ACCESS:HORROR, a multi-year celebration of accessibility and horror cinema, will launch on July 9. The inaugural event will include shorts films curated by Fantastic Fest, Superfest Disability Film Festival, Nyx Horror Collective, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival. Virtual panels and talks exploring and celebrating the history, impact, and future of disability in the horror genre, hosted on Vimeo will take place July 8 and 9.
ACCESS: HORROR is a film festival and summit created as a space to explore and celebrate the history, impact, and future of disability in the horror genre, through conversations, connections, and various artistic forms, including film. ACCESS: HORROR acknowledges the interwoven nature of identity and media representation and celebrate the many intersectional identities that have been at the heart of horror cinema since the beginning. We believe in horror as an agent of change and seek to elevate discourse that uplifts marginalized creators and gives them space to create new work that imagines new worlds.
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.
The brainchild of filmmaker and disability advocate Ariel Baska (Our First Priority), the launch event will include several genre filmmakers, luminaries, tastemakers in horror, as well as notable figures from the disability advocacy communities brought together for this innovative multi-tiered event to participate in panels and discussions. ACCESS: HORROR believes in horror and genre films as an agent of change and seeks to encourage conversation that uplifts marginalized creators and gives them space to create new work that imagines new worlds.
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. Previously, she associate produced the documentary Mike Mignola – Drawing Monsters (2022). Baska is also the founder, co-host, and executive producer of Ride the Omnibus, a podcast and non-profit parked at the intersection of pop culture and social justice.
Confirmed guests include a host of established genre filmmakers 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) and Rebekah McKendry (Glorious). Also attending will be Millicent Simmonds (A Quiet Place) and FANGORIA Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobile Jr. will preside over the closing panel on horror as an agent of change.
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.”
The film line-up for the launch event (set to be announced on May 29), will feature a selection of award-winning short horror films that focus on disability, curated by Fantastic Fest, Superfest Disability Film Festival, Nyx Horror Collective, and Final Girls Berlin Film Festival.
Official film selections, panel details, and participant updates will be announced on May 29. For more information, please go to: https://www.accesshorror.com/
