New campaign launched for Birmingham teen horror documentary
Teenage Screams is a planned experimental documentary following a 16-year-old British girl as she directs her first ballet horror short, The Final Variation.
The project is a directorial thesis exploring how young people interact with the genre of horror and the filmmakers recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to directly support their principal photography.
The documentary director, Xanthe Pajarillo, is a PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, known for her indie horror films and directing the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, hosted by David Dastmalchian (The Suicide Squad, The Dark Knight, Murderbot). Her passion for amplifying young voices and their love for horror films began when she co-hosted the Kindergeist Podcast with her 12-year-old niece.
The interviews with children revealed the majority preferred horror movies intended for adults, and found age-appropriate horror to be “too simple” or “not scary enough.” Xanthe’s own directing and writing manifests as horror with heightened visuals and slices of humour with a strong focus on underrepresented narratives and her latest horror rom-com shorts, An Officer and an Airman and Rosebud, are in their festival run.
Committed to supporting children as producers of horror, Xanthe aims to gain deeper insight into what the children’s horror genre means to children on their terms.
The filmmakers hope the style of the documentary will be authentic and hands-off, with the creative process fully led by teens and young people, from writing the short through to final edit. They are also drawing inspiration from trailblazing filmmakers such as Emily Hagins and Alice Maio Mackay who both directed their first zombie and vampire features at ages 12 and 15.
Any adults involved in this project are in purely supportive roles. The project is not only about producing a horror film, but also about amplifying young voices in the genre.
The short film director, Nia Matthews, is a 16-year-old first-time director determined to do justice to her debut. A dedicated dancer since the age of three, Nia’s lifelong passion for dance is a driving force behind her project, The Final Variation. Beyond the arts, she is an active anti-bullying advocate and has served on the National Diana Award Youth Board for two years.
Their young cast and crew are being brought together from a variety of West-Midlands UK based youth groups and film industry networks. And you can help support this exciting project with their new crowdfunding campaign. They hope supporters will not only help a new generation of creators bring fresh fear and inspiration to the screen, but create buzz for an underrepresented area in the film industry.
Head to their official GoFund me campaign page to find out more, see the production's progress and to donate:
