“We started with the goal that we wanted to win this year’s festival” – this is how a group of five Creative Business students set out on their journey towards the Best Short Movie award of the BUas Short Film Festival 2021. With a strong will to inspire viewers and offer them the strength to escape toxic life situations, the winning team shaped the powerful story of the short movie ‘Late Boldness’. 

Late Boldness tells the emotional story of Anna, a woman facing a challenging relationship due to her husband’s alcoholic problems, which often leads to abusive behaviour. For years on end, Anna is obedient to her husband and does not stand up for herself, lacking courage. This all changes one day, when she devises a plan that could help her and her child escape from the toxic household

I sat down with Anne-Sophie, Dobby, Karolina, Milo and Oana to learn more about the story and backstories of the movie Late Boldness.

What was your inspiration for Late Boldness?

We initially came up with the theme of abusive relationships and, after gathering some knowledge about creating story concepts, we were thinking: how do we make this work? We see this theme a lot in the 21^stcentury. There are 1000 commercials about how women are mistreated, reasonably so for such an important theme. At one point, however, this oversaturation becomes inefficient, and violence cases against women are not reduced. How can we add a switch to it? This is when the idea of bringing it back to the 50s came. In order to actually solve a problem, you have to go to the root of the problem and extract it. And that’s exactly what we decided to do!

Your movie has a very interesting style, focused on the 50’s. How did you manage to bring an old aesthetic into a contemporary short movie?

We were very ambitious about how we wanted to portray the movie, but, initially, we had no idea how to get the necessary resources. Where do we find a retro car? Where do we find an old vintage house? Three weeks before the shooting, we all got on our bikes and went through the city to find a house where we could record.  We knocked at a dentist’s door and asked him if we could use his car, and he agreed! When it comes to the props, we were very lucky to have two team members whose parents and grandparents had kept lots of old stuff. For example, they found a pair of typical 50’s pants, which were very ugly, but a perfect fit for our movie!

Creating a short movie without any prior experience was surely challenging for all Creative Business students. What do you think was the most challenging part of creating Late Boldness?

The hardest part of this project was being a lot “by ourselves”. We had no prior experience or knowledge about what creating a movie entails, yet now we had full responsibility. From getting funds to finding actors, locations and props, we had to do it all by ourselves. We ended up fighting a lot, on matters such as “who works the most”, but we are really good friends now!

Your movie gathered a great popularity among students way before it was released, mostly through your promotion on Instagram.  You must have been quite nervous when it was firstly displayed at the BUAS Short Film Festival. How would you describe the moment when you were announced to be the winners of the Best Short Movie Award?

It was the greatest feelings ever; we couldn’t believe it! Even though we knew about our movie’s popularity, we didn’t expect to win. Despite not being physically together, with some of us in Vatican, some in Czech and other in the Netherlands, we shared the same excitement. We were, and still are, very proud that our movie had such an impact on the public! 

“We probably were the most chaotic group of all classes, but somehow that made us a strong team and got us at the top of the podium.”

What did you learn from your experience with creating this short movie?

The main learning point for us was that with great expectations come great responsibilities. Making a movie is a fun experience, but there are lots of responsibilities not only related to what the movie will look like, but also to how the entire crew perceives the process. Communicating well and having a clear vision are key to a successful movie and, in the end, we learned that team work makes the dream work. 

“Late Boldness” is streaming on YouTube, and you can follow their journey on Instagram by clicking here!

Special thanks to Anne-Sophie Mulders, Dobromir Muladzhikov, Karolina Pavlátová, Milo Verhaar and Oana Micu for sharing their story with us!