Best Feature: KEEPING COMPANY.
Josh Wallace and Devin Das's bloody and blackhearted satire of the American Dream, which received its European Premiere at Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights
Honourable mention for Kourosh Ahari's surreal and disorientating THE NIGHT, which received its UK premiere and a special preview screening at the festival.
Best Director: JUSTIN MCMILLAN.
Supernatural crime drama, SWEET RIVER is a tale of grief, guilty secrets, and ghosts, which received its UK Premiere at the festival
Honourable mention going to JUSTIN MCCONNELL, for his unflinchingly honest and personal exploration of the business of independent filmmaking, CLAPBOARD JUNGLE.
Best Performance(s): HELENA PUIG & ANTONIO ALCANTARA.
For their extraordinary double act, in Pablo Olmos Arrayales' dazzling feature film debut, the single-take psychological thriller, RENDEZ-VOUS, which received its Northern Premiere at Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights.
Best SFX/VFX: THE BARCELONA VAMPIRESS.
Lluis Danés' visually sumptuous re-imagining of an infamous real-life murder, which draws on a century's worth of cinematic visual trickery, from silent-movie shadow play to the latest CGI, to evoke a palpable sense of place and time. The film received its UK Premiere at Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights.
Honourable mention, too, for Alexey Kazakov's psychedelic tale of witchcraft, possession and male egotism, MARA, which also received its UK premiere.
Best Scare: THE OTHER SIDE.
Tord Danielsson and Oskar Mellander's bone chillingly effective relocation of the classic haunted house scenario to a drab Swedish suburb, received its UK Premiere at Grimmfest.
Best Short: YOU'RE DEAD, HELEN.
Michiel Blanchart's deft juggling of romantic comedy nerve-jangling horror and gut punching heartbreak received its UK premiere at Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights.
Honourable mentions, too, for Ashlea Wessel, for the unsettling WEIRDO, which received its UK premiere at the festival, and for a couple of Grimmfest Alumni: Natasha Halevi for her stark Super-8 solo project DON'T GO OUTSIDE, and FRIED BARRY director Ryan Kruger for his characteristically confrontational take on the sex war, #MEOWTOO, both of which received their world premieres at the festival.
Grimmfest Easter Horror Nights screened fourteen feature film premieres, sixteen short film premieres and twelve exclusive Q&As with filmmakers and stars. With movies from the US, Australia, Sweden, Spain, Russia, Korea and more, this was truly an international line up of exceptional new work that featured performances from stars as diverse as Donald Sutherland (Don’t Look Now), Tyler Posey (Teen Wolf), Mena Suvari (American Beauty), Sergi Lopez (Pan’s Labyrinth) Shahab Hosseini (The Salesman), Lyrica Okano (Marvel’s Runaways), and Margaret Cho (All-American Girl).
In total, Grimmfest Easter edition hosted 3 World premieres, 2 International Premieres, 5 European premieres, 14 UK premieres and 6 Northern UK premieres. Not bad for their first Easter outing!
