Falmouth’s Film lecturers feature at Cornwall’s first Folk Horror Film Festival
19 October 2026
Falmouth’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab is partnering with The Lost Gardens of Heligan to bring to life their first Folk Horror Film Festival.
Taking place at the Cornish gardens from 24 October to 1 November, the film festival will be part of the garden’s Halloween Week celebrations, offering visitors the chance to experience “eight nights of atmospheric folk horror deep within the estate, featuring cult horror classics and up-and-coming Cornish language films.”
The Lab has programmed, together with Creative Kernow and Myskatonic, a selection of folk horror classics accompanied by work made in partnership with Falmouth’s lecturers and Lab-supported filmmakers.
Cornwall’s landscape and customs have proved to be fertile ground for folk horror filmmakers over the years, with a particular resurgence in the last few, as Falmouth’s Head of Film & Television Dr Kingsley Marshall discussed with BA(Hons) Film lecturer Dean Puckett last year.
Speaking of this new festival Dr Kingsley Marshall said: “Heligan offers a great opportunity to see seasonally weird and eerie short films in a beautiful environment and hear from the filmmakers themselves on the night.
“The short film part of the programme has been developed, produced and directed by a number of Falmouth’s staff, and all of these wonderfully diverse films had students collaborating as part of the crew. The programme builds on a series of events that the Sound/Image Cinema Lab team has been cooking up with the team at Brewing Folk, taking place at the Verdant Taproom throughout the autumn.”
The pop-up screen set within the historic gardens will include productions directed by BA(Hons) Film lecturer Ryan Mackfall including Howlsavla Gwav (2025), The Birdwatcher (2024) and Backwoods (2019); Dean Puckett’s The Severed Sun (2024); and Distinguished Professor of Film Practice Mark Jenkin’s Hard, Cracked the Wind (2019).
The festival will also feature a screening of the short film Tresor by Gwenno Saunders, Mercury Prize-nominated musician, songwriter and recipient of an Honorary Master of Arts during Falmouth’s 2026 Graduation ceremonies. Tresor is a dreamlike visual journey which accompanied the release of her acclaimed 2022 Cornish language album of the same name.
Alongside the screenings will be a number of Q&As, giving audience members the chance to learn more, gain a deeper understanding of folk horror filmmaking and meet some of the makers behind the art.
Get tickets and learn more on The Lost Gardens of Heligan website
Leading image and images left to right: Stills from The Severed Sun. Credit: Steve Tanner.
Poster: The Lost Gardens of Heligan.
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