Monthly Archives: March 2013

MEDIA RELEASE: 10 By 10 Script Challenge winners

Posted by Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival on

The awards night of the inaugural competition took place on 10 March in Hobart, Tasmania

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hobart – 12 March— The awards night for the 10 By 10 Short Script Challenge took place in Hobart last week as part of the Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival.

The Challenge gives writers 10 days to compete a short horror script. The theme this year was a quote by iconic American author Shirley Jackson:

“Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?”

The Challenge attracted entries from Australia and around the world.

The scripts were assessed by a panel of judges: genre screenwriting team SP Krause and Shayne Armstrong; horror filmmaker Ursula Dabrowsky; and television writer Vicki Madden. For more info about the 2013 judges click here. There was also a reading group, for first round judging.

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MEDIA RELEASE: 48-Hour ‘Tasploitation’ Challenge Winners

Posted by Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival on

The screening and awards night of the inaugural competition took place on 7 March in Hobart, Tasmania

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hobart – 11 March— The screening and awards night for the inaurgural 48-Hour ‘Tasploitation’ Challenge took place in Hobart last week as part of the Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival.

The Challenge asks filmmakers to make a short horror film of five minutes or less—from concept to full execution in a 48-hour period. Fourteen registered teams took on the Challenge, 11 teams from Tasmania and three from other Australian states, and all fourteen delivered films.

carmen_and_rebecca_SWMF_red_carpet

Best film winner Carmen Falk with festival director Rebecca Thomson.

Filmmakers were emailed a special signature phrase (it was “spit it out”) on 8 pm Friday 8 March and they had until 8 pm on Sunday 10 March to deliver their film.

“It’s been exciting for us to see the results,” says Stranger With My Face’s Briony Kidd, “The filmmakers went all out and the standard is very high.”

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Why you too should have a festival pass

Posted by Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival on

So what’s the best way to experience the Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival 2013?

Well…bring friends and stay awake I guess.

The most economical way is definitely by grabbing one of our festival passes.

Festival_pass

It’s only $60 to go to almost everything, which means you’d be getting a good deal if you only went to 3 or 4 things.

You’ll also be showing your support for this genuinely grassroots, independent event by …drum roll….pre-booking!

I know, not very Tasmanian, is it? But, who knows, you may find you begin to enjoy it.

Once you buy your festival pass, you’ll be send a special code (not immediately, be patient) and then you can use that to book whatever sessions you want to go to. Some sessions are almost sold out already, so basically the sooner you grab your festival pass, the better deal you’re getting! Continue reading →

Lois Duncan talks SWMF

Posted by Stranger With My Face Horror Film Festival on

Ever since she kindly agreed that we could name our event after one of her books, we’ve considered young adult author Lois Duncan as an informal patron of the festival.

To celebrate festival week 2013, we asked her about Stranger With My Face. And Stranger With My Face. And a few other things.

How do you feel about the festival being named after your novel?

Lois Duncan

I am thrilled and amazed to have a screen festival in Tasmania inspired by my young adult novel, Stranger with My Face. Little did I guess when I wrote my first suspense novel, back in the early 1960s, that I was helping to launch a genre that would become increasingly popular in years to come! Women and girls were not supposed to be attracted to such subject matter, yet when you stop to think about it, there are far more witches in fairy tales than there are ogres. A woman’s dark side can be more frightening than a man’s, because it’s so often hidden behind a mask of innocence.

Do you enjoy watching scary movies? If so, what is one of your favourites and why?

I like tension-filled suspense films with interesting characters and sudden, unexpected plot twists. Like the old Alfred Hitchcock movies. I loved the well-developed characters and the constantly building suspense in the recent film Hunger Games. I need to be mentally and emotionally invested in the characters in order to care what happens to them. I’m not into gore… images of people with their heads split open and their eyes gouged out, etc. I think the psychological aspects of the human personality can be much more terrifying than sensationalized violence, and the fear of what’s going to happen is more intense than the emotion the viewer feels when the event takes place.

SWMF

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