“Yellow Dress” : Behind the Film
Love is complicated. It can take many different forms: familial ties, romantic passions, and lasting friendships. Sometimes, love can truly be painful and growing up, especially during your teens, makes this emotional journey all that much more complex.
In her new short film, “Yellow Dress”, Buffalo-based Creative Director Mars Angel BB shares the complicated, tender, and volatile reality of being a 19-year-old girl. With the exploration of three central themes: trauma, friendship, and play, she is able to reveal the hard truth of how those meant to love and protect you can often be the source of trauma and leave the deepest wounds. She positions friendship and play at the center and offers them as forms of joy, rebellion, and even a means of survival. In this coming-of-age film, Mars displays how trauma can exacerbate a young girl’s desire to both grow up and to cling to her rapidly fleeing innocence.
Mars is a multimedia artist from Buffalo, New York. We sat down with her and the main actors, Olive, Syd, and Tai, to talk about what it was like to bring “Yellow Dress” to life. In the process, we learned what went into creating this film, why certain thematic choices were made, and, lastly, how the main characters built their connection to one another.
Featured from left to right: Syd, Tai, Olive, and Mars
Photographed by Kelso Dux
The film focuses on Olive, a 19-year-old dancer who competes under the training of her strict grandmother. With the support of her two best friends, Syd and Ikea, Olive grapples with her transition into adulthood, all while processing the trauma her grandmother and the underground dance world she competes in, have done to her.
The dichotomy of innocence and adulthood is present throughout the film with the characters engaging in innocent forms of play against adultlike behaviors: putting on a bedroom fashion show while drinking, getting ice cream on the beach while smoking weed, and dressing up as fairies while rolling on Molly. We asked Mars if this juxtaposition was intentional, and she answered “I really think that juxtaposition embodies what a 19-year-old girl is. Having that innocence of still being kind of a child, but trying to rush through and take the drugs and go to the parties and, you know, do all of those things. So it was definitely on purpose in the sense of trying to capture the essence of a 19 year old”. Tai added that these moments show how trauma can deepen the need to grow up, “because you have to…go through these intense [and] emotional whatevers, you're like, ‘all right, well, I'm grown’”.
Mars affirmed her intention behind centering friendship and play as Olive’s space for escape and security, “Yeah, I think [friendship] was definitely my way of surviving at one point. You know, when things weren't okay at home, what was safe… was play and… imagination… I think that’s the reason why… I didn't want to make it where [she] was running away with a guy. I didn't want it to be like a romance. I wanted it to be about girlhood and childhood and really shining a light on… who was there to save me and it was my friends.”
Beginning in 2025, Mars began to script and film “Yellow Dress”, drafting the core script in just two months and continuing to refine and reshape it throughout production. She expressed how the film was a new creative space for her, “A short film is what came first…then the story of ‘Yellow Dress’. For years, I've been practicing different mediums and it was on my radar to make a short film”. She continued “I think ‘Yellow Dress’ has really helped me redefine what it means to be an artist. I've always been used to chasing the next shoot…chasing that next hit of dopamine, [but] really having to sit with a project for a year…having the highs of producing and like writing and stuff, but [also] those nights alone where I'm just questioning ‘am I wasting time?’, It's those grounding moments of just pushing through…but it's worth it, and I kind of see my artistic journey being more like that…quality over quantity”.
While writing, Mars already had two of the three main characters picked out. “I was blessed to meet Olive… I just saw so much in me… someone that actually was practicing different mediums and doing a really good job at it”. The second actress, Syd, had known Mars for years before the film saying, “Being friends with Syd, it really does feel like I'm in a movie, and I feel like that is a personality trait that should be in a movie”. For the last person of the film’s trio, Ikea, Mars chose Tai, who she previously crossed paths with in the creative sphere, “Tai’s energy…[I felt] really could ground us into the film”. In reaction to being casted Tai laughed, “I really thought she texted the wrong person”, and continued, “seeing Mars work … I had to work with her on some level and so this alignment just felt so right”. Olive had a similar feeling of alignment, “I felt like I was seeing my fate play out before me…and that this was my debut into the world.”
Mars shared how much she values uplifting women and having them on set, “ Women need to be telling women stories”. She makes it clear, “it's always very important to have women on set, but I think it's even a little bit more badass to have men on set that know to like, shut up and take a backseat and respect my vision”. She continued, “With women, I feel like we have to try a little bit harder for people to respect us. I do feel really grateful that there are a lot of people in the art scene in Buffalo that do respect me and do know that I'm gonna pull through” she later added “ I've always been a leader and I've always been told to tell boys no and very much like walk into a room [like] you own it. And if you walk in that way everyone else is gonna trust you and follow along”.
Behind the Scenes Photos by Kelso Dux
Each location in the film was intentional, being tied to Mars’ life growing up in Buffalo. For example, the Quarry is where she spends her summer with friends. She reflected on some of the other locations, “even when they're walking around the railroad tracks, that's a place that my grandpa worked on, and the Frosty’s, that's a place that I grew up on…I really wanted to only take from my own living experiences”.
Leading such a complex film project, the challenges are inevitable. Mars opened up to us about her struggles when shooting a pivotal scene, “We only had 24 minutes to make something happen with [a] flat background. I remember just… being like, ‘I can't do this’... [at] that moment, I learned that those breakdowns are gonna give you the breakthrough and then the magic comes from that”.
The three main characters, Olive, Syd, and Tai all met each other on the first day of filming. Olive: “It's funny because it definitely grew, but… [there] really was crazy chemistry just to begin with…and it just blossomed”.
Tai: “For me personally, I feel like I had just been in an era in my life where I really wasn't around a lot of girls…I had gone through a lot of really weird friendship trauma where I just really closed myself off… I had to really like to be like, ‘‘we're safe’. I love girlhood and…that was like something I just felt like I needed”.
Syd: “I think just trusting each other and feeling safe with each other, it became just like such an experience to be able to be so vulnerable and intimate and to do something we're so passionate about”. She added, “Maybe it doesn't translate because it was such a beautiful, fun experience… [but] it was very serious and it was a lot of work and energy that we put into it…I felt like we were birthing Mars's baby [and] we’re the midwives!”
Olive and Syd, Photographed by Kelso Dux
Lastly, we asked Mars what “Yellow Dress” signifies to her, “‘Yellow Dress’ isn't supposed to mean anything to anyone besides me… a few years ago, I was told a story by someone that's very close to me…[about] this… recurring memory that resurfaces in her daily life. So thinking about how that yellow dress stayed with me…it made me start to look into how…the trauma that we endured really does stay with us no matter what… I feel like there's a lot of invisible suffering… that we all have… so the ‘Yellow Dress’ is really like a symbol of [that].
Behind the Scenes of “Yellow Dress”, photographed by Kelso Dux
“Yellow Dress” is a statement of pain and perseverance, and at the same time, a love letter to one's younger self. For one night only, join us on March 8th, 2026 at Agustin Olivencia Community Center, to witness this letter unravel.