Genre in Focus: Horror
A season of online events breaking down fearsome filmmaking

Throughout June we’re helping filmmakers explore the moving image’s power to scare, unsettle and disturb.

After last month’s celebration of comedy, we’re shifting from funny to fearsome film with Genre in Focus: Horror – a series of events taking place throughout June that will showcase the North’s homegrown horror talent and the UK filmmakers putting the frighteners on the genre scene at a national and international level.

We’re setting the scene with Developing Horror on Tuesday, 16 June, where we'll hear from two of the UK’s most exciting horror filmmakers. Prano Bailey-Bond is a writer-director and Screen International Star of Tomorrow; her horror short Nasty was an award-winning festival smash and her debut feature, Censor is currently in post-production. Oliver Kassman is a producer and founder of Escape Plan, a genre focussed production company whose first film was the internationally celebrated, much-hyped UK horror Saint Maud. Our host is Anna Bogutskaya; freelance film programmer and co-founder of horror film collective The Final Girls.

On Monday, 22 June we open up a box of local tricks with a special edition of our Northern Exposure Short Film Night. We’ll showcase great horror shorts from Northern fearmongers and follow up with a live Q&A session with the filmmakers themselves. The killer line-up includes Secretion: a grimly atmospheric chiller from Sarah Talbot about an unhappily married couple whose domestic unease is amplified by stilted dinners under a gruesome, dripping stain on the ceiling of their flat.

Both events are free to attend – all you need to take part is a reliable internet connection. For more details on these sessions, and other upcoming talent development opportunities via BFI NETWORK, take a look at our calendar of filmmaker events.