Vancouver-based production company Boldly has announced that Jodi Balfour (The Crown, Ted Lasso) has been cast as the lead actor in the upcoming short psychodrama Bloom from award-winning filmmaker Kasey Lum (Kingspin).
Written and directed by Lum, Bloom explores our innate desire to affiliate with nature. Fragile after a breakup, Laurel (played By Balfour) searches for stability, only to form a strange connection with a houseplant. As the film progresses, the plant appears to take root in Laurel’s psyche; making her question where it ends and she begins—a metaphor for the interconnectedness between humans and nature and the consequences that resistance between the two creates.
Balfour is best known for her portrayal of Ellen Wilson on Apple TV+’s space drama series For All Mankind, as Jackie Kennedy in Netflix’s The Crown, and for her key recurring role as venture capitalist Jack on Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso. It was also recently announced that Jodi will star alongside Anthony Hopkins and Matthew Goode in Freud’s Last Session, she plays Dorothy Burlingham, an American child psychoanalyst, heiress to the Tiffany & Co fortune, and lifelong friend and partner of Anna Freud.
Writer/director Kasey Lum is a visionary emerging director who recently wrapped up production on the pilot episode for the new television series, Sunflower Lemonade. He comes from a music video background with numerous collaborations with international stars including Stromae, Felix Cartal, and Hermitude. Lum identifies as BIPOC, with Chinese and French roots, and is represented by Boldly.
Kristoff Duxbury (Rules for Werewolves) and Angelica Stirpe (Our Grandmother The Inlet) produce and Shelby Manton, Geoff Manton, and Sebastien Galina of Boldly will executive produce alongside Kasey Lum. Emmy and Grammy award-winning composer Ali Helnwein (Wild Wild Country) will compose an original score and Jan Klompje (Ellen) is the film’s cinematographer.
Bloom was made through the support of the Canadian Council for the Arts.
Photos provided by Nicola Pender. Credits Jodi Balfour (main) by Emma McIntyre/Rachel Luna/FilmMagic Kasey Lum by Denis Ogrinc
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