speculation, but I think judging from the way he was shopping the film around he put every cent he had into it because he really thought he had the next big thing. I'm just guessing, though.

Huh?????

Mara DONIAAAAAAAAAAAA Mara DONIAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Is not "quite a number of them." Hell, that wasn't even one entire song. Russell Greer has written more complete songs. I watched the whole screener myself and I never heard this "number of songs."

Actually, it's more than just the one stupid Maradonia song. The credits song, for example, is an original song written for the movie and if you actually read the credits you see there were multiple people working on music for the film. They also made liberal use of free sounds to loop, but they did in fact hire a professional to write music for the movie and professionals to play and sing. Unfortunately the credits are awfully done so they don't list the name of each song and who wrote/performed it (strangely they DO list the credits song and the singer at the beginning of the credits but not later on when they have all the music credits, although even they aren't all together in the one spot) but they had two different vocal artists and a composer. Not all of the original score has singing in it, some songs are just instrumental. You can kind of hear he difference between the stock music and the original music, if you're a music-type person.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PAgDlfN5KuE
An interview with the guy who played King Apollyon in the movie.

He's been in other movies? This guy who can't act has been in other movies?

Glo-Glo really was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to hiring "actors" for her magnum opus.

 

[Kiwisee]

He's been in other movies? This guy who can't act has been in other movies?

Glo-Glo really was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to hiring "actors" for her magnum opus.

I think the actor who played Joey also had other roles according to IMBD

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

I think the actor who played Joey also had other roles according to IMBD

Glo-Glo has more than one role according to IMDB. The difference is the guy playing Joey wasn't objectively bad. He wasn't very good but at least he could act and was giving some kind of emotion to his work. Glo-Glo couldn't and had no business playing the lead character which is funny considering it's obviously an author avatar.

But the guy playing King Apollyon was just bad. He couldn't give a convincing performance as the evil king. It just came off as being lame.

But then most of the people in it were non-actors and it shows. You can't have a scene this bad otherwise:

 

[For The Internet]

Glo-Glo has more than one role according to IMDB. The difference is the guy playing Joey wasn't objectively bad. He wasn't very good but at least he could act and was giving some kind of emotion to his work. Glo-Glo couldn't and had no business playing the lead character which is funny considering it's obviously an author avatar.

But the guy playing King Apollyon was just bad. He couldn't give a convincing performance as the evil king. It just came off as being lame.

But then most of the people in it were non-actors and it shows. You can't have a scene this bad otherwise:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=EoDU-7aI-qo

Legit went to school with a girl who thought this was ACTING and it's how she attacked every line. She tried to get into an agency but nobody would take her. I heard she got 100% for her grade in Drama at the end of year 12 and I really did a hard think over how that must have happened.

It's what would charitably (and politely) be 'acting for the back rows' If the people who weren't just church randos and had "experience" (ie high school drama) they might not realise that there's a completely different style of performance for stage actors and camera actors.


I only did one minor professional theatre thing, but I did a fair bit of camera work and it's all about internalising your feelings. You emote with your eyes, with the angle of your mouth, with a small furrowing of your brow. A little goes a long way on camera.

On stage, you have to act big so everyone can hear you, see you, and understand how you're feeling. So, stage work is about externalising everything. Dramatic faces, sweeping body language, projected voices. It takes so much talent to externalise without being over the top, and to act on both a micro and macro level. It's why I admire broadway actrors above all others.

Usually amateurs have had no real professional training to speak of, and if they have it's often not the best quality. They don't know that performing like that is for church plays, not for movies. They've probably only ever done stage work before, if anything, so they would have no idea how much you have to dial it back for film.


IDK. Can't really blame them for doing their best with a director who has no experience with actors.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

Legit went to school with a girl who thought this was ACTING and it's how she attacked every line. She tried to get into an agency but nobody would take her. I heard she got 100% for her grade in Drama at the end of year 12 and I really did a hard think over how that must have happened.

It's what would charitably (and politely) be 'acting for the back rows' If the people who weren't just church randos and had "experience" (ie high school drama) they might not realise that there's a completely different style of performance for stage actors and camera actors.


I only did one minor professional theatre thing, but I did a fair bit of camera work and it's all about internalising your feelings. You emote with your eyes, with the angle of your mouth, with a small furrowing of your brow. A little goes a long way on camera.

On stage, you have to act big so everyone can hear you, see you, and understand how you're feeling. So, stage work is about externalising everything. Dramatic faces, sweeping body language, projected voices. It takes so much talent to externalise without being over the top, and to act on both a micro and macro level. It's why I admire broadway actrors above all others.

Usually amateurs have had no real professional training to speak of, and if they have it's often not the best quality. They don't know that performing like that is for church plays, not for movies. They've probably only ever done stage work before, if anything, so they would have no idea how much you have to dial it back for film.


IDK. Can't really blame them for doing their best with a director who has no experience with actors.

There's a difference between stage acting and film acting I don't think anybody will argue that. Stage acting is all about big, grand gestures that can be seen / heard from the back row. It's big and grand and over the top. Take a look at any movie made pre-1960 and you'll see that kind of acting all over the place. Film acting is much more reserved but, as you say, you need to tone it down while not necessarily burying it. You can always tell a theater actor who does film because there's these little bits they add to their character that make them a little more real. It's also why TV actors tend to be lousy movie actors. They're acting in a way different than the way the medium demands they act.

That clip I posted could work.... kinda... in a community theater production. Sure the main villain is chewing the scenery and hamming it up but to have a director who took a look at it and said, "yeah, that's a good take" means that they were either too far out of their depth or they just didn't care. And since a lot of people didn't get paid I think it's more of the latter.

But yeah. That kind of acting on film? It doesn't fly.

 

[Kiwisee]

Fredrick Knudsen and Jabroni Mike riffed Maradonia a couple of years ago; they made the movie more bearable

 

[Very Honest Content]

https://youtube.com/watch?v=PAgDlfN5KuE
An interview with the guy who played King Apollyon in the movie.

Slightly off topic, but Gustavo Perez made his own independent movie that is cringey just like Gloria's but actually better too, on the shitty low budget movie scale. Light of Blood at least has entertaining moments in it.

He's been in other movies? This guy who can't act has been in other movies?

Glo-Glo really was scraping the bottom of the barrel when it came to hiring "actors" for her magnum opus.

7.4(!)/10 on IMDB. They can't possibly be wrong can they? Of course not.

Anyway, apparently D&D night is the theme for kiwifarms movie night coming up and Maradonia will be on the d20 roll table, near the bottom of course, to punish attendees if someone rolls a bad number for the next film, it has stunk up one of these themed events before in the past too, so you might want to attend and press your luck against this lolcow's magnum opus of horrible.

 

[Phil Ken Sebben]

7.4(!)/10 on IMDB. They can't possibly be wrong can they? Of course not.

Out of a whole 7 ratings they got 7.4. In other words some of the people involved must have tried to bump up the score.

Anyway, apparently D&D night is the theme for kiwifarms movie night coming up and Maradonia will be on the d20 roll table, near the bottom of course, to punish attendees if someone rolls a bad number for the next film, it has stunk up one of these themed events before in the past too, so you might want to attend and press your luck against this lolcow's magnum opus of horrible.

I actually have a copy of the Maradonia movie somewhere on my system. When it hit youtube I immediately grabbed a copy because I knew it wasn't going to last up there very long. But if this crappy werewolf movie is in the running then maybe I'll check it out. I'm always down for a bad movie.