Like its predecessor, Apricot, Australian director Ben Briand’s short film Blood Pulls a Gun focuses on young love; but where the former was dreamy and impressionistic, the latter’s story of a teenager’s first sexual impulses is desperately visceral. 

“Teens want to poke and prod the world around them,” says the filmmaker, who is also known for his striking visuals for Public Enemy. “The bad-boy type offers a promise of doing that. In the film, he represents a sense of total freedom that the protagonist craves.”

“The plausibility of the film rested on an actor who was on the knife edge of becoming a woman and also maintaining girlish qualities,” adds Briand of star Odessa Young, the rising actress from Australian soap opera Wonderland. “There weren’t [initially] many filmic references, but rather musical ones. I gave screenwriter Kevin Koehler a playlist of music that I wanted the eventual film to feel like – The Cramps, Nick Cave soundtracks, that sort of tone.”