For the first time in the Festivals history we invited five South West Feature Film Directors for a wide-ranging and in-depth panel discussion about the craft of directing feature films being based in the South West . From what inspired them to be film makers , the producing features in the South West and the distribution of their films to a wider audience .
Ashley Thorpe is a multi-award winning filmmaker and illustrator best know for a series of animated short films inspired by English mythology . ‘SCAYRECROW’ 2008 (winner of the Media Innovation Award 2009), ‘THE SCREAMING SKULL’ 2008 (nominated Best UK Short film at Raindance 2009, winner ‘Best Animation’ ‘Night of Horrors’ Sydney) and ‘THE HAIRY HANDS’ 2010.
His first animated feature ‘BORLEY RECTORY’ (a Carrion Film / Glass Eye Pix co-venture) with Reece Shearsmith & Julian Sands was completed late 2017 and premiered at Grimmfest, Manchester. It has since won ‘Best Animated Feature’ at Buffalo Dreams Festival New York and a “Special Achievement in Cinema” accolade, ‘Best Visual Effects’ at ‘Rendezvous ScareFest’, Florida and ‘Best Documentary’ at MidWest Weirdfest Wisconsin aswell as over a dozen nominations at various festivals. It was released by Nucleus Films on Blu Ray in October 2019 and the film has since won rave reviews in such publications as ‘Starburst Magazine’ and ‘Fortean Times’.
Ashley Thorpe (BA HONS)
Lucy graduated in June 2014 from East 15 Acting School with a BA (Hons) in Acting and Contemporary Theatre. In addition to acting, Lucy has directed a number of short films which have won awards and been shown at the Cannes Short Film Corner. Lucy is also an accomplished artist whose illustrations have been published in children’s books.
In 2017 Lucy completed her directorial feature length film, the comedy horror Scareycrows for Inspired Toad Productions, which had it’s premiere in Los Angeles and is now available on streaming platforms across the world.
Lucy’s Directed short film “Samsara” Won the Audience Best Film Award at the 2018 English Riviera Film Festival.
Lucy is currently in development of her next feature film .
Neil Rowe was born in Exeter and is an award winning freelance VFX artist and filmmaker best known for Robot World and Alien Outbreak.
Neil began his career as a 3D Animator and worked as a ‘lead technical artist’ for over 13 years before moving in to visual effects and film making.
Neil’s’ first venture in to film making was in 2009 when he wrote and directed a short film entitled Half Asleep for the virgin media shorts film festival.
In March 2015 Neil set up his own production studio with his wife Amanda, called Rendered Pictures. Robot World (working title Reconnoiter) is the companies first feature length film which was written/produced and directed by Neil. Robot world has won numerous awards most notably best feature at the Unreal film festival, Memphis, best director at Hyperdrive film festival, UK and Best feature VFX at the other worlds film festival Austin.
As well as writing/producing and directing Neil provides visual effects for other filmmakers.
https://www.facebook.com/AlienOutbreak
Justin Carter is an Exeter based Writer, Director and Cinematographer of short and feature films. He has won several UK and US film festival awards for his productions, and is currently developing the Devon set horror feature WOLF WHISTLE.