In casting the feature, Liebenberg and Sanchez toyed with the idea of finding new actors for the roles, but given the pilot had been so well received, they felt confident with the original cast: Caroline Néron as Elizabeth Kane, Conrad Pla as Raymond Pope and Victoria Sanchez as Irina.

By the time the pilot has been completed, both Liebenberg and Sanchez had developed an extensive shorthand with ach other that they relied on to make the feature length film they had envisioned. The key was Elizabeth and both directors felt secure in their choice of Caroline Néron. “We needed an actress who was very much in touch with her masculinity as well as her femininity. She needed to be powerful and predatory as well as charming and sweet. She could be the beauty and the beast…a master manipulator,” says Liebenberg. “There is the hint of Dracula here, but Elizabeth has no fangs, which keeps the story grounded in a believable reality.”

The key to Elizabeth's power was her ability to seduce her victims, her servant, Irina and ultimately, Raymond Pope. Néron, an intense actress in her own right, brought this energy to her performance, “She has an exceptional sense of focus,” says Sanchez. Combined with her beauty, which both directors felt embodied the glamour of old Hollywood, she transformed smoothly into the role.

Caroline Néron prides herself on her quest for perfection in acting and looks for her character's motivation in the text and the subtext. And she understands Elizabeth's sense of control in a very simple manner,” This is a woman who has been killing for years, so of course she is very in control. I admired her intelligence. She's like a fox – wise and shrewd, but it's not an academic intelligence. She directs and she always wins in every scene. To play a character you have to love her a bit. She is lonely, she's someone obsessed by her exterior, but something is missing. Usually it's love; it always goes back to love.”

ETERNAL gave Caroline the opportunity to go beyond anything she had done before on screen. “The bath scene was the first time I did nudity. I felt it brought something to the story. The way I rose up out of the bathtub was the result of ten years of dance, that snake-like movement, one long, continuous, sinuous move. That was the moment when Elizabeth felt most alive. She felt right. She felt beautiful.”

The adventure in acting didn't stop there. In the scene where Elizabeth brings the wife of Pope's partner to her house, Caroline says, “That second love scene with the girl in my bed, I loved it. I've never kissed a woman before; I've never been that aggressive with a woman. I surprised myself. I didn't know what to do during the rehearsal. I was so shy and nervous, but when we shot it, when they say ‘action', you forget everything and act.”

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The counterpoint to Elizabeth is Conrad Pla's performance as Pope, the troubled vice cop living so far out on the edge that the likelihood of getting caught has become an integral part of his risk-junkie diet. These two characters are the personification of the irresistible force and the immovable object. While Elizabeth can slide away from the consequences of her actions, Pope is still living in the real world and has to manage his life more carefully. In addition to being a cop, he is also a husband and a father. Sanchez likes this character because while Pope has obvious flaws and weaknesses, he also has redeeming qualities.

“Conrad is a world class kickboxer, he's owned a successful gym and then in his mid-30s, decided he wanted to act,” explains Liebenberg. “He's is not a pretty boy and he worked so hard developing his character. The most important characteristic Conrad had to deliver was that Raymond Pope loves danger: the bigger risk - the bigger fix. Strange sex, sex with his partner's wife, the chance of getting caught, all this brings him to life.

And Elizabeth is the ultimate fix. As his obsession draws him deeper into the cesspool, his life begins to spin out of control. We loved working with him. He toned down the bully and had a calm charm with a good sense of timing such as that perfect dramatic moment when he informs Elizabeth that the missing woman is his wife.”

“If you listen carefully to Pope, he never lies,” states Conrad Pla, embracing what little integrity he could find in his character. “He just doesn't say what he doesn't want to say, but he never lies. The public forgives a lot, but they won't forgive a liar.” It was a very good role for Pla, one that he enjoyed from start to finished product on the screen. “I think I am similar to Pope in one way: Pope has his marriage, his son, his work, his affairs and his moth-to-flame attraction to Elizabeth. Those many lives are fairly complete and separate; for me, when I'm at the gym training, no one knows I have a wife and kids. At home with my family, no one knows I'm a kickboxer or that I act. I think that Pope is like that absolutely, but his lives really can't overlap.” Even the location chosen for Pope's apartment visually represents his life – Habitat ‘67. This extraordinary ziggurat of 158 living modules, ingeniously stacked gives privacy and a view to each unit, much like the fresh air Pope gives to each of his personas.

“As an actor, I don't pass judgement on him, I just moralized things from his perspective,” explains Pla. “While many actors play the flawed character with the understanding that what they are doing is right for them and that they aren't wrong, Pope struggles with his conscience. He knows when he's doing something wrong. I mean, he's not a psychopath. But the sex, the fetishes, the guns and the death, these are elements of his addiction and there's no way these interests end when he's not in the bedroom. It's always there.”

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The third element in this triangle is Elizabeth Kane's young lady-in-waiting, Irina, part apprentice, part acolyte, part sycophant. Actress Victoria Sanchez loved the part.

