SNAPSHOT
When a horticulturist-astronaut gets stranded on a dwarf planet, his chances of survival are limited. Knowing that he will not survive this trip, he plants mango trees on the planet when another spaceship crashes on the planet. An ethereal creature named Blush, who has wavy bright pink hair, helps him to grow the trees with her powers and provides oxygen for him to breathe. They begin to spend time together and discover that they have feelings for each other. The heavenly creature and the lonely traveller build a life together on the desolate dwarf planet, welcoming two children who love mangos. They discover that even though time is limited, the universe is filled with eternal love and salvation. (synopsis courtesy Flipscreened)
I lost both my parents to terminal disease between 2016 and 2019 and honestly the grief that enveloped me subsequent to their passing was unlike anything I have ever experienced.
It was debilitating in the extreme and the idea of anything productive flowing from that period seemed almost impossible.
One creator who knows exactly how dark and dead end a place this is is Joe Matteo, described by Variety as an “Emmy-winning writer, director and animator”, who admits, in press notes for his luminously affecting short film, Blush, that “it took him a lot to get out of the dark place in his life to create a project like this to keep his wife’s memory and love perpetually bonded to this world after she died following her battle with cancer.” (Flipscreened)
He channelled this need to honour his beautiful wife by making Blush, a film which, he hopes, “explains the stages of grief in the most heartwarming way possible”. (Flipscreened
While we have to wait a couple more months to see the full 14-minute film, we now have a trailer which honestly is a thing of heartfelt beauty that touchingly explores what it is to love and to struggle with finding a way to honour the gift of unconditional love you were given and which remains with you still, even after the person you dearly loved is no longer physically with you.
Blush premieres on Apple TV+ on 1 October 2022.