Mushroom Depression, is a surreal psych-horror about a mother’s and daughter’s relationship as an unknown illness slowly deforms her both mentally and physically.
Statement from our Director - Luca Pavano:
When developing Mushroom Depression, I leaned heavily into my own experiences with similar events, which influenced a lot of the character motivations and activities. Actions like taking a person out to lunch across the road from a hospital, uncomfortably small-talking with the nurses and just kind of sitting there, not doing anything together. This film means a lot to me emotionally, it’s a story based around my life and the characters are reflections of this. When pitching it to friends, family or colleagues, the surreal nature of the film didn’t cover up the realness of the relationships with Nora and Sarah’s bond being deeply realistic. This story is mine to tell, a film that is based so heavily around real relationships that I have encountered and dealt with, from the perspective of a genre I love so dearly. Last year I worked on He Who Walks Among Us, a more casual, monster gore fest kind of film and while tonaly these two films are completely separate, I got to learn a lot about costuming, blood SFX and sound design, which is something I would take into this project. Now is a perfect time for a story like this. Illness is never something we can really escape from, it’s always manifesting around the corner and I think these past years have really shown that. Having a film that unapologetically displays the hurt and bleakness of a situation like this, while showing the moments of love, the massive impact these small actions make on a person’s life, is something deeply relatable. The up-and-down relationship of the mother and daughter is something a lot of people can relate to and I hope people can see elements of themselves in this film and take inspiration to make every moment count, the little actions all adding up in the end.
About the Story:
An elderly Nora is given a set of bad news by her doctor, the treatments aren’t working and the disease is spreading. The film focuses on how the relationship with her daughter, Sarah changes under these new pressures, where every little action could be their last. Told from the perspective of Sarah, we see her mother slowly deteriorating, her disease impersonated by a plague of mushroom spores that slowly take over body and mind, reducing her to a shell of her former self. We watch Sarah struggle with her inaction, passively watching her mother become a human-mushroom, struggling to make every moment count, no matter how small. Nora’s calm character and glass-half-full nature clash with Sarah’s anxiety and depression following her mother’s slow demise.
What the money will go to:
Designing the set -
Our biggest hurdle will be the production design. We'd like the mushrooms to feel surreal, not focusing on hyperrealism, something that could be, rather than is, and we'd like to see the bedroom and Nora herself, slowly transformed into this sprawling mess of spores and growths, similar to ‘Annihilation’, designed by Mark Digby. We are going to need proffesionals to help us create this look and provide us with the materials to do so.
Makeup and Costume -
Similarly to the set design, the makeup and costume will be our other biggest hurdle, especially for Nora.
We will be needing Nora’s actor to look sick, progressively getting more intense as the film moves on, with darker patches of skin, discolouing, turning her face more yellow/green.
As the film prolongs, new mushrooms will begin to sprout and grow from her face and body. For these, we will need to create fake skin to place mushroom bulbs into, which we can then expand upon as time continues. Dressed in a hospital gown, Nora’s body is where most of the body horror will appear. Growths of mushroom clusters, a mix of species preferably with some, long and thin, and others more clumped, larger and flat.
Finally, this will all cultivate in the final set piece. We will be creating a head-piece for Nora’s actor, that will make her head appear as a mushroom. This will then be chopped off, leaving a bloody stump which a blood hose will explode from.
Miscellaneous things we also need -
Feeding our Cast and Crew, getting permits to film in locations we wouldn't be able to otherwise and Submitting the film to festivals.
Why should you fund us?
Our Crew has worked incredibly hard to make this happen so far, we're super proud of this project and need funding to make it to the best of our ability.
If you decide to fund us you'll receive:
A finished copy of the film.
BTS shots and videos.
Top donators will recieve:
A peice of the set! Potentially a mushroom.
Thanks for checking us out!