LIMELIGHT (2022)
7 min | English | Dir. Henry Fish and Khairah Boukhatem
After failing an audition, a self-conscious actress finds herself in a terrifying role.
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Shot in April of 2022 Limelight has completed its festival run and is now free to watch online. Actress Millie Felix returns after her previous work with writer/director Henry Fish on Winged and Imprint Dark to bring you an experimental horror film about the nature of performance and spectatorship. With Sebastiano O'Grady is as associate producer and Grace Delve returning from Winged and Imprint Dark for costume and production design.
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The film deals with the feelings many young creatives experience: aspiration, insecurity and rejection. Whether it be auditioning for a role, pitching a script, or even submitting to a film festival, the likelihood of rejection is something universally faced. It was these feelings that made us want to make this film, Dorothy’s experience reflecting many of ours.
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Limelight also deals with the nature of the spectator. When writing the film, I was particularly interesting in making the audience question their culpability in horror films, going in with the expectation that the lead women, in this film Dorothy, will fail and be terrorised for our enjoyment. While filming and editing, I wanted to invoke the idea of Brechtian interruption to remind the audience of the film form, using the slates of several takes to break the emersion of the film. As Dorothy begins to recognise she is actually in a film I want the audience to feel increasingly uncomfortable and scrutinized, Dorothy's look into the camera provoking reflection on what the reason is we desire to see our character's suffer.
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The film premiered at the Southampton International Student Film Festival and was awarded Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Editing in competition. It also screened as part of Cinemagic Film Festival 2022.
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Director: Henry Fish and Khairah Boukhatem.
Writer: Henry Fish.
Starring: Millie Felix.
Cinematographer: Emil Delost.
Production Design/Costumes: Grace Delve.
Music: Nic Carlean
Assistant Director: Flo Tellam.
Boom Operator: Oliver Spicer.
Script Supervisor: Tom Card.
Hair and Make-up: Grace Crowley.
Production Runner: Ben Whitehead and Ryames Chan.