“Irina is a chameleon,” Says Victoria Sanchez. “And she believes profoundly in Elizabeth. Such conviction. And such frustration for Irina because she was looking so hard for an identity. Of course, in one way or another, everyone is working on polishing their identity, but poor Irina; she just seems to have a harder time with it than most. She changes her clothes, her hair, even her voice in almost every scene always trying to adapt to something that will please Elizabeth, but underneath, it is Irina and what better role could an actor have to play. The prize she is aiming for is important - Elizabeth has promised that when Irina is ready, she will give her ETERNAL life.”

“Victoria has it all and that's what is needed to play Irina who is beautiful, cunning, and manipulative, with just that right amount of submissiveness, but only to one person, nobody else. She understands the power. Irina would challenge the power occasionally, but only to a certain limit. Victoria transforms well,” says Frederico Sanchez, Victoria's brother as well as co-director.

But Irina is not all sweetness and light. She has a temper. “Her frustration and her impatience waiting for Elizabeth to follow through on her promise makes Irina angry and that makes her reckless and lethal. She's a brute and an animal and she takes it out on young boys,” Victoria says with amusement and then explains that prior to this role, she closest she came to playing the ‘bad girl' was when she played the Princess of Darkness on a kid's television show.

THE ETERNAL LOOK

Liebenberg and Sanchez were in complete agreement that the key to making ETERNAL was that the film be beautiful. “Not real, but beautiful,” says Liebenberg. “We worked with Jamie Thompson, a cinematographer who gave warmth and shadows and an opulent quality to the film.”

Wardrobe was a major component of the look of ETERNAL . “For us, the costumes were like a supporting cast. They are there to mesmerize and transform. In each scene, each character is surrounded by their environment and their costumes,” proclaims Sanchez. “Take the scene with Elizabeth in the cape. That is such a la Traviata moment. Very operatic.”

The strongest components of the heightened production values were the sets and locations that the directors wax poetic about. Filming first in Montreal and then moving to Rome, Venice and the hills of Umbria, Italy, Sanchez and Liebenberg found vistas which gave them enormous satisfaction as well as inspiration and, in some cases, motivation.

Montreal, like Venice, is a city surrounded by water, a visual element built deeply into the landscapes of the film. Only at the end, is Elizabeth taken to the hills of Italy, which is, fittingly, landlocked. The house on Summit Drive is what first inspired the film. In that area of the city, filming is permitted for two productions a year. Both directors were determined to not only shoot there because of the wooded isolation of the area, highly unusual in the middle of an old city, but also at that house. The long drive, the iron gate and the castle-like architecture were absolutely perfect for the home of Elizabeth Kane. A second major location in Montreal was Habitat '67 because for Liebenberg and Sanchez, it offers aMontreal state of mind. Retro and modern, timeless.

All interiors for ETERNAL were shot in Rome because they were incomparable. First stop was the Grand Hotel Plaza, built in 1860, one of the oldest and most prestigious hotels in Rome. The lobby of the hotel stood in for the interior of Elizabeth's home in Montreal. Then to the Villa Parisi which belonged for centuries to the Borghese during the Renaissance. “The artistry at the Villa Parizi was quite exquisite. That is where we shot the bath scene using blood that was leftover from the same supply used in Passion of the Christ ,” recalls Liebenberg. Calling their collective experience in the field of design, Liebenberg says, “ The furniture for each set was hand-selected. A team of four people searched out each item, fanatical about every lamp, every piece of furniture. Every shot was structured like a painting, every element, lighting-wise, and in set design, was rich and sumptuous and there was meaning behind it all.”

It was in Venice where Sanchez and Liebenberg were overwhelmed with the creative potential and rose to meet the challenge. They'd walk the streets at night to find the right locations and then the right angles to give the film as broad a perspective as possible. Even though it was the height of tourist season, they quickly discovered that at night, the streets of Venice empty there out and they could have to solitude they needed for each shot. They came across a building which was boarded up which had been the former Acadamie of Music and had belonged to the Casoni family for years. The statuary in front was intact as were the light fixtures. “There are these six feet high lanterns in front which date back to when the Venetians were fighting the Turks during the time of the Ottoman Empire. Sailors returned to Venice on a galleon that sank. The lanterns were recovered and were mounted as a memorial to lives lost. You see these in the film when the boat crosses and as the camera moves up the stairs to the party at Elizabeth's villa,” explains Liebenberg with great enthusiasm.

Completing the adventure in locations was the final scene in the monastery. They scouted for a suitable location and the Abbazia San Pietro in Valle, Valneria was the one they wanted. The only one. The problem was that this was an operating monastery and the script for the scene to be shot had to be rewritten to suit the Vatican. A new script was produced, the Vatican approved, and the cast and crew were in and out in one day.

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Recently, Liebenberg read that Orson Welles had approached the making of Citizen Kane with the same pro-active, unbridled enthusiasm that Liebenberg and Sanchez had approached the making of ETERNAL . “So, in the same way, we have achieved what we set out to do. We financed this privately, we packaged it privately, we have delivered this film in spite of the adversity which accompanies all filmmaking and we are extraordinarily proud of it.”