Hamlet Within: five acts in search of a murderous prince

Director: Ken McMullen

Year: 2010

A writer returns, disillusioned, to London and Paris. He begins on a story: a sleeper cell of young, glamorous urban terrorists. Gabriella, glamorous trophy wife of a young king-in-exile, holed up in an opulent London riverside penthouse, falls under the spell of a modern-day Che Guevara and, Patty Hearst-style, enlists in The Cause. She is sent to Paris under the 'front' of a drama student aiming at film. She takes her studies exceptionally seriously: encounters Bernard Stiegler, the leading philosopher on the subject of cinema and the human condition, and other luminaries. And she meets fellow-"student" activists, half-sister and -brother Julia and Sam, skilled actors who seem more interested in petty crime and scams. Their father is a political prisoner held in London; is he the master-mind? Has he been grooming them since childhood? Our writer adopts the persona of a sleuth as he follows these anti-heroes. Books are passed, stolen: do they bear coded messages? Why is Gabriella obsessed with capturing her interviews on an outdated Nagra tape-recorder? What is their connection with the incipient terrorism on the city streets? So our writer/sleuth uncovers events; but is he documenting actuality, or inventing a fiction?

Director: Lawrence Fowler

Year: 2026

Following a horrific crime committed when they were young, a group of four friends think it will remain a secret forever until they discover and play a vintage board game. When the game unwittingly summons the grotesque clown demon ‘Grin’, it soon becomes clear the demon targets those who have committed terrible sins. Official selection FrightFest 2026

Director: Asa Gartland

Year: 2026

The Public have just played the best gig of their lives, and for the first time, someone in a suit is interested. It feels like the moment they have been waiting for, but celebrations quickly descend into chaos. Andy, the band's quiet and devoted guitarist, watches as his dream begins to dissolve around him. A chain reaction is set in motion as secrets are exposed, loyalties shift, and buried tensions explode to the surface. As the night spirals further out of control, the frontman, Ted, is pulled toward a future that could take him away for good. Andy becomes desperate to save Ted from himself and hold everything together, even as it becomes clear that some things will never be the same.