Blooming Blues - Short Film

Aim

The aim of this project is to tell the story about Theo and Ruby, a musician and the one who can see her music through his synesthesia.

OUR STORY

Chromesthesia: the sound-to-color association, where individuals hear sounds and involuntarily experience corresponding colors, shapes, and movement.

Theo, drifts through life with nothing going for him but a dead-end job and working on a pointless degree. He numbs himself through his love for punk and the colours that surround it. 

On the night that his housemate Sid pleads with him to take a shift at a Jazz bar, Theo’s life changes. He’s captivated by a promising saxophonist, Ruby. Her colours spark something  in him that he’s never seen before. Their first encounter is anything but smooth as Theo clumsily breaks a meaningful keepsake given to her by her late uncle.

In Theo’s attempt at apologising, it then follows up with drinks, late nights at a playground, deep conversations and quiet moments . Ruby shares her ambitions to tour; this unfortunately echoes Theo’s fear of being left behind again.

OUR TEAM

Nicole Dinucci

Co-director

Nicole Dinucci is a Brazilian director and visual artist whose films pulse with colour and light, treating the screen as a canvas alive with emotion. With roots in fine art, she developed a painter’s eye that continues to inform her filmmaking, particularly in her bold use of colour and light. Combined with a background in production design and gaffer work, her practice is built on a deep understanding of how visual elements shape feeling, how a single hue or flicker can unsettle, enchant, or move an audience to tears. For the past three years, she has been crafting films that are as visually intense as they are emotionally resonant.

Often drawn to horror, Nicole’s early work revels in shadow and saturation, using colour as both weapon and spell. She has directed four films that explore this heightened visual language, each an experiment in pushing image to its most visceral edge. Her training at ECIB in Barcelona and current studies at University of the Arts London have sharpened her craft, while mentorship under cinematographer Lorene Desportes and gaffer Matt Bohun has refined her instinct for precision and collaboration.

Her latest project, Just One Big Thunderstorm, is a love story where music and colour intertwine, turning perception into emotion and emotion into image. The idea of someone falling in love with another person’s colour came to Nicole three years ago, and it has lived in her imagination ever since. To now share that vision with collaborators and bring it into reality makes the film her most personal and important work to date.

Nicole’s work is defined by a belief that cinema should overwhelm the senses. Whether conjuring terror or tenderness, she directs with the conviction that light and colour are not just tools, but living forces capable of transforming fear into beauty and love into something luminous.

Carla Bottaro

Co-director, cinematographer 

Carla Bottaro is an Italian-Chilean filmmaker and visual artist. She has a background in watercolour painting, and experimental mixed mediums. Within filmmaking, she has experience in production design, working on various shorts, music videos, and an award-winning commercial (Nahemi Kodak Commercial Award). Working closely with other talented Directors of Photography in these projects sparked a curiosity and desire for the same path. Carla has been undertaking extra curricular courses in cinematography and gaining experience in the camera department.

Currently studying Art Direction and Visual Effects at University of the Arts London (UAL), Carla is embarking on her graduate film as Co-Director and Director of Photography- a challenge she is passionate to take on.

The film explores the concept of Synesthesia, which allows Carla to interpret the raw energy of jazz and punk music and similarly to when she paints, and create a visually striking experience.

Leticija Bingelite

Producer

A recent graduate of the London Film Academy, she has already built a diverse portfolio of work. Her producing credits include the western short film The Crow That Flew West and the music video Club Politics for artist ESMEE. In addition to her producing work, Leticija has served as First Assistant Director on a range of projects, including the action short Against Me and the neo-noir detective comedy The Cuntstables. She also worked as the camera operator on an award-winning commercial for Xbox, which received the NAHEMI Kodak Commercial Award.

She was drawn to Just One Big Thunderstorm by its captivating storyline and the unique visual interpretation of synesthesia through the character of Theo. She is also particularly excited by the way the film uses the city of London not just as a backdrop, but as an integral part of the narrative and atmosphere.

WHAT THE MONEY WILL BE USED FOR

The money from your kind donation will be used for things like building a jazz bar from scratch, renting out professional camera and lighting equipment to achieve the cinematic look, time in a VFX studio to animate the synesthesia on screen, time in a recording studio to create the songs that will be in the film, and what is at the core of every film production: good food to keep energy up on set for our cast and crew. 

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made