Simeon Halligan, festival director and founder of Grimmfest, says “2018 is a very special year for us and to celebrate this we are proud to welcome back a number of talented filmmakers and actors who’ve shared their work with us over the past decade. We’re also pleased to introduce plenty of new talent to the festival, who we hope to see more work from in the years to come!”
UK Premieres
The full festival programme is due to be unleashed on Monday 3 September 2018, but Grimmfest is whetting audiences’ appetites with an early sneak preview of three of this year’s titles.
Nightmare Cinema
Grimmfest is thrilled to be hosting the UK Premiere of the much-anticipated Nightmare Cinema, a weird, wild and most welcome throwback to the classic EC-comics-inspired horror anthologies of the 1970s, from genre giants Alejandro Brugués, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Ryûhei Kitamura and David Slade. Fresh from its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival, the film stars Mickey Rourke, Elizabeth Reaser, Richard Chamberlain and Annabeth Gish.
Alive
Director Rob Grant (Fake Blood, Mon Ami) will be making a welcome return to the festival with the UK Premiere of Canadian shocker Alive. Tense, creepy, darkly funny, and quite spectacularly gory in places, with a truly baroque performance from Angus Macfadyen (Braveheart, Saw III/IV), this offbeat gem cements Rob Grant’s reputation of one of genre cinema’s true mavericks of morbid mischief.
Brothers’ Nest
Finally, Grimmfest is proud to announce the UK Premiere of the hilariously twisted Australian comedy Brothers’ Nest, courtesy of Signature Entertainment. Written and directed by Clayton Jacobson, who also stars in the film along with his brother Shane, this SXSW hit is an emotionally-charged pitch-black farce of squabbling siblings, filial ingratitude, thwarted ambition, broken dreams and brutal murder.
Grimmfest Awards
These and all other selected films are in the running for the previously announced Grimmfest Awards, which will be judged by a fantastic all-female jury consisting of some of the brightest lights in contemporary Genre cinema.
Awards Sponsor
Grimmfest can also now reveal that it is partnering with film financing group BCL to offer special prizes for the winners of the Best Film and Best Director awards categories. The winning films will each be awarded £40,000 worth of post-production services, which can be used against a future film.
Festival Co-Director Rachel Richardson-Jones says, “Our hope is that these awards will really help to boost productivity within the independent genre film sector, as well as demonstrating our commitment as a festival to supporting rising film talent. We intend to expand these awards further still in 2019.”
Michael Laundon, Managing Partner at BCL, adds, “All of us at BCL are delighted to be one of the prize sponsors for Grimmfest 2018, especially in their 10th anniversary year. BCL was established with a quest to truly help independent movies to not only get made but to be finished. We hope to continue our support of Grimmfest in the years to come.”
Lifetime Achievement Award
Grimmfest previously announced actress and producer Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond) as the recipient of their 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Horror Channel. Barbara will be attending the festival in person to receive the award, where she will also present a special screening of 80’s horror classic Re-Animator.
Interested?
Grimmfest’s 10th edition will take place from 4 to 7 October at the ODEON Manchester Great Northern, UK.
Full festival passes are on sale now from grimmfest.com. Day passes and individual film tickets will be released on 3rd September 2018, along with the full festival programme.
See you there!
