Bloom: The 40-minute short film that is reflective of the year gone by

In the dystopia we live in right now, navigating our existence and emotions, one thing remains constant. Our singular draw towards the emotion as old as Adam and Eve: Love. Bloom is a story of love set during the 2020 pandemic in Chennai, India. It’s an attempt at exploring two young minds, capturing the silences, the loneliness, and the little joys that life throws at them during the pandemic.

2020 has been a year of change and learning. The helplessness put us in a slump until we finally understood that the only way out is through. It made us take a hard look at ourselves and start afresh. So, why remember it just for its adversaries, when it also brought to us courage, hope, and cheer? Bloom, a 40-minute film is what happens when a bunch of friends decides to capture the year the way they would like the future generation to remember it as.

This romance drama, directed by Richard Anthony and starring Mitra Visvesh, Ashwin Raam, and Kaber Vasuki, is produced by Madras Talkies. It was released on May 19, 2021, on the Madras Talkies YouTube Channel.

Last year, it was surreal to be part of a world that was sitting at home for months on end, reconnecting with family, reconsidering career choices, reevaluating relationships, and finding new companions - all at once and that too suddenly. Bloom is a film as much about Chennai as it is about the characters in it. And, the language that the characters speak is both rooted and universal to bridge the gap between the place it is set in and the world it depicts in an authentic manner.

Shooting during the pandemic came with its own set of challenges for the team - from a skeletal crew of only six people and shooting largely with DIY equipment and improvisational methods to doing auditions and readings over Zoom and the post-production happening remotely over the internet. It is even more surreal for them now that they have released the film during the 2021 lockdown a year later; a bittersweet déjà-vu of the year gone by.

The film’s production company as a creative body has always been way ahead of its times, in its balanced portrayals of youth, women, their aspirations, and lifestyle. Room No.101 makes films, music videos, and content reflective of the times. Bloom is their maiden film production.