Blood is Life
This was written with the sound of rain… Friday 7:45am 12/24/21
While some films are made to elicit emotions such as sadness, fear, joy, this film is prescribed and intended for therapeutic purposes. Blood IS Life offers humans a chance to release stress by meditating through a visual and audio Nature based landscape. Studies have concluded that exposure to imagery of nature is associated with improved mental and physical well-being. Nature environments, whether simulated or real, have a particularly strong calming effect on the parasympathetic system. The sympathetic system is involved in preparing the body for stress-related activities while the parasympathetic nervous system facilitates the body to release stress, the two systems have complementary functions and support the body’s homeostasis. When we immerse ourselves in nature, our innate emotional relationship with other living beings, known as “biophilia” is strengthened. When we don’t have access to natural beauty, we shut down. Our relationship to much of the natural world has become limited, including how we approach and honor the cycle of life and death, shifting away from things like menstruation and dying because they have become taboo. A tragic sense of exile informing the film suggests a separateness from nature and spirit. Inspired by the witnessing of my brother’s passing, his ashes are buried within the film both literally and metaphorically, springing forth new life. Powerful notions of the primitive, the romance and fragility of life and death, and the incorruptibility of nature aim to bring us back to the source, away from materialism and back to our true Nature. Blood IS Life.
The Earth provides possibility of flux – embrace unpredictability and let go of control.
Healing ancestral and isolation wounds – creating has the chance to transform in ritualistic and alchemizing ways.
Symbolic rather than geographic space – Although this film is rooted in environment, it has no origin other than the universal.
Exile as true Utopia – Origins and destinations are limited, exile is limitless, without boundaries. Grief as a kind of exile.
“The female body, the maternal, and origins were all tied directly to a land that is external, natural and powerful”
Octavio Paz and the question of solitude: “The struggle for identity begins at the moment one is separated from the mother”
“She travels away from origins and performatively redefines the terms of identity.”
Itiba Cahubaba – Taino Earth Mother. The first woman, the genetrix. Great Bleeding Mother.
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Brandy Eve AllenDirector
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Deborah WatersKey Cast"Reincarnation"
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Brandy Eve AllenMusic by
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Project Type:Experimental, Short
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Genres:Sci-Fi, Meditation, Experimental, Super 8 film
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Runtime:14 minutes 33 seconds
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Completion Date:January 1, 2022
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Production Budget:1,200 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Shooting Format:Super 8 Film, iPhone, Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:Yes
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Student Project:No
Brandy Eve Allen’s work is part of an ongoing exploration into
the destabilization of anthropocentrism, working towards an embodiment of a human nature continuum that revolves around ecocentric meditation. By depicting subjects immersed and tangled in nature, she is defining trans-corporeality, explained by Stacy Alaimo, “the belief that human beings are completely inseparable from the natural world… Humans do not necessarily live in a particular environment, so much as our bodies quite literally represent that environment”. Allen collaborates with both Nature and chance, accessing endless opportunities for disruption by subverting technique and inviting unpredictable collaboration.