The Halloween International Film Festival is a destination horror event celebrating independent film and the most hallowed of seasons, held on the historic and haunted Outer Banks of North Carolina, at a legendary 91-year-old theater, presented by Halloween Daily News.
The festival features three days of independent horror and Halloween-themed films from around the world, as well as networking opportunities and extensive media exposure, all taking place as the kickoff event for the town of Manteo’s Halloween Island festivities, during which area restaurants, bars, and businesses transform into Halloween pop-ups for October.
Films selected for the festival are shown on the big screen at The Pioneer Theater in Manteo, NC, including Q&A sessions with attending filmmakers, nightly meet and greets, photo ops on our Orange Carpet, an outdoor Halloween vendor market, and numerous Halloween Island festivities happening each day in easy walking distance throughout Downtown Manteo. Our iconic host venue dates back to 1918, originally showing silent films in the earliest days of moviemaking, later opening its current location in 1934, and is a truly independent cinematic landmark in itself.
Known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, North Carolina’s Outer Banks is recognized as one of the most haunted places in America, with thousands of shipwrecks resting off the coast of these barrier islands. Roanoke Island, where the Pioneer Theater is located, is the site of the ill fated first English settlement in North America, and its more than 100 colonists that vanished without explanation in 1590, today referred to as The Lost Colony.
A portion of proceeds from this year's festival will be donated to A Pathway Forward, a locally based nonprofit charity that supports veterans.
All Official Selections will receive publicity on HalloweenDailyNews.com, with many festival Q&As and panels to be broadcast to more than 80,000 subscribers on the Halloween Daily News YouTube channel, and will be exposed to a reach of more than a million genre fans through the expanded Halloween Daily News network and social media.
Founded in 2016, the Halloween International Film Festival is a Gold-ranked festival on the world’s top film festival submission platform, FilmFreeway.
Previous Official Selections include 'The Barn' (2016 Best Halloween Film and Best Feature Film award winner), '3 Dead Trick or Treaters', '10/31', 'The Haunt' (2017 Best Halloween Film), 'Haunters: The Art of the Scare' (2018 Best Halloween Film), 'Epic Home Haunts' (2019 Breakthrough Filmmaker award winner), 'Mass Hysteria' (2020 Best Feature Film), and 'They Live Inside Us' (2020 Best Halloween Film).
Special invitational Showcase Selections from previous years include 'Honeyspider', 'The Houses October Built 2' (which is set partly here on the Outer Banks), 'Candy Corn', and the world premieres of '10/31 Part II' and 'Sharp Candy'.
Previously participating studios include Epic Pictures and RLJ Entertainment.
The mission of the Halloween International Film Festival is to promote the artistry of independent films made in the spirit of creativity, support the future of cinema by providing exposure for talented visionary filmmakers, and celebrate a collective passion for Halloween. It is a networking event for industry professionals, and a fan experience unlike any other in the region.
The Outer Banks of North Carolina is the site of America’s first mystery, The Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, the true story of the first English colonists to land in the new world only to mysteriously vanish without explanation in 1590. The Outer Banks is also where the Wright Brothers launched mankind toward the stars with the first powered flight in 1903, in what is now the town of Kill Devil Hills.
Awards will be presented in the following categories:
Best Short Film
Best Feature Film
Best Halloween Film
Best International Film
Best North Carolina Film
Best Lead Performance
Best Supporting Performance
Breakthrough Filmmaker
Scariest Film