MASTER CLASS - SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 8.30pm
Presence from October 29 to November 3.
Guest of honor at our 5th edition, Christopher Smith will be present throughout the festival. He is an acclaimed British filmmaker known for his work in horror, thriller, and dark comedy, with a reputation for blending genres. He was born in Bristol, England, and attended Bristol University, where he attained an MA in Film Studies and Production.
Smith made his feature film debut in 2004 with the hit horror movie Creep, set in the London Underground. He followed this success in 2006 with Severance, a horror-comedy that mixed corporate satire with slasher elements. The film was sold worldwide and became the first horror film to screen at the Telluride Film Festival.
In 2009, Smith directed Triangle, a psychological thriller exploring time loops and alternate realities. The film, starring Melissa George, was lauded for its ambitious and complex narrative structure and has since gained a passionate cult following. A year later, he directed Black Death (2010), a medieval horror film set during the plague, starring Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne.
Smith took a seemingly unexpected detour into family entertainment with his Christmas film Get Santa (2014), starring Jim Broadbent, before making the neon-noir film Detour (2016), starring Tye Sheridan and Bel Powley.
Recently, Smith has been splitting his time between TV and film, with projects ranging from the spy thriller series Alex Rider (2020), based on Anthony Horowitz’s novels, to HBO’s Spy/Master
(2022). He returned to film with the horror film Consecration (2022), starring Jena Malone.
Smith has just completed a six-part TV series called Video Nasty, set to be released in 2024, and is about to start pre-production on the comedy-horror film Spider Island.
During the Masterclass, Christopher Smith will talk about his long career as a filmmaker, the cinematic diversity of his filmography, filming secrets, the films that have inspired him, and a few secrets about his latest projects.