NIGHTMARES, GUNPOWDER & SKY’S ALTER STRIKE FIRST LOOK DEAL
Global Studio (Villains, Lords of Chaos, Summer of ‘84) Will Scout NFF for New Films
Columbus, OH – Nightmares Film Festival (Oct. 24 to 27), the world’s top-ranked genre fest on FilmFreeway, today announced ALTER, the new horror brand from global studio Gunpowder & Sky, will attend the event live with a first-look deal to acquire new films.
“Gunpowder and Sky is a tastemaking, trend-setting studio with a tradition of both acquiring and producing genre gems,” said festival co-founder Chris Hamel. “Their approach is a perfect fit with our #BetterHorror program, and we couldn’t be happier to have them aboard for Nightmares 19.”
As part of the agreement, staff will attend Nightmares Film Festival live, where they will meet with filmmakers and screenwriters and evaluate selections for possible acquisition by the studio under its horror short imprint, ALTER, or sci-fi shorts brand, Dust.
While they’re there, the Gunpowder & Sky/ALTER staff also will participate on a panel to share an inside look at acquisitions and distribution with attending filmmakers.
“We have been watching the program at Nightmares since it began in 2016, and it is consistently among the best in the world,” said Sophie Carroll, ALTER’s head of programming. “We knew we wanted to be part of the event, and we’re thrilled to be attending in 2019.”
Nightmare Film Festival has been called one of the world’s best horror film festivals by every major genre outlet. For 30 months running, it has been the world’s top-rated genre festival on the submission platform FilmFreeway.
The Nightmares Film Festival returns to Columbus, Ohio’s Gateway Film Center with its 2019 edition October 24 to 27.
ABOUT ALTER
ALTER is a new horror brand for novel and grounded stories exploring the human condition through warped and uncanny perspectives.
Giving voice to emerging, diverse and established filmmakers, ALTER’s owned and operated channel is distributed across YouTube and Facebook where two short films or series are released each week. In addition to curating and distributing award-winning content, ALTER develops unique stories with some of the most innovative minds in the genre through its ALTER Studio projects – which are not bound to a particular platform or format.
Recent releases include the official 2018 Sundance Film Festival selection, Summer
of 84, the thriller directed by RKSS (“Turbo Kid”); CAM (in partnership with Blumhouse), winner of Best Screenplay at this year’s Fantasia Festival, which was acquired by Netflix; and Goodnight, Gracie from Stellan Kendrick, one of ALTER’s first exclusive premieres.
Projects currently in development include “50 States of Fear”, in partnership with Executive Producer Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, Spiderman) and DIGA Studios (MTV’s Scream). The anthology is the first announced series for Jeffrey Katzenberg’s new mobile video startup, Quibi.
Doc a lifelong fan of horror films, sci-fi flicks and monster movies first discovering Universal Monsters and Planet of the Apes as a young child in the 1970's searching out every issue of Famous Monster of Filmland (and, later, Fangoria). Favorite films include Jaws, The Car, The Birds, The Tingler, Vampire Circus and The Exorcist. Still a huge fan of horror films from the 70s, Doc continues consuming horror films to this day for the site, for the podcasts and for the fun of it all.
