BLOOD BELOW THE SKIN
30 minutes, HD, 2015
This short narrative chronicles a week in the lives of three teenage girls, from different social circles, who form a bond in the week leading up to the school dance. Countdown to prom night is actually countdown to irreversible change for each girl. Two of the girls are falling in love with each other against all expectations and the third girl is forced to mother her own mother in the wake of her father’s disappearance. Each girl seeks comfort within the walls of her bedroom where the music blasting from the turntable provides a magical synchronicity between them all. The title refers to the secrets that girls and women keep just below their surface.
Writer and Director: Jennifer Reeder
Producer: Steven Hudosh
Editor: Mike Olenick
Director of Photography: Christopher Rejano
Associate Producer: Penelope Bartlett
Score: Jenne Lennon
Sound: Paul Dickinson
Sound Assistant/Boom: Jason Culver
Production Coordinator: Afra Siddiqui
Digital Transfer/Edit Assistant: Martin Hernandez Rosas
Cast:
Darby: Kelsy Ashby-Middleton
Joni: Morgan Reesh
Joan: Marissa Castillo
Annette: Jennifer Estlin
Chuck: Connor Golden
Mr. Saxophone: TJ Jagodowsky
Joan’s Mother: Megan Johns
Additional music: Aesop Rock, Arms and Sleepers, Stars of the Lid, Joan Jett
Support Provided by: Wexner Center for the Arts Studio Program, Sarah Jacobson Film Grant, Indiana Arts Commission, Kickstarter Campaign
recent press:
--festivalists.com/post/118625519101/thejenniferreeder
--cinema.arte.tv/de/artikel/portraet-jennifer-reeder
Jennifer Reeder
thejenniferreeder.com
thejenniferreeder@gmail.com
Jennifer Reeder is a filmmaker and visual artist from Ohio. She constructs personal stories about relationships, trauma and coping. Her award-winning narratives are unconventional and borrow from a range of forms including after school specials, amateur music videos and magical realism.
Some actual additional influences:
Swimming pools, Flannery O’Connor, personalized license plates, suicide, felatio, North Carolina, volcanoes, house plants, clouds, monsters, boredom, ELO, temps, happy hour, airplanes, airplane crashes, Maria Callas, mistaken identity, permanent make-up, hot tubs, group therapy, NASCAR, sexual side effects, Appalachia, nausea, drowning, miniature horses, knowing, not knowing, deer, ice fishing, steam, front closing bra, fore skin, electricity, Vito Acconci, snow shoe rabbit tracks, hearing aids, telepathy, artificial grass, secrets, sundown and breaking up.
OFFICIAL SELECTION:
Berlin Film Festival
Glasgow Short Film Festival
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Ann Arbor Film Festival
Florida Film Festival
Wisconsin Film Festival
Short Film Festival Hamburg
EMAF, Osnabruck
FrauenfilmFestival Koln-Dortmund
Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen
Melbourne Film Festival
RECENT PRESS
• theskinny.co.uk/festivals/uk-festivals/film/five-of-the-best-from-glasgow-short-film-festival-2015
• crackmagazine.net/art/lsff-jennifer-reeder-valley-girls-the-teenage-girl-aesthetic/
• dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/23292/1/the-female-directors-on-top-of-their-game
• news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/02/everything-is-as-bad-as-possible-exploring-dystopic-spaces-at-the-berlinale/
