Director's Works
Bloodsuckers Rosie Brear
Rosie is a filmmaker from The Fen in East Anglia. She moved to London for an MA in Acting at Central St Martins, before migrating behind the camera in 2019. She worked at Blink as their Music Video producer for three years before joining MrMr Films in 2023. She has produced music videos for artists such as Blood Orange, Loyle Carner, PJ Harvey and Wet Leg and directed videos for Lynks, Fizz and Tatyana.
Bloodsuckers is her debut short film.
Bloodsuckers was written in lockdown. Born out of rising tensions from being trapped in a flat with three other humans, whilst watching endless re-runs of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
I wasn't sure Bloodsuckers was ever going to get made. I entered an early draft of the script to First Flights on a whim and was lucky enough to win that year. It's a brilliant grant that supports first time filmmakers and Bloodsuckers absolutely would not have happened without it. I then spoke to the amazing producers at MrMr Films, Lowkey Films and Method in Madness who all believed in the script and partnered to help us finance the remainder of the budget (along with our generous supporters via our online fundraiser).
I owe a lot of the film's success to Lucy Amos my casting director who helped me find my actors Thaddea, Laura and Amber. The three of them understood the tone of the film from the beginning and brought the script to life in the most perfect way. They are all incredibly talented and experienced actors and I learned so much from them during the shoot. Thaddea brought so many ideas to every scene. She changed the way I viewed the ending and brought so much depth and complexity to Bliss.
I also owe a lot to Rik Burnell my cinematographer. My references were 90s/00s indie comedies like 'But I'm A Cheerleader' and 'Napoleon Dynamite' and the slightly later 'Jennifer's Body'. He watched every reference I sent him, and brought so many ideas of his own. We spent hours meticulously planning the shotlist, figuring out a way to capture that era of cinema. He really understood the assignment.
The final shout out goes to LYNKS, who composed the original score. My inspiration for the music was the Charli XCX soundtrack for one of my favourite films 'Bottoms'. I wanted a really punchy, grungy pop score and having worked with Lynks a few times knew they were the perfect person to collaborate with. They took the brief and made it their own, which in turn shaped the whole tone of the film. Kaspar Broyd our sound designer then took the score and intergrated it with his imaginative sound design perfectly.
Bloodsuckers is a film about loneliness, and how everyone deserves to be valued no matter how out-there your interests are.
It's mainly a comedy about vampires though.
