The Blood in the Snow Film Festival (BITS) announced last week a new Horror Development Lab starting in November 2021. The goal of this lab is to facilitate the production of projects by previously underrepresented filmmakers in Canada.

Approximately 12-15 filmmakers and their projects will be selected Canada-wide to be coached by industry leaders from November 18 to 23, 2021.

The Horror Development Lab will occur in Toronto during the BITS 2021 over six days in conjunction with their Deadly Exposure Industry Conference.

Part of BITS’s mandate is to push boundaries and evolution in Canadian film. As such, the Horror Development Lab was created to ensure this also applies to inclusivity. Since the festival was seeing an underrepresentation of submissions with BIPOC/LGBTQ2IA+ themes, cast and crew, it acted to implement an inroad for those groups within the genre film industry.

The Horror Development Lab’s core team comprises of Development Coordinator/Programmer Carolyn Mauricette and Festival Director/Founder Kelly Michael Stewart, and Development Advisors Mariam Bastani and Alison Lang, plus a diverse team of jury members.

I had an opportunity to speak with Carolyn and Kelly about this latest BITS initiative. They share some great background information on the Horror Development Lab, the application process, and much more.

It is free to apply for the Horror Development Lab; applications are open until August 15, 2021.

All applicants must be a Canadian citizen and identify as female, BIPOC, LGBTQ2IA+ and / or person with a disability. Projects must have IBPOC/BIPOC representation in front and behind the camera in their project proposals.

More information and applications forms please visit deadlyexposure.ca, or bloodinthesnow.ca.
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*Main Photo courtesy of BITS; featuring filmmaker Larica Perera and actress Olunike Adeliyi speaking at the Deadly Exposure Industry Conference 2018.