Rebecca Calder is the star of Broken Bird, the film that will open this year’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest. As a mortician, Sybil’s role is a complex one that required Calder to access a lot of darkness. When it comes to acting however, the dark is where Calder thrives. Since her turn in Martin Stitt’s dark relationship thriller, Love Me Do, Calder hasn’t been afraid to embrace her inner shadows to achieve brilliant performances, and her work in Broken Bird is exemplary.
Sybil Chamberlain (Rebecca Calder) works as a professional mortician at a funeral parlour. She has spent her life looking for love. Brought up as a privileged and carefree child, at the age of ten, she lost everything in a tragic accident. A darkness fell over her as the bright lights of her life were snuffed out swiftly and cruelly. Now, an emptiness, an aching loneliness prevails, a gloomy void she seeks to fill. Reality and reason are slipping away from Sybil, and her dark desires are becoming more insatiable and progressively out of control. Will she ever find happiness and contentment, especially as the company she keeps is mainly deceased?
Broken Bird is a wonderfully Gothic chilling tale with echoes of Saint Maud and May, but which still remains utterly original. Much of the success of Broken Bird rests on Rebecca Calder’s performance, and luckily for director Joanne Mitchell, Calder is perfect in the role. The actor wears Sybil like a second skin and her performance is one that is impossible to turn away from, even in her most extreme moments. In the lead up to the FrightFest world premiere, THN spoke with Rebecca Calder to find out exactly how she brought this fantastic female to life.
Broken Bird screens at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on Thursday 22nd August. More information on the film and tickets can be found on the FrightFest website.
