Lotis Bloom, Open Swim's Casting Division, Dives in on "The Aftereffect"
Open Swim, the Brooklyn-based production company founded by Director Bradley J. Ross, has announced that its casting division, Lotis Bloom, is taking the lead on the company’s newest feature documentary, “The Aftereffect,” which Ross is directing. The film explores the extraordinary experiences of people who’ve survived Near-Death Experiences (NDE’s), the profound ways these events have reshaped them, and the cutting edge scientific studies that are occurring as we speak.
“Early on, we realized this film couldn’t rely on traditional casting,” Ross says. “With an estimated 500 million people worldwide having had an NDE, the challenge wasn’t finding stories, it was finding the right ones. What we discovered was stranger, more intimate, and more unsettling than fiction – including someone who was officially pronounced dead and later woke up zipped inside a body bag. So many lives have been reordered by crossing a threshold that most of us will never remember.” The film is currently in the midst of principal photography with postproduction scheduled to begin early spring 2026.
Kathryn Lotis, Creative Talent Manager of Lotis Bloom, joined the project after Ross shared his interest last summer to bring the extraordinary stories and exploration surrounding NDEs to the screen. Drawing on her experience in casting commercials and unscripted projects, she worked closely with the Open Swim team and her casting associate Nate Bloom to discern pathways around this topic and to tackle the unique challenges of documentary casting.
As a casting producer, Lotis reached out to survivors of NDEs, their families, and medical professionals, capturing a wide range of perspectives while discovering stories that shaped the narrative in unexpected ways.
“Bradley’s enthusiasm for this project has been contagious,” says Lotis. “It’s been uplifting meeting people that have such a beautiful view of the world after their NDE experiences. Casting a documentary is like connecting people through string on a growing bulletin board in your garage. Each connection shapes the story and leads to new discoveries, as interviewees introduce us to others who have had similar experiences.”
Connecting with NDE survivors through social media groups and organizations such as the International Association for Near-Death Studies (IANDS), Lotis Bloom prioritized representing multiple perspectives, from survivors to their families to medical professionals and skeptics. This included interviews that took a historical perspective with Raymond Moody, one of the pioneers in NDE research, as well as preeminent scholars like cognitive scientist Susan Blackmore and neuroscientist Charlotte Martial, who is engaged in current scientific studies and welcomed the crew into her resuscitation unit.
Adds Bloom, “Being internal to Open Swim means we’re involved on a daily basis and work from the inside out. We end up embracing other related roles like location scouting: finding places that are true to the subjects, working both creatively and logistically. It’s a more integrated approach, which relies on the strong teamwork Kathryn and I have together. It supports both the final product and the people who make it.”
“Lotis Bloom has been an incredible asset to Open Swim and our clients,” adds Open Swim’s Executive Producer Amyliz Pera. “In documentary work, casting producers can be the unsung heroes. Kathryn and Nate have their hands in both content and logistics and are really shaping this story with Bradley and the larger team. As the casting producer, Kathryn has numerous potential story avenues at the ready, so I imagine her garage bulletin board is pretty big and covered in string and Post-its.”
