What is this movie about?

Lacking The Boggart starts as Martha returns to her childhood home and is filled with a strange nostalgia. Between the locals warnings and memories sparked by the familiar setting she starts to worry. But she doesn’t act soon enough to save herself and her son from coming face to face with the boggart.

The core team for Lacking The Boggart is Catherine Jablonski as Director and Cinematographer, Ed Murden who wrote the script and will be lending a hand Co-Directing and Zoe Hollis who has over seen the production of a number of award winning short films. 

Catherine’s photography has been shown at various exhibitions, her work explores folklore and horror in the British landscape. This will be her first full narrative short but her recent installation series ‘Ghast’ has made it into a number of festivals and showcases. 

For us it is important not to just make a film that knows it’s a horror and does its job in scaring you, but one that uses techniques in harmony with its subject to create a world you can lose yourself in. We have decided to use 16mm film not just because we love the look but because it is a folk horror and one that centres around nostalgia, a theme that is almost tangible in graining film footage. 

We are going to be filming in the North west using colour film to capture the beauty of this landscape. If all goes to plan we’ll be filming in the late spring and hope to capture all the colours of the season. Using film combined with a disjointed edit and eerie music will create an atmosphere that I’m sure will keep you on the edge of your seat. The aim of this film is to make what is usually a serene environment feel unnerving. 

We have fallen in love with these techniques and don’t want to make the film without them, but they do cost money. This is where you come in. 

Film + Developing (£1000)

The one thing you have to get over when you fall in love with analogue film is the cost. We have decided to shoot on expired film because of the look but also because it will mean we can put your money to use else where, but it is still by far our biggest expense. 

Locations  (£400)

Lacking The Boggart being a northern film is very important to us because of this we want to pick locations that express the beauty and history of the area. Your donations will allow us to shoot in the best possible locations.

Props (£200)

Though this film is very sparse, we will need to dress the set plus there are a view items needed in the script. Any money you give will help us search charity shops and eBay for the best bits.

Sound Kit (£100)

Sound design is a very important part of any film project especially horror. To give this film the audio landscape it needs we will have to hire out sound equipment to use on the shoot days.

Festival Fees + Marketing (£500)

A couple of us have made the mistake of not budgeting for festival fees in the past and regretted it. What you can end up with is a film you love but no way of having it seen. With your help we can avoid that and have Lacking The Boggart distributed as professionally as possible. 

Extra Costs (£300)

This is for all the little bits that go into making a film that you forget. Train tickets, bus fare, cups of tea, extension cables and fiddly wires you’d be lost without. Not the most exciting part but possibly one of the most essential. 

Why now?

I have never felt so human as I have when looking at country side after having spent a long time in the city. Coming to terms with nature is an age old theme, one that I think we often feel without being able to put it into words.

After several long months of lockdown many of us have fled at every opportunity to the nearest park or field to feel some kind of release. With every zoom call we step further and further from the rolling hills that are so firmly part of us, I think it is important to redefine ourselves against them, to feel the joy, reference and fear that it involves. 

Folklore comes to us from a time where people were faced with nature everyday. By putting these old stories of ghost, ghouls and boggarts into a modern setting we change their meaning and make them our own. But the boggart isn’t as simple as an unknown creature, somehow the stories that used to entertain and scare our ancestors never really leave us.

As familiar as open country is to all of us, so are the myths and legends entwined there, and the deep fear lurking somewhere below.

The Crew

Catherine Jablonski - DIRECTOR/DP

Catherines usually works in photography and has recently transitioned into analogue filmmaking. She has described her work as exploring ‘British Folklore and the horror that stains the landscape’. Her picture and movies use occult imagery and folklore creatures to tell stories about British towns and villages and the ghosts and ghouls who lurk there. Her work has been featured on numerous publications and her graduation project won the film and media degree show prize. 

Edward Murden - WRITER/CO-DIRECTOR 

Ed is mostly a writer, sometimes a filmmaker but always with a focus on anything horrifying, icky or just plain strange. His graduate film ‘Larva’ recently made it into Lift-off and Cinemagic short film festivals. As well as this he has written a number of films in various stages of production, published articles and short stories as well as making three music videos in the past year experimenting with analogue filmmaking techniques. 

Zoe Hollis - PRODUCER

Zoe Hollis has been producing, writing and directing short films for the past five years. She is inspired by Britain’s wild landscapes and folk-lore, and the films and novels that have come from this tradition. Growing up watching folk-horror classics like The Wicker Man attracted Zoe to this project, and she is excited to take on the role of producer.

Jordan Melia - Producer 

Jordan is a producer and casting director, recently graduating from MMU. He focuses on creating strong, character driven stories and is in the process of producing, directing and casting for multiple short films of various genres. He has collaborated with Ed previously on an upcoming short set in WW2 called ‘No Rest For Us’. He strives to find authentic locations and a cast perfectly suited for the role.

Meltem Yalcin Evren - CAMERA ASSITANT 

Meltem is an analogue filmmaker based in Manchester. Her favourite films are low budget 80s sci fi horror movies with gory but ridiculously exaggerated practical effects. Aside from filmmaking, Meltem runs an online horror platform called Nekromancy; a place for horror fans to write about the bizarre, macabre, and occult in Horror entertainment and culture.

Úna O’Sullivan - EDITOR

Úna is an Irish filmmaker living in Glasgow. She has directed and edited music videos, documentaries, and works of fiction.

Her most recent works have involved Extended Reality technology at BILD and Milkit Studios, with heavy VFX and long post-production pipelines, so she’s very excited to move to editing analog film. She is excited to explore how society’s repressed fears bubble up in the form of the horror genre, and to see how this translates to the editing style.

Lewis Urquhart - SOUND DESIGN

Sound recording and design, as well as music production projects, Lewis is accomplished in all of these areas. Having recently recorded the sound for a short horror title ‘Dead in the Water’ Lewis is the perfect man for the job. Close collaborator and friend with Catherine and Edward, Lewis will work very closely with them and the other departments to create the strong atmosphere Lacking the Boggart requires. 

Elliot Webster - COMPOSER

Elliot Webster is a musician and film composer from Leeds, West Yorkshire UK. He currently studies at Leeds Conservatoire and is from a background in film and music production with his style oriented towards contemporary classic and experimental electronic music. He has previously worked with filmmaker Meltem Yalcin, composing for her short film ‘Dead in the Water’ (2020) and is currently working on a film called ‘All That is Solid’ due to be released in the year ahead.