MUMBAI:Women Direct Horror, a training and production initiative to encourage women directors keen to reinvent the horror genre for the 21st Century.  

Warp X is the UK low-budget digital film studio set up by the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund and Film4 with partners EM Media, Screen Yorkshire and Optimum Releasing, offering filmmakers development support, production finance and theatrical distribution in the UK.

The initiative, launched with funding support from Skillset Film Skills’ Fund, has selected ten female directors, which include Smita Bhide, Miranda Bowen, Nichola Bruce, Corinna Faith, Finola Geraghty, Faye Gilbert, Toni Harman, Olivia Lory Kay, Juliet McKoen and Amy Neil. The shortlisted candidates’ wealth of experience ranges from BAFTA nominated shorts to art installations to television documentary .

A series of Darklight horror master classes was held from 23 to 25 February 2007 at the Fawsley Hall in Northamptonshire, UK for the ten directors. The tutors included writer/director Richard Stanley (Dust Devil, Hardware), Producer Ros Borland (Wild Country, Co-Producer The Last King Of Scotland ), Executive Producer of Trauma, Lizzie Francke in her current role as Executive Producer, Film at East Midlands regional screen agency EM Media, Editor Celia Haining (Dead Man’s Shoes, The Deaths of Ian ) Danny Perkins (Head of Distributiion, Optimum Releasing) and Warp X Production Executives, Robin Gutch, Caroline Cooper Charles, Barry Ryan and Mary Burke.

A period of one to one story development and a second master class weekend where the directors will work with actors, sound recordists, lighting and camera talent will follow. Darklight will culminate in the commissioning of four of the directors to develop their ideas into full treatments. Warp X aim to green light two of these as feature films for production through the their digital slate in 2008.