by FilmInk Staff
Attention emerging filmmakers and content creators aged 18 – 25, Sydney’s horror and dark genre film festival, Dark Nights Film Fest, has introduced an exciting new short film component, Nightmare Shards, as part of the festival’s second edition – Volume 2 – which will take place at the Ritz Cinemas, this October.
Nightmare Shards is a horror shorts showcase aimed squarely at Gen Z creatives.
You don’t need a big budget – maybe no budget at all – you don’t need a fancy camera – your smart phone will do – you don’t need professional actors – just people who look interesting – and you don’t need to write clever dialogue – in fact, you don’t need to write any dialogue at all!
No dialogue, or voiceover narration, just films that use sound and/or original music, and image.
Filmmakers are encouraged to use real locations and whatever filters and visual trickery they can conjure; hell, paint the town red if you have to!
The most important element is that the films be spooky, creepy, strange, weird … that linger like some kind of bad dream. For stylistic and atmospheric inspiration think of movies like Cuckoo, It Follows, Skinamarink, Mulholland Drive, The Shining, Suspiria, Vivarium, to name a few.
But they must be super-short, no longer than five minutes in length.
So, if you’re aged 18 to 25 get a small team together and get cracking on your own Nightmare Shard.
The festival’s Earlybird Deadline is at the end of this month, March 30th.
There are three other deadlines that follow: May 25th, June 22nd, and July 20th.
A selection of the best Nightmare Shards will screen at The Ritz Cinemas, Sydney, during the festival, October 9th – 12th. The winner, as chosen by members of the festival jury, will receive a Dark Nights Film Fest trophy and an exclusive Zoom chat with a film industry luminary, to be announced.
All submission criteria can be found at https://darknightsfest.com/submit
