WiHM Massive Blood Drive PSA: BLOODLINE by K /XI
As previously announced, Dread Central is hosting Jen and Sylvia Soska’s Massive Blood Drive 2020.
Every February The Soska Sisters (American Mary, Rabid) invite filmmakers and feminists from across the world to celebrate Women In Horror Month by creating short PSAs encouraging blood donation. They can be as short as and uncomplicated as an artist desires, but they do limit the maximum run times to ten minutes.
“This will be our 11th year celebrating Women In Horror Recognition Month,” Jen explains. “It all started over a decade ago when founder Hannah Neurotica pointed out that women are not getting the recognition they deserve; in fact, they’re often being written out of history! And so Women In Horror Month was born and alongside it the Massive Blood Drive.”
All February long Dread and the Soskas are encouraging people to donate blood. That’s all. There’s no catch. You donate blood and everyone wins.
“It’s a civic duty that’s often overlooked,” Jen continues. “Not everyone has cash, but blood is just about the most selfless donation one can make.”
This year’s theme is Transformation and this year’s tag line is “Be The Change”. And, of course, there’s the classic: “Blood. It’s In You To Give.”
Today’s PSA is “Bloodline” by K /XI. Check it out embedded at the top of the article. You can read about K and Bad Wold Films below.
About:
K was born in London in the 80s and comes from a Pakistani background. She grew up watching horror movies and reading horror literature, with a particular interest in death rituals, since learning about the Ancient Egyptians and Norse Gods. K discovered Stephen King’s The Shining at the age of 10, and Blatty’s The Exorcist in the first year of high school, after her parents caught her watching the film.
K left home at the age of 17, and went to university with little money, to study literature, wanting to write fiction. K took an optional module for Film Studies which was a major turning point. Literature and film merged together in a university class about text to film adaptations, where K directed her first short film Man of the Crowd, originally written by Edgar Allan Poe. The film was presented at a conference at the university in 2007, attended by well-known academics. Although there was no practical filmmaking course available to at the time, K pursued filmmaking by following up with Obsidian, which she wrote, produced and directed for her third year dissertation, being the first undergraduate student at the time to make a film. This marked the birth of her UK based, film production company, Bad Wolf Films.
K is Inspired by Art, World Cinema, Surrealism and has a fascination with Dream Psychology. Since 2007, K has written, directed and produced, over 10 short films, gaining various official selections internationally. The most recent being Love Drug for a Death Waltz which was screened at the 2017 Twin Peaks UK Festival. K also had an ident screened at Frightfest Film Festival in 2014 and has a short film which is part of the World of Death Anthology. Her second feature film Black Lake’s is having its world premiere at the Women in Horror Film Festival on February 28th, whilst her first feature Maya, which was filmed in 2015, is currently in post-production.
Blood Drive:
It was great to have the entire Black Lake crew on board for the Blood Drive short. Sei-kai Leung who freelances for major film studios as part of the production team and collaborates with me for Bad Wolf Films, acts in the short alongside Michael Hayes. Anika Rai, who doubled as my character in Black Lake, was happy to channel some of that witch energy into this film. The film was graded by colourist Laura Pavone, who has also worked on films such as Skyfall and Spectre. The sound design is by Tatsujiro Oto who did a superb job on Black Lake. Music is by the wonderful Nubiferous, whose work you can find on Bandcamp.
The Blood Drive short was inspired by the concept of the witch, Baba Yaga. We couldn’t give her chicken legs (how she is sometimes depicted in the folktales), but incorporated chicken feet in the ritual. I wanted to show her connecting with the earth by giving her blood, and in turn, bringing the dead back to life. The film is called Bloodline because I believe when we give blood, we are connected like family; ‘Together forever’ as Ginger would say. We of course don’t know who is given the blood we donate, however it’s a beautiful thought to know it’s the one thing that connects us all. The more we give, the more connected we are.
PSA’s from the Soska’s Sister Massive Blood Drive 2020 will air every other day in February, so stay tuned and check back often!
