2nd Annual Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival

The second Annual Yellow Fever Independent Film Festival kicked off last weekend at the Stormont Hotel in Belfast. Building on the format of last year’s successful event, this year saw an even bigger, better festival cramming a shed-load of film screenings and special events into just four days – that’s double the days last year’s festival ran for. As well as the impressive array of film screenings, there were also workshops, Q&A sessions with filmmakers, Cos-Play events, gaming facilities, special guests and a whole host of other exclusive treats.

If there is one thing the team behind Yellow Fever lack; ambition, determination and motivation aren’t it. Festival organiser and founder of Yellow Fever Productions, George Clarke once again reiterated throughout the weekend why he set up the event - to support and promote local independent filmmakers and provide them with a platform to showcase their work and get some recognition; as well as giving those in attendance the opportunity to see what other independent filmmakers from around the world are producing. The festival is modelled on the Freak Show Film Festival in Orlando. Kicking things off was a Zombie Aid Charity Walk – a first for Belfast – in which participants dressed as the living dead and shuffled their way towards the steps of local government buildings at Stormont, before chowing down on a Dead Meat BBQ. All money raised from the walk went to Make A Wish Foundation and The Billy Caldwell Foundation.

This year’s festival also played host to myriad premieres including Snow Blind, a visually stunning post-apocalyptic Western, and The Sky Has Fallen, a post-apocalyptic love story with visual and thematic nods to the likes of Hellraiser, City of the Living Dead and The Road. Proceedings took a lighter, though no less gory turn with the Irish premiere of zombie comedy George’s Intervention, a sweet and wacky US comedy – which also picked up the award for Best Film and Best Actress (Lynn Lowry). Director JT Seaton attended the festival and also screened his short film Nightshadows as part of the Gay of the Dead Film Night alongside Ian Powell’s striking art-house chiller Seeing Heaven, which tells of a young male escort who has terrifying visions of a mysterious masked stranger. Shot in the style of vivid European horror films from the Seventies, Seeing Heaven received the award for Best Cinematography.

Seeing Heaven

The shocks continued thick and fast on Saturday night, with the screening of Someone’s Knocking at the Door, a nasty, twisted and unforgettable horror in which a group of medical students experimenting with psychotropic drugs, are hunted by a demonically possessed pair of serial killers. Director Chad Ferrin picked up the award for Best Director this year. A plethora of short films were also screened, including the winner of Best Local Film, Erwin, an atmospheric and deranged film that resembles what From Hell would look like had it been set in Belfast after the apocalypse (it was directed by local filmmaker Stephen Petticrew, who obviously has a keen eye for darkly arresting visuals). 

Closing the festival was the hit Edinburgh Fringe comedy show How to Survive A Zombie Apocalypse. Taking the form of a seminar, introduced by the leading expert in his field, and ‘zombology’ guru, Dr Dale Seslick (Ben Muir - check out my interview with him here), How to Survive A Zombie Apocalypse is a hilarious one stop workshop to the world of zombie survival techniques. 

Submissions are now open for next year’s YFIFF. Click here to visit the website of Yellow Fever Productions and click here to support independent film makers.