Film Notes: Bloom ECU Release (2019), Director's Cut (2020)

Director, Writer, Music, Edit, Camera: Sara Page

Starring: Billie Baird

Makeup: Aine Plunkett and Karilee Hagerman

Special FX: Alexander Baehr

Practical FX: Alexander Baehr, Edmond Leung

Camera Assistants: Anna Anaka, Sabira Pashkevich, Vicky Zheng

Lighting Assistants: Edmond Leung, Sabira Pashkevich

Production Assistant: Mehma Durrani

Synopsis: A girl struggles with her appearance. She performs beauty regimens without success until she discovers a magical fruit inside her mirror.

Billie Baird as the theme of Vanity in Bloom.

Director's Notes on Bloom.

Bloom is about the impact of society on how women view their worth through beauty standards. This film, a type of cinematic poem, brings to light the story of a girl’s journey towards her own destruction in her pursuit of beauty, exhibiting the various beauty regimens sold to women daily through society, advertisements, and social media. In the film, the girl wraps herself in silks, inhales rose petals, drinks wellness tea, and gives herself a magazine facial. These metaphorical activities reveal the absurdity of the lengths women go through to be accepted physically by society. The character also fights with her reflection, a metaphor for her internal struggle with herself. The oranges inside her mirror that could grant her eternal beauty reflect the beauty market's ongoing promise of each new product, latest item, that eternal youth is achievable. In the end, the character dies, a metaphor for her complete corruption - vanity has completely consumed her.

Billie Baird as the theme of Vanity in Bloom.