What are you doing on July 8 and 9? No plans? Good! Got plans? Cancel them, because you’re going to want to attend ACCESS: HORROR instead, a fully virtual film festival and summit celebrating disability, accessibility, advocacy, and the love of genre filmmaking.
The first of what will become a multi-year celebration of accessibility and horror cinema will launch on July 8, with the inaugural event featuring short films curated by Fantastic Fest, Superfest Disability Film Festival, Nyx Horror Collective, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival.
Hosted on Vimeo, virtual panels and talks will explore and celebrate the history, impact, and future of disability in the horror genre, featuring very exciting selection of confirmed guests, including Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Moon Knight, Something in the Dirt), Mattie Do (The Long Walk), Andy Mitton (The Harbinger, Yellowbrickroad), Jill ‘Sixx’ Gevargizian (The Stylist), Brea Grant (Torn Hearts), Amanda Kramer (Please, Baby, Please), Rebekah McKendry (Glorious), and Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place). PLUS – our very own FANGORIA Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobile Jr. will preside over the closing panel on ‘Horror As An Agent of Change.’
The innovative, multi-tiered launch event will also include notable figures from the disability advocacy communities.
ACCESS: HORROR is the brainchild of filmmaker and disability advocate Ariel Baska, a multiply disabled director, writer, and producer, known for her work in documentary and horror. Baska shot her first film as a director, Our First Priority, a horror short about medical gaslighting, while awaiting brain surgery. The film screened at numerous film festivals around the world and won the Advocacy Award at the Superfest Disability Film Festival.
Baska said:
ACCESS:HORROR will be a film festival and summit founded on accessibility, advocacy, and the love of genre filmmaking. We will celebrate short films and their creators, while also placing their work and accomplishments in the context of the history of horror representation as a whole, exploring the impact media has on institutional and social change.
As if all of this wasn’t exciting enough, ACCESS:HORROR will offer an exclusive app for access to films, talks, programming content, and interviews to aid interested filmmakers, industry figures, and horror film fans an easy entry and portal to the film festival and summit offerings. Plans for subsequent events include a three-day in-person film festival and summit to take place in 2025, as well as a series of ACCESS:HORROR screening sidebars and events to take place at sister film festivals and genre conventions in 2023-2024.
Official film selections, panel details, participant updates and ticket details will be announced on May 29. Check out the ACCESS: HORROR website for updates!
