Films to gain Inspiration from

Our chosen genre is Social Realist, and our topic is body image, particularly looking at how this is affected by various kinds of media.

Therefore, I have researched existing films which similarly focus on this issue.

Arresting Ana

This is a documentary created by legislator Valerie Boyle, who was campaigning for the passing of  a law in France which stated that promoting eating disorders is a punishable offense. She wants this law passed in response to the thousands of 'pro-Ana' blogs which have gone up online in the past few years, where people talk about their search for the 'perfect body' and how they want to be 'anorexic skinny'. Many post poems to the 'goddess Ana', meaning anorexia, which is the front of a global underground movement that promotes the illness.

We could further build on this for our own film, perhaps using the perspective of one of these bloggers and his/her growing obsession with anorexia, or could alternatively use the perspective of a person who is influenced daily by blogs such as these, which cause her to deteriorate in health at an alarming rate.

Disfigured

Disfigured is a short film from an independent company that looks at the trauma experienced by women who have/have had eating disorders. It shows the friendship of an anorexic woman and her overweight best friend, depicting the support they give one another, but also portraying how their independent issues regarding this issue almost causes their friendship to fall apart.

We could take inspiration from this film as we could look into the destructive nature eating disorders have, particularly in regards to a social life, as we could demonstrate the deterioration of our protagonist's friendships, using editing techniques to illustrate her isolation.


Beauty Mark

This is a short film, only fifty minutes long, and it focuses on the cultural, psychological and emotional influences that force young women across the world to conform to society's expectations of the 'ideal' body in order to be accepted. It could be extremely helpful to us as it follows a plot line quite similar to our own.

Evaluation
This blog post aims to provide inspiration for our own teaser trailer, as we hope to have a plot line similar to those outlined above. Some of the films may also be deconstructed in regards to their trailers.