Beauty Sleep is a retro futuristic story about the dangers of pursuing perfection. 

Written with my own body image struggles in mind, my aim is for Beauty Sleep to encourage people to examine their own relationships with beauty standards and identity.

At the heart of this story is our protagonist Sandy, a mortician who now gives makeovers to living teens. She's a true individual in a uniform world that rejects her creativity. I’m sure many of you can relate to Sandy.

See samples of my work below - Find our fun rewards for your support to the right (if you're on a laptop). Scroll to the bottom if you're on a phone >>>

www.jasminedesilva.com

Jasmine's Reel Below

In the Beauty Sleep world, cosmetic enhancement is more extreme than our own. New boobs, butts and faces can be purchased, sewn on and bedazzled to your choosing.

And the latest beauty trend? “Sleeping Beauty Makeovers”. A living embalment all performed by an authentic Mortician, where teens jump out of a sparkling coffin instead of a giant cake for their Sweet 16. Still cute?

Refs: Petra Collins Left. Heathers Dir Michael Lehmann Right

Ref: Legally Blonde Dir Robert Luketic

Sandy would bedazzle her own buttcrack if she didn’t need to shit like everyone else. Her style is big and bold to override her insecurities. She’s used to doing makeup for the dead, which she loves. But her boss, Larry, has convinced her to do the Sleeping Beauty trend instead - so he can cash in. 

In Beauty Sleep, today is like any other day, as Sandy primps luscious hair, blushes rosy cheeks and smears vaseline across the plump red lips of yet another anaesthetised teenage girl, Lolo.

Right on cue, Larry barges in, warning her not to get too creative, correction... not at all creative. Lolo’s mother Tina is outside, and the pressure to achieve absolute perfection is on. When things don’t go to plan, Sandy may get her creative wish after all. Please help us reach our funding goal to find out what happens! 

Ref: Brazil Dir Terry Gilliam

Beauty Sleep will merge the absurd yet perfect suburbia of Edward Scissorhands, with the self-destructive yet mesmerising world of Euphoria.

The visual language will employ the intensely alluring, glossy and precisely designed aesthetic of the advertising world, locking you into a false sense of security, blinded by saturated colours and dreamy star filters. 

We will show how women are repeatedly reduced to their body parts in film, subverting this framing method by revealing the characters piece by piece to capture the horror of this practice.

Ref:Edward Scissorhands Dir Tim Burton

The overwhelming desire to adhere to beauty standards is a universal struggle that’s often dismissed as a superficial issue, but this discomfort in our own skin leads to body anxieties and dysmorphia, depression, eating disorders and suicide, or dangerous and fatal body modification.

The modifiable body parts in Beauty Sleep represent how we are encouraged to treat our bodies like accessories to be pulled apart and re-constructed.

Image by Jasmine De Silva - How To Build Your Human series

I’ve been self-funding and developing this fictional world in my work for the past five years through micro shorts. This leap into narrative will help our team move one step closer to our dream of creating feature films together. We need your help to make all of this a reality! Without funding we can’t bring this new world to life. 

The best way you can help our project is to donate and/or share this crowdfunding page. 

Combining retrofuturism and hyperreal aesthetics, I playfully satirise the desire for physical perfection, holding up a mirror to our own dehumanising obsession with appearances, aiming to expose society’s unrealistic standards of beauty. I studied at the London College of Fashion, completing a BA and MA in Fashion Photography. My work has won awards for emerging talent in Photography and Directing.  I was a winner of 2022 BJP Female in Focus Awards. My first film How to Build Your Human received national & international recognition winning awards for best emerging director, screening at over 20 festivals in the first year, including; London Short Film Festival; Nitehawk Cinema NY; Aesthetica Film Festival. My second film Quality Control was nominated for Channel 4 Random Acts Award.

Tuli is a freelance producer who’s shot seven short films to date. Including three BFI NETWORK Shorts and one Art With Impact funded Short (directed by Lucie Rachel and Chrissie Hyde). Her shorts have screened in over a hundred film festivals worldwide including numerous BAFTA qualifying programmes (BFI Flare, LSFF, included).

She has worked as a Production Coordinator for the A&E docuseries ‘Janet Jackson’. Tuli has produced commercials and fashion content for the likes of GOOGLE CLOUD and TANK magazine as well as many music videos. Most recently her music video work has included the band WARPAINT (directed by BIFA-winning director Jim Hosking). She works as a Project Manager for CHANEL & WDCD’s charity ‘Alice’, a project which brings dance opportunities for children from underprivileged backgrounds.

Tuli studied Fine Art at Central Saint Martins and Producing at NFTS.

Nuha Mekki is a London based Set & Production Designer. She has worked on various projects specialising in the hyperrealist and realist aesthetic in film, fashion, content and events. She has worked with clients such as Pinterest, Google, Facebook, YouTube, Samsung, Island Records, Warner Music, Carhartt, Vogue and GQ.  

Her approach to set is hands on and executes her projects as set decorator for the majority of them.  She works with exceptionally creative and talented Art Dept crews to bring visions to reality. 

https://www.nuhamekki.com/film

Feature film: Little Bone Lodge with Director Matthias Hoene starring Joely Richardson 

Shorts: First One Away: Director Zak Harney starring Dan Skinner & Angus Imrie 

Alice is a prosthetic make-up artist for the film and TV industry. She spends her time on film sets and in prosthetics workshops transforming actors into elves, orcs, goblins, old age characters and everything in between. Since completing a degree in makeup effects in 2015, over the last 8 years she has worked across the UK and Europe on multiple productions including The Rings of Power, 1917, Carnival Row, The Wheel of Time and Artemis Fowl. Her work has been seen on Netflix, HBO, Amazon prime, BBC, Disney and in the cinema. Alice works in all areas of Make up effects including silicone, sculpting, hair insertion and mould making. She is freelance and specialises in painting and prosthetic application, and has worked for most of the UK’s top film prosthetics companies. 

Natasha has 20 years experience in Makeup, Hair, Wigs, SFX & Concept Design. She also designs Tech-FX Costume which includes masks, creature effects, & garments made from unconventional materials. Her latest feature film ‘How To Have Sex’ won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes film festival, & her shorts films include ‘Sad Day’ Directed by FKA Twigs & Hiro Murai.
Her clients include: Dev Patel, Rosy Mcewen, Rowan Atkinson, Kylie Minogue, Ed Sheeran, Anthony Joshua & Tim Burton.

Judit is a creative hair and wig artist based in London graduated with a BA in Hair & Make-up Design and lately completed a MA in Wearable Futures. 

She started as a hairdresser training with Toni & Guy and later on continued her career between Barcelona and London as a seasonal hair artist passionately getting involved in creative projects with other artist. Alongside working broadly across established and emerging fashion brands, commercials and on independent and high-end tv dramas and films at a national and international scale.

Sian is a London-based fashion stylist and costume designer experienced in editorial, commercial, advertising, music and celebrity as well as wardrobe for TV and film. Sian created costume for the BAFTA nominated ‘Best Short Programme’ for toni_with_an_i for BBC4. Clients include Nintendo, Disney, Channel 4, Vogue Italia, The Guardian, Rolling Stone and NME.

Thank you for your support! Stay up to date with our funding journey by following @jasmine_desilva on instagram

Ref: Heathers Dir Michael Lehmann