The Wirksworth UFO Incident

Influences and Vision

I draw deeply from cinematic giants—Powell, Hitchcock, Kubrick, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Godard, Woody Allen—who taught me the power of framing and subtext: "cinema is a matter of what's in the frame and what's out" . My films dwell in the liminal spaces—between silence and sound, seen and concealed—seeking to unsettle and provoke, but never for spectacle’s sake. The story, and the mind it inhabits, remain at the core.

Short Films: Atmosphere and Internal Worlds

The Telephone (2017) sets a deceptively simple premise—“If you heard the ringing, would you be prepared to answer what lies at the end of the phone?”—then leans into dread through stillness, isolation, and psychological tension .

In Limbo (2015) follows a psychology student drawn into the eerie aftermath of Black Eyed Children sightings at an abandoned hotel—a symbol of memory, fear, and what we choose to see .

Starman (2023/2018)—a haunting black-and-white short—blurs the lines between the familiar and the otherworldly as a former paratrooper rediscovers purpose through an unlikely connection with a local woman .

The Collector (2024) explores the unsettling mythos around a derelict pub—Sarah Hardy knows the rumors, but she’s unprepared for how they chase her home .

Each film explores psychological terrain, built on quiet dread, atmospheric imagery, and character-driven suspense.

Expanding Footprints: Locality and Features

My films are inextricably “of place”—Derbyshire’s landscapes aren’t backdrops but living, breathing characters. This is most evident in upcoming or in-development feature-length works:

The Wasteland (2017, short in development) is a contemporary “western” mystery thriller set among the rugged stonewalls of the Derbyshire Dales. It tackles mental illness and domestic abuse through a drifter’s connection to a troubled community—a story of isolation and uncovering what lies beneath the surface .

The Wirksworth UFO Incident (2025) ushers in a new direction—a feature-length fictional documentary that blends uncanny and documentary styles, grounded in local lore and rooted in place .

Why I Make These Films

I’m drawn to stories that haunt—not with horror overt, but with insinuation. I want to inhabit emotional spaces where memory, superstition, and the everyday collide. That could be a ringing phone, an empty hotel, a ghostly encounter, or a pub with a history. I seek to reflect our own hidden anxieties and desires back at us.

Film gives us a lens to observe fear: how it quietens us, changes us. My aim is to channel that unease—quietly, intimately, from within.

What’s Next

I’m committed to expanding these stories into new forms and lengths. With The Wirksworth UFO Incident, I’m exploring how documentary methods can anchor the uncanny in something grounded and local. And through The Wasteland and other narratives, I continue drawing from myth, psychology, and landscape to explore how place shapes paranoia, memory, and hope.

Ultimately, I’m telling stories that begin in real places with real fears—and linger in our minds long after the screen fades.