/ Don't hate the media, become the media.Jello Biafra

When Kei checks into the Dream Baby Maternity Home she is having second thoughts, and an unsettling dream about her unborn child. After a disturbing chain of events, Kei will discover that her intuitions are not the product of maternal hysteria - but clues to the horrifying fate that awaits her...

 

Hi Kristen, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us ahead of your screening of Milk Baby at the 21st HollyShorts Film Festival. How does it feel to be having your L.A. premiere at the festival this summer?

 

It’s very exciting to be screening in my hometown. Most of our crew and cast are also Angelenos, and it’s so meaningful to be able to get together and celebrate our hard work.  Also, we are screening at the iconic TCL Chinese Theatre, which is both exhilarating and surreal. MILK BABY is a film that is meant to be experienced in the theatre, both visually and in sound, so as a team, we couldn’t ask for a better venue to share the film with audiences. 

 

Milk Baby’s World Premiere took place at the Rhode Island International Film Festival, what was that experience like?

 

It’s a surreal moment when your film has its world premiere. MILK BABY was once just a seed in my imagination. To see it realised, to see audiences connect with your vision, is what makes it all worth it in the end.  

 

Your previous short The Wind Phone won multiple-awards during its festival run, what did it mean to you to see your film get this type of response from festivals?

 

I have to say THE WIND PHONE was a film that caught me by surprise. When I wrote THE WIND PHONE, I was going through a period of grief, having first lost a project I had been working on for years and then my dear grandmother.  It was an abrupt ending without any goodbyes. Looking back,  I initially pursued the story as a way to work through my own grief (for those who don’t know the true story behind THE WIND PHONE, look it up; it is one of the most incredible collective grieving movements on the planet). I had no specific agenda for the film, in terms of its reach or reception. I made it because I felt a deep calling in my heart. The film ended up screening in over 100 festivals, winning over 50 awards, and having an immense social impact - which  I just recently spoke about at Yale. THE WIND PHONE is proof that when you create from the heart, it will resonate with audiences. Sometimes we feel pressured as filmmakers to chase trends or to focus on our "branding." While this is not bad advice, never forget the power of inspiration and personal connection to a story.

 

How did Milk Baby come about, what was it about vintage horror that inspired your screenplay?

 

Shortly after the birth of my son, I began struggling with the challenges of early motherhood - experiences that sharply contrasted with the idyllic stories I had been inundated with throughout my life. It was my exploration surrounding the realities and fantasies of motherhood that inspired the emotional conception of MILK BABY, a sci-fi fantasy/horror film that juxtaposes glamorised visions of motherhood with the darker truths and inequalities faced by many women in the context of a bio-capitalistic nightmare.

 

When thinking about the visual style and language of a film, I always start with the underlying themes. MILK BABY is a story where beautiful lies obscure a terrifying reality - a near-future world that has dangerously regressed. I drew inspiration from a film that deeply influenced me as a creator: ROSEMARY’S BABY. Its visual aesthetic challenged conventional notions of horror, blending beauty with dark, unsettling subject matter and redefining the genre when it was released.

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Horror doesn’t always have to be dark and ugly; I believe that contrast is often more truthful to reality and, consequently, more unsettling. This idea influenced the film’s aesthetic—bright, poppy colours, floral motifs, ornate maternity costumes, and an idyllic world that’s coated in sugar.

 

I also wanted to play with the audience’s perception of time. Is this the past, the present, or the future? The design of the world and costumes has a retro-futuristic quality that blurs these lines. It feels like we’re entering a late ’60s maternity home, only to reveal that we’re actually in a near-future dystopia that has regressed. While the aesthetic is visually striking in its own right, there’s a deeper thematic significance behind this choice. That era was characterised by overwhelming and oppressive expectations placed on women as mothers—a time with little awareness or empathy for maternal mental health. How does the past mirror our own world, and what does it tell us about what we could normalise in the future?

 

What was the most challenging scene for you to shoot?

 

There are a few scenes I recall as particularly challenging—some for personal reasons, others for technical ones. And, of course, the constant reality that, on a short film budget, there's never enough time to shoot everything. To keep it brief, I’ll focus on the reveal that our heroine has been trafficked to a large-scale factory. I initially thought such a shot would be impossible within our budget. But my brilliant DP, Jon Keng, encouraged me not to let financial constraints limit our vision. That is where our exceptional visual effects supervisor, Lee Stringer, worked his magic. Instead of building multiple wheels - which would have been environmentally wasteful and costly, we created a single wheel and digitally replicated it to realise the scale of this shot. 

 

It was the first time I relied heavily on VFX to realise a scene, and it was a completely new way of working for me. I’m so glad I took that leap, and trusted my talented collaborators to bring this vision to life. In the end, we achieved a powerful visual that communicates everything without a single word. I was fortunate to work with such talented artists on this project, and I learned so much from the experience.