The opening film at this year’s Pigeon Shrine FrightFest is Joanne Mitchell’s Broken Bird, an expansion of her 2018 short, Sybil. Mitchell wrote the film alongside Tracey Sheals and her husband, Dominic Brunt. You can check out the artwork and images from the film below…

Synopsis:
Sybil is a quiet, creative soul. Her hobbies are taxidermy and poetry. She works in a funeral parlour with the deceased. She likes dead people. They understand her. At just ten years old, she experienced trauma in a tragic accident which took away the family she adored. Now, an aching loneliness prevails in a void which she seeks to fill. But poetry and a vivid imagination provide an escape from the harsh realities of a lonely life. Reality and reason are slipping away from Sybil, and her ‘dark desires’ become more and more insatiable. Her fascination with the dead takes a dark and strange twist. And in a horrific climax of gothic proportions, she finds her own kind of happiness and contentment with the people she keeps as company – dead people.

Sybil is played by Rebecca Calder (Kandahar/Memory) with James Fleet (Four Weddings & a Funeral), Sacharissa Claxton (Avenue 5), and Jay Taylor (Misfits) filling out the cast list.

You can catch Broken Bird at Pigeon Shrine FrightFest on Thursday, August 22nd at 5.30pm before hitting cinemas on August 30th.