International horror film conference heads to Hartlepool’s Northern School of Art

The conference, titled Nightmare 24: Dreams or nightmares? Madness or sanity? I don’t know which is which, is taking place at the Northern School of Art, in Hartlepool, on Thursday, April 25, from 9am until 5pm.

The conference will explore mental health in the horror genre from both a cinematic and audience perspective.

The day’s line-up features presentations by academics from a range of UK universities and online papers from international colleagues.

International film journalist and author Matt Glasby and international film critic Kim Newman are also going to be speaking at the event.

Magician Dave Alnwick – who uses magic to tell spooky stories – is then going to be performing digitally for guests.

Organiser Dr David Edwards, acting lecturer and creative practitioner at The Northern School of Art, said: “The themes of this year’s conference will shed light on the areas of mental health both in cinematic texts as well as how audiences respond to these films.

"We are aiming to develop our understanding of artistic, social and psychological attitudes to mental health representation by aligning filmmakers and academics to create a working dialogue across the industry.

“We’ve worked hard to make the event accessible and to structure both the academic and professional artistic discussions so that we can attract as broad an audience as possible.

"It’s been a great experience for our students who have been involved in helping to organise the day and will also be attending.”

Contributions from students at the Northern School of Art’s film, textiles, fine art, photography, costume and animation faculties are also going to be on display, including screenings of award-winning short films by recent graduates.

There is also going to be a drinks reception following the conference and awards presented to successful candidates at the Nightmare 24 competition.

The film Harold’s Going Stiff is also going to be shown, featuring a live Q&A with director Keith Wright.

Tickets for this screening can be bought from £2, and tickets for the conference cost £25 at https://northernart.ac.uk/.