Hidden in Plain Sight: Women in Horror
A panel of formidable final girls discuss how women have long been overlooked or sidelined in a genre that couldn’t exist without them. Hosted by Kate Fitzpatrick.
Women have been at the forefront of horror since its inception, but have only recently started to get their (thorny, gothic black) flowers. Join award-winning author, critic and academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, 1000 Women in Horror (MIFF 2025) director Donna Davies, and programmer and academic Cerise Howard as they provide insights on the genre and its relationship with women – from gender politics and representation to feminism, maternal instincts and women’s immeasurable contribution in front of the camera and behind the scenes.
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas is an award-winning film critic and author of 10 books on cult, horror and exploitation cinema, including the 2020 book 1000 Women in Horror, 1895-2018.
Hailing from Aotearoa New Zealand, Cerise Howard is a co-curator of the Melbourne Cinémathèque, a Studio Leader at RMIT University, a former Program Director of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and the ex-Artistic Director of the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia. Her film criticism can be found across a wide array of outlets, variously in print, online or integrated within home-theatrical releases. She talks film on 3RRR and plays a mean bass guitar.
Donna Davies is an award-winning filmmaker based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her work explores obsessives and outsiders, from fortune tellers to fringe scientists, conspiracy theorists to occultists. The Halifax filmmaker has become one of the most distinctive voices in genre documentaries through films like Pretty Bloody, Zombiemania, Nightmare Factory, Fanarchy and 1000 Women in Horror. She brings the same eye for outsider characters to her dramatic work. Donna is a passionate mentor to emerging filmmakers from diverse backgrounds.
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