‘Dark Nights Film Festival’: Experience these “nightmare movies”
Image: Still from 'Parvulos'. Source: Supplied
The inaugural Dark Nights Film Festival will terrify moviegoers who have an appetite for horror flicks starring zombies, vampires, demons, ghosts and psychos!
This film festival is a Sydney-based platform for young, emerging, and established independent filmmakers and films. The program boasts 9 features, 18 shorts, 3 International Premieres and 9 Australian Premieres from Europe, the Americas and Australia.
Bryn Tilly is the Founder, Director & Curator of Dark Nights and he believes there has always been and always will be an appetite for horror flicks.
“In fact, according to recent figures, horror films have made an astonishing rise in popularity over the past ten years. This film festival is about championing the indie scene that hasn’t yet crossed over, or is on the cusp, providing audiences with the chance to see films that may not get a theatrical release.”
Tilly explained why moviegoers enjoy paying hard earned cash to be terrified in darkened cinemas watching horror flicks.
“The thrill of being frightened, horrified by something that isn’t real, in the safety of a cinema, is the essence. Audiences love being confronted by their worst fears, yet surrounded by others also experiencing the same thing, it’s a communal sense of exhilaration, of tension and release.”
The selection of films screening at this festival are not mainstream and when asked how this festival was curated, he was quick to respond.
“Dark Nights Film Festival has an open submission process and a script competition for unproduced feature and short film screenplays. Dark Nights is committed to programming around 90% of its short films and 50% of its features from the cold submissions. Alongside watching lots of submissions I also scout the international festival circuit keeping my eyes peeled for any indie films that might fit the Dark Nights vibe.”
Tilly asserted that The Aussie Shorts Showcase is one of the festival’s flagship sessions.
“We have 10 short films from around Australia, from young (one talented filmmaker is just 17!), emerging, to established. It’s exciting to be able to provide a shared cinema screening for these talented filmmakers, many of them in the early stages of their career.”
But there’s much more than just movies for horror film enthusiasts to enjoy at this inaugural festival.
“On the Saturday and Sunday afternoons there’ll be the Dark Nights Movie Boutique, several stalls run by industry luminaries including Nick Nicolaou from Australia’s legendary Make-up Effects Group, selling all kinds of horror and dark genre merchandise: Blu-rays, DVDs, books, mags, CDs, posters, vinyl, high art and deep trash gems!” enthused Tilly.
There’s something for almost everyone at this film festival. If you are fascinated by the macabre, enjoy trashy and exploitative or atmospheric and artful cinema, this festival is right up your alley!
“It’s the imaginative and visceral immediacy of horror that continues to captivate audiences,” concluded Tilly.
TILLY’S HOT PICKS
PARVULOS – The opening night movie from Mexican filmmaker Isaac Ezban tells the story of three brothers surviving the zombie apocalypse from within a forest cabin. Ezban has created a modern classic – thrilling, shocking, funny, and sad.
THE DEAD THING – Elric Kane debut narrative feature is a fascinating hybrid of horror and thriller elements that harnesses eroticism in a unique way. Blu Hunt is fantastic in the central role of a young woman deeply entrenched in the perilous world of modern dating, and the dangerous path her obsessive nature leads her.
SOLVENT – From Austrian director Johannes Grenzfurthner. This is a nightmarish descent into paranoia, madness, and body-horror via the well-worn format of found footage, but in the case of this faux-doco, it’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. A truly mind-melting journey into the dark shadows of European WWII history.
Oct 11 – 13. Ritz Cinemas, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick.
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