Nightmares Film Festival Announces Award Winners for 2019 Fest

I had the privilege of attending the Nightmares Film Festival this past weekend, October 24th-27th in Columbus, Ohio. This is the fest’s forth year, and they’ve really carved out a nice niche for themselves in the flooded horror festival marketplace. Check out the list of winners below and stay tuned for my daily coverage and festival recap this week.

Nightmares Film Festival has announced its Night Mare award recipients for 2019, recognizing the dark horses of genre filmmaking and screenwriting.

Leading the 26 prizes awarded was the Film From Hell, recognizing the movie that most bravely pushes genre boundaries, given to Scott Philip Goergens’s harrowing psychosexual thriller 29 Needles.

“The 2019 Nightmares program was full of extraordinary, surprising and shocking new genre films, and our Night Mare awards recognize the very best of that lineup,” said co-founder and programmer Jason Tostevin.

Other films taking leading prizes included Lisa Ovies’s Canadian horror comedy Puppet Killer, awarded best overall feature, and Andrea’s Corsin feral horror story Ferine, awarded best overall short. In the screenplay competition, Avishai Weinberger’s “Third Date” took best feature script, and Shayna Connelly’s “Love as Practice for Dying” won best short script.

A full list of all winners is below.

Several award winners are being considered for acquisition by attending distributors, including Gunpowder & Sky’s ALTER. All winning short films will be offered home and online distribution through Bloody Disgusting’s showcase channel, World of Death.

Competition films and screenplays competed for the coveted Night Mare statuette, representing the dark horses of genre. The Night Mare is sculpted and hand painted each year by renowned toy and figure creator Tony Simione (Marvel, Star Wars, Godzilla, Alien).

Nightmares Film Festival has been called one of the world’s best horror film festivals by every major genre outlet. It has maintained its position as the world’s top-rated genre festival on the submission platform FilmFreeway for 36 consecutive months.

Submissions for Nightmares Film Festival 2020 will open in November.

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NFF 19 Awards

The Film from Hell
29 Needles

FEATURES

Best overall feature
Puppet Killer

Best horror feature
Z

Best thriller feature
Reckoning

Best midnight feature
The Obsessed

Best director feature
Beyond Horror

Best horror comedy feature
Scare Package

Best cinematography feature
To Your Last Death