Melies d’argent winner at Haapsalu 2018
Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival crowns Dark Room with
the Silver Méliès
Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival aka HÕFF, which ended this Sunday awarded Morgane Segaert’s short film Dark Room with the Silver Méliès award.
The jury, consisting of film director Deborah Haywood, actress Carlotta Moore and critic Steve Dollar, praised the film “for its compellingly crafted tale of childhood love, loss and terror, whose sad, poetic tone put audiences in touch with their inner eight-year-old”.
The short film will thus move on to the next round, where it will be able to compete for the Golden Méliès at the Trieste Film Festival in November. The Méliès d’Or is organised by the European Fantastic Film Federation and is aimed at promoting and rewarding European genre films.
HÕFF screened 28 features and 16 shorts this year and saw an attendance of 4558, a slight rise on last year’s record-breaking edition. The three favourite films as voted by the festival audience were Snowflake, directed by Adolfo Kolmerer and William James British, Ghost Stories, by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, and Paco Plaza’s Veronica.
This was the last edition of the festival to be organised by the artistic director Maria Reinup who worked at the festival for seven years. She comments: “As I am stepping down after seven years from the Artistic Director position, due new festival commitments in New York, I look back with pride. HÕFF has grown from a small, local festival, favoured by hardcore genre fans into a festival celebrated by a very diverse audience. Its programming is internationally recognised, snagging premieres and bringing filmmakers from around the world to Estonia. I hope the annual growth in audience numbers ultimately generates a longer-running festival that truly owns its place as the gateway to genre cinema in Baltic region and an extension of a kind to the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.”
The 14th edition of HÕFF will take place on the last weekend of April 2019.
Haapsalu Horror and Fantasy Film Festival is organised by the team at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.