Project Detail

Out of the Peat

Isabel MacCarthy

Synopsis

Flesh as film, and film as flesh... An amateur archaeologist arrives on a desolate peatland in Lancashire, their mind filled with the strange power that peat-bog waters hold to preserve organic matter. They have come to excavate the peatland. They have come to exhume a body. But, in digging into the peat - and into the past - they unearth much more than mere relics. The peat holds forgotten histories, uneasy truths, and vast stores of climate-change-accelerating carbon. Reflecting the attempt to document and preserve this landscape via the moving image, the film becomes both a lament and a call to action for local peat-bog restoration and protection. A queer eco-horror which reflects on what it means to bury, to archive, to capture, to unearth. Shot in collaboration with the Lancashire Wildlife Trust, the film becomes both a lament and call to action for local peat-bog conservation.
Official Selection London Short Film Festival 2025

Details

Year: 2025
Type of project: Shorts
Running time: 12 min
Format: 16mm
Director: Tabitha Carless-Frost, Theo Rollason
Producer: Tate Turnbull
Executive Producer: Nicole Davis
Editor: Anthony Ing
Screenwriter: Tabitha Carless-Frost
Director of Photography: Morgan K. Spencer
Composer: Richard Skelton
Principal cast: Roo Gehring

Genre

Experimental LGBTQIA+ Horror Drama Fantasy Sci-Fi

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Supported by BFI NETWORK

Acetate Pictures Ltd

Tate Turnbull

tate@acetatepictures.com

Page updates

This page was last updated on 19th January 2026. Please let us know if we need to make any amendments or request edit access by clicking below.

Suggest amendments

After an abortion, a woman wanders the streets of Paris, engaging in a series of silent encounters under the neon lights of Chinatown. Taking place over the course of a single night and drawing inspiration from the writings of cult literary figures Kathy Acker, Bernadette Mayer, and Alice Notley, the film intertwines dream and reality. Shot in the reddish glow of karaoke bars, cinemas, and clubs - a collective, feminist autofiction with a cast of artists, poets, and actors.

Experimental Literary Adaptation Woman Director

Ancestors

Director: David Turpin

Year:

A love story, a noir mystery and a metaphysical fable, Ancestors follows Beau as he searches 1980s London for his missing friend, Tiny. Dream, reality, memory and history entwine, forcing Beau to come face-to-face with truths beyond life and death.

Drama LGBTQIA+

A man in sunglasses praying at a wedding.

Speechless

Director: Adrian Gardner, Ryan Walker-Edwards