Bread

Hiding behind her cute and cheerful attitude, ALYSSA, a 20-year-old university student, struggles with severe depression and a hidden addiction. Living in a single unit apartment and hiding in her messy room. She secretly eats moldy bread to escape and feel a sense of relief.

When she inadvertently fidgets with her moldy bread in class, leaving bread crumbs everywhere, her concerned friend snaps her back to reality. Panicking, Alyssa rushes to the bathroom and is then confronted by YUI (20) who tries to help her.

After pushing Yui away, Alyssa runs home and breaks down, crying uncontrollably as her phone is bombarded with missed calls and messages, but she shuts the world out, consuming more moldy bread until she chokes and gags.

As she tries to clean herself up and tries to throw away the bread, she knows that in the end, she’s trapped in a cycle of despair, knowing her addiction to moldy bread is too strong to quit.

  • Khira Ammar
    Director
  • Khira Ammar
    Writer
  • Leon Mahkaza
    Producer
  • Li Xuan Tan
    Producer
  • Iris Lo
    Key Cast
    "Alyssa"
    Island Girl, Girl Monster
  • Eunice Jing Yi Koh
    Key Cast
    "Yui"
    Threads of Hope, Jalan
  • Salim Satori
    Key Cast
    "Mr Syafiq"
  • Kitson Gwan Kit Toh
    Key Cast
    "Brian du Pain"
  • Project Type:
    Short, Student
  • Runtime:
    16 minutes 9 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 9, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    3,670 MYR
  • Country of Origin:
    Malaysia
  • Country of Filming:
    Malaysia
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    1080p HD H.264 25 FPS
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Sunway University
Director Biography - Khira Ammar

Khira Ammar or Celestial Hae is a 22-year-old film student who is currently in her second year of Digital Film Production at Sunway University. She was born and raised in Sungai Petani, Kedah and has lived her life there for 18 years. Having a background in writing, she’s written many short stories in high school and is now in the midst of writing her own novel.

She made her directorial debut with “How to Play Hide and Seek Alone” with it being a horror short film mixed with a narrative tutorial. The whole film was made by her in her house back in Kedah and is based on a Japanese urban legend. She acts as the ghost and narrator in the film as well as the victim that gets killed in the end as a result of not playing the game correctly. With her background in special effects makeup, the makeup she did on herself is all practical, drawing inspiration from a halloween look she made a few years prior. She loves delving deep into horror and has always had a fascination with the macabre.

Her latest film was “Just Friends?” a queer love story between two girls. Being queer herself, Khira loves to delve into stories with complex emotions and has always wanted to make a film showing the complex emotions between two queer individuals. The raw confession scene of the film was based on a scene from a Thai Drama “Bad Buddy” which also portrayed the same intention. As playing around with human emotions and reactions was her goal such as the raw emotions felt in the confession from the show.

Her philosophy in her films is to have the audience question their thoughts and emotions on a deeper and raw level similar to that of disturbance when watching her films" or when they understand the hidden message. "She also aims to make her films as uncomfortable to the audience or viewer as possible through either its visual and stylistic approach, or its hidden meanings and nuances."

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Director Statement

I wanted to do a film that I relate to a lot. I wrote the script for this film at 3:30 am due to my obsessive thoughts of self harm and suicide. I couldn't sleep, not until I wrote the script for this film was when my obsessive thoughts calmed down. I’ve always had struggles towards self harm and been struggling with it since I was 14 years old when I first started cutting myself. Although I would get a sense of relief from self harming like when I would smoke a cigarette, I would still hate myself for ever doing it, every cut and scar. But a piece of me still misses it despite knowing it wasn't good for me. And it's this feeling that I have to battle each and every day. So it's through this story that I want to convey the struggles that not only I felt, but others may be going through, whether similar emotions or different, the outcome is still the same, the cuts and scars.

I tend to gravitate towards the more macabre in my interest and I want to convey a feeling of uneasiness that isn’t normally shown in people's day to day lives. To which this sense of discomfort could bring them out of their comfort zones. The reason why Bread is such an important part to play in the film and my inspiration is through social media. In which bread makers would slice open bread dough before baking. To which many people in the comments would relate and liken it to self harm. Rather than using the action of slicing dough, eating the bread felt more natural in this context of this short film and felt way bizarre. Whether it is eating the bread or fiddling with it, it’s all done in a bizarre way. Erratic crying and hyperventilating while eating bread is a weird watch and slightly uncomfortable, but that’s what I want to evoke.

In a way, it makes me see myself in this film, it comforts me knowing that I wasn’t the same person who I was before. The woman in this film is more or less like myself, she’s viewed as weird and uneasy but at the same time pitiful and beautiful.