Eight semi finalists battled it out on Wednesday evening for a spot in the Hellfire Short Film Festival final. All eight short films, coming from the far corners of the Earth including the USA, Canada and Australia, were screened for the second time in an evening that was dominated by horror. Who becomes our 14th finalist?

Over the course of the Hellfire Short Film Festival‘s first season 163 films have been shown from a pool of over 3,000 submissions sent in by filmmakers in 143 countries. That’s a lot of numbers.

Semi Final 1 lineup:

Under The Apple Tree by Erik van Schaaik (Netherlands)
Already Dead by Michael James Dean (England)
Only Human by Jesse Richards (Australia)
Drawn To Fear by Daniel Robinette (USA)
Incoming Call by Eoin Cleland (Northern Ireland)
Portal To Hell!!! by Viviendo Caldinelli (Canada)
Silently Within Your Shadow by Scott Lyus (England)
The Goose Hunter by Jess Dadds (England)

Also screened, but not part of the competition, was a documentary about the British musician Simon Finn who is performing in Folkestone on December 9th.

First of all we’d like to thank everyone who has submitted their films to the Festival. Similarly we’d like to thank each and every person who has attended our events over the past 18 months.

Before we announce the finalist we have another special announcement to make. Our hosts the Lime Bar Cafe have now been open for two years therefore we’d like to wish them our huge congratulations. The proprietors Cath Burton and Andi Elliott have been our biggest supporters since day one and above all have been great friends to us. We wish them both every success going forward, here’s to another fantastic two years.

The finalist is…

With a score of 24.43 out of 30 – and an improvement on its 7th Round score of 22.45 – the winner of the first semi final and therefore becoming the fourteenth finalist is:

DRAWN TO FEAR
by Daniel Robinette

Drawn To Fear goes through to the grand final (date TBC). We send our congratulations to Daniel and his team.

The film “drew” a lot of conversation with the audience talking about the suspense and fear the storyline created. Quite a few audience members were visibly scared by the jump scene and overall they felt it was very well-scripted and paid tribute to the director. The excellently executed CGI was also a particular talking point.

Next Up:

We will now be taking a break from the competition due to the festive period but we’re not going anywhere. There may not be any films to vote for in December however we certainly will be celebrating with our second Christmas Special called “Ho Ho Hellfire 2“. This event takes place on December 27th at the usual venue the Lime Bar Cafe, Folkestone. Maybe you’d like to join us for some festive fun?