INNER BLOOM (2021)

INNER BLOOM is a dance film that presents the different stages of femininity with the means of choreography and 3D animation. The project aims to create a visually impressive film in which the woman and the female body are the protagonist and creator of the world around them.
The project is a continuation of Handjiiska's long-term research on the topic of Femininity and the specifics of the movements of women artists in her previous work Presence <> Absence.
INNER BLOOM project is the first part of the BECOMING film trilogy which contains three films exploring gender, growing up and identity.
The title comes from the visual metaphor that the artists seek in choreography: the body, which successively blooms at different points in the choreography, is constantly changing and evolving, achieving a series of internal flourishing.
The choreographer's movement challenge is to develop a single initial impulse that never stops throughout the film's sequel.
The film skillfully transitions from a live recording to a poetic 3D animated reality. Gjorgji and Stephanie work in sync, using the movements of Stephanie's dance to build an animated alter ego of the woman, who goes through a series of processes of growth, maturation, flowering and destruction of many micro-levels. The visual metaphor used is the emergence of imaginary flowers and plants from various surfaces of the performer's body.
The choreography of the growth of this imaginary fauna is synchronized with the movements of the performer and presents the female body as a kind of natural phenomenon, as a multifaceted landscape in which all parts of the body are equal.
The film aims to present to the audience the visual narrative of the woman as the protagonist and the female body as the main character.

The film was made with the support of the Creative Initiatives program of National Culture Fund Bulgaria.