BLOD - about the research project
A research project on transboundary content, collaboration and aesthetics in cinematic storytelling.
Aiming to create multivocal cinematic experiences on themes of female bleeding, bodily transformations, and vulnerabilities, BLOD explores a kaleidoscopic dramaturgy using juxtaposition and kinesthetic engagement as compositional tools.
Read about the artistic research project and its methods in International Journal of Film and Media Arts.
Explore the project process, read scripts and watch behind the scenes videos on Research Catalogue.
BLOD - about the feature film
Two women clash with death. With dark humor, brutal honesty and creativity for fuel they reconcile themselves with life’s relentless forces.
Two filmmakers (50+) – long time friends & survivors of violent health care encounters – meet up for coffee. Kersti is frustrated to the point of quitting film. Annika arrives with an idea; an empty soccer field with a bled-out woman in a hospital bed. They decide to challenge cinematic storytelling with one more film – of untold bloody trails through women’s lives. A film about being a human with heart, brains & uterus.
As the filmmakers draw up a manifesto for their film, write the script and struggle to shoot and edit, they talk about politics, sex, alienation, parenthood, blind spots, criticism etc. With sincerity and humor, they deal with the painful experiences that form the basis for the kaleidoscopic and absurd film within the film.
When Annika is diagnosed with aggressive cancer of the womb, what started as a playful attempt to get back to the joy of creating, becomes a story of life and death.
A story of BLOD.
Watch the feature on YouTube - free of charge.
"We talked about our many experiences of hospitalization – near death, uterus in focus. How foreign our bodies became to us and how alien we were in and to the hospital environment. Monitored pawns in a game we were at the center of while completely powerless. Where were the artistic expressions that conveyed these experiences? And how could they be described without exploitation or repelling chock. Questions that became even more acute when one of us got uterine cancer.”
The film revolves around female bleeding from cradle to grave as well as emotional swells in the wake of the blood – between people when bodies fail. The film events where modes of creating, key issues and artistic ambition are embodied, are based on our shared experiences of being human with brains, heart and uterus.
Our starting point for the film project is to seriously transform the shadows of our losses into artistic expression.
We want to find ways to tell stories about physical experiences shared by half the population of the world – abortions, miscarriages, pregnancies and menopause. States of life and death in intensely intimate disgusting detail which are not often given space in filmmaking. Experiences of vulnerability thar are also deeply human.
DIRECTORS' VISION:
PRODUCER'S THOUGHTS:
One of the author Moa Martinson’s male colleagues said of her writing ”it is so private, it’s almost gynaecological”. Sixty years later the intimate life of women still feels a bit embarrassing. But not for Annika Boholm and Kersti Grunditz Brennan! They tackle the topic of female blood with audacity. Two women in their 50s with life experience and solidly professional qualifications throw caution to the wind and grapple with matters which are part of life for fifty percent of the world’s population but seldom spoken about.
As dancers and choreographers they have used their bodies like instruments. The heightened awareness of bodily functions colours their story of illness and ageing. Therapy sessions with dolls, musical episodes and the substitution of locations such as sports arenas for hospitals creates new vistas where gravity, pain and humour meet.
CV-PRODUCTION COMPANY & PRODUCER
MIGMA FILM AB
Migma Film is owned by the producers Lizette Jonjic and Anita Oxburgh. The office is based in Gothenburg since 2011. Migma Film was established in Stockholm in 1991 by Anita Oxburgh who until then had been based in the UK. Migma Film has produced close on fifty films, both fiction and documentary, and co-produced a great number together with primarily Nordic colleagues. Migma is known for quality and dependability. Many of the films have won awards both in Sweden and abroad.
FILMOGRAFI (Select titles)
2016 Stockholm My Love - Dir. Mark Cousins with Neneh Cherry (fiction 86 min)
2013 The Man Behind the Throne - Dir. Kersti Grunditz (documentary 58 min)
2011 Isolerad - Dir. Johan Lundborg och Johan Storm med Peter Stormare (fiction 80 min)
2009 Miss Kicki - Dir. Håkon Liu (fiction 85 min)
2008 Varg - Dir. Daniel Alfredson, manus Kerstin Ekman, med Peter Stormare (fiction 90 min)
2008 Gud lukt och henne - Dir. Karin Westerlund with Gunilla Röör (hybrid 95 min)
CV – ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Anita Oxburgh started working as a producer at the beginning of the 80s, the first ten years in the UK. In 1991 she established Migma Film in Stockholm. She has produced a number of award winning documentaries as well as shorts and features. Among the latest titles are Stockholm My Love (dir Mark Cousins), The Man Behind the Throne (dir Kersti Grunditz, Corridor (dir Johan Lundborg and Johan Storm), Wolf (dir Daniel Alfredson)
is Annika Boholm and Kersti Grunditz Brennan
and the artistic research collaboratively
initiated, conducted and published.