AKRON, Ohio — To celebrate this year’s spooky season, horror-film enthusiasts can get their screams on during the first Akron Independent Horror Short Film Festival.
The festival is set for Saturday, Sept. 16 at 6 p.m. at the Akron Civic Theatre in downtown Akron.
The event is a showcase of local filmmakers creating horror or horror-adjacent films that fall under two categories: films under 20 minutes long and films between 20-40 minutes long, said Festival Director Neil Sudhakaran..
To organize the event, Sudhakaran, an award-winning Cleveland filmmaker, projectionist and sound designer, partnered with Francine Parr, artistic director of the Millennial Theatre Project and the Arts Inclusion Incubator at the Akron Civic Theatre.
Sudhakaran and Parr are horror-genre aficionados, but the event is also a way to offer the region something a little different than a traditional film fest, Sudhakaran said.
Events like Cleveland International Film Festival and the Short. Sweet. Film Fest. are high-quality festivals but they feature filmmakers from all over the world — rarely from northeast Ohio, he said.
For the Akron horror fest, filmmakers were required to live, or have lived, in Ohio.
Out of 45 submissions, 20 films were selected by a panel of four judges that included two women and two people of color, organizers said.
In addition to Sudhakaran and Parr, judges include local filmmaker Sarah Smith, and celebrity judge Charlie from Rover's Morning Glory, a nationally syndicated, drive-time radio talk show originating on Cleveland rock station WMMS.
During the festival, films will be shown on screens in both the Akron Civic Theatre auditorium and in the adjacent Knight Stage Theater.
During an awards ceremony at the close of the event, organizers will announce winners in 12 categories, ranging from best director, actor and actress to best gore, best kill and best music.
The recently restored Akron Civic Theatre opened its doors in 1929 as Loew’s Akron Theatre, so the film fest is a return to the Civic’s theatrical roots, Sudhakaran said.
The Civic is one of only a few theaters remaining in the U.S. with domed, “atmospheric ceilings,” allowing audiences to see stars and clouds moving across the darkened sky above, which will be a fitting backdrop for viewing horror films, organizers said.