Sarah (played by Amy Marie Campbell ) swims alone in a swimming pool late at night. The only sounds are those of her strokes and the gentle hum of the generator, until; A sonar sound bursts through the night air to cause a power surge which plunges Sarah’s world into darkness. As the sonar sound intensifies, Sarah realises it is coming from the deep end of the swimming pool. With a deep breath, she dives down to investigate…

Welcome to ‘Sonar’, a short film written by Eleonora Mignoli (The Bargain) and directed by James Hughes (When The Rain Sets In) which is screening this weekend at the Romford Horror Film Festival. (Sunday the 26th of February at 6pm) You can buy your tickets HERE Already into its festival run , ‘Sonar’ is scooping up very well deserved awards along its journey including Best Film and Best Cinematography at the Newham Film Festival, Best Director and Best VFX at the French Thrills & Chills Film Awards, Best VFX at the Paradise Film Festival in Budapest., and many more. Fingers crossed the film will pick up some more awards at Romford.

I had the treat of being able to see ‘Sonar’ and I kid you not! this is of the most beautiful immersive short films I’ve seen in years! The film has no dialogue and it certainly doesn’t need it. What it does have, is some seriously stunning camerawork and cinematography by David Cawley and Jan Vaceanu-Staicov, the colour scheme to the film is gorgeous and gave me that same feeling of sitting on front of a nice warm fire. ‘Sonar’ also has a haunting (in a good way) score by Victoria Wijeratne and two very wonderful performances by actors Jack Brett Anderson as the sailor, and Amy Marie Campbell as Sarah. Did I fully understand what world I was in. Well no, and that for me is part of the beauty of ‘Sonar’ Its feeling the wonder, and puzzling experience that Sarah feels in the film. Is there a downside to ‘Sonar’ well its only 7 minutes but it did everything it needed to do, it was as long as the story was for this film, but the greedy film fan part of me of course wants to know and see more!

Do check out ‘Sonar’ when you can and if you are at Romford Horror Film Festival this weekend. Check out the film!

What a great start to my day!