Following the recent post about my new short film The Suicide Shift (2026) – here I am so proud to now present the trailer for the film in the link.
THE SUICIDE SHIFT (2026)
Tagline
Connect. Process. Record. Never intervene.
Pitch
Banished to the “suicide shift” for breaking spirit call centre regulations, CARMILLA FERRY, now deals with the most tortured of souls moving from this world to the next. After being blasted by her line manager on the phone, Russell, Carmilla is feeling even more isolated and demoralised than usual. After a series of heart-crushing calls, culminating in a particularly stressful shift, Carmilla is then faced with the most heart-wrenching call of all.
Cast
Julia Florimo as Carmilla Ferry
Myles Horgan as Russell Schaeffer
Felicia Kaspar as Lucy Carpenter
Lost Souls (Voices) – Ashley Wong, Bai Ruiying, Bogdan Dima, Christina Leitner, Federica Ruggieri, Jyothi Gupta, Kay Abel, Maria Busz, Melissa Zajk, Paul Laight, Sanjay Batra, Szymon Bartoszek.
Crew
Director, Producer & Writer: Paul Laight
Cinematography: Petros Gioumpasis
Sound Recordist & Designer: Ali Kivanc
Camera Assistant: Ben Bogdan-Hodgson
Make-Up: Georgie Lang
Location Manager: Melissa Zajk
Editors: Oliver McGuirk & Petros Gioumpasis
Composer: Ben Randall
Poster designs: Jaffer Hashim & Gary O’Brien
Every 90 minutes in the UK, someone dies by suicide. But talking saves lives.
Gradual but excellent progress has been made on the post-production. Editing and the musical score have been completed so the film should be ready by the end of September 2025 for submission to festivals.
A trailer will be released soon. In the meantime, I commissioned some film and character posters. See above and the slideshow below.
Logline
Banished to the “suicide shift” for breaking spirit call centre regulations, CARMILLA FERRY, now deals with the most tortured of souls moving from this world to the next. After being blasted by her line manager on the phone, Russell, Carmilla is feeling even more isolated and demoralised than usual. After a series of heart-crushing calls, culminating in a particularly stressful shift, Carmilla is then faced with the most heart-wrenching call of all.
During 2024 I began planning a new short film and was keen to springboard a new horror idea from something simple around the flat I live in. I decided therefore to check out the various props I had and found an old black phone and an hourglass. From those props I began thinking about how the passing of time and communication could be used as a means of creating emotional conflict for the characters and elicit a sense of dread and fear from the audience. From these thoughts I began writing a script that eventually became called The Suicide Shift (2025).
Pre-production for the film took place during 2024 and I put together a really talented cast and crew all with a very low budget. The filming took place at the end of November 2024 over two extremely productive days of shooting. The Suicide Shift (2025) is now in post-production with a release planned for 2025!
Theme and genre
The Suicide Shift (2025) further develops themes of hell, work and being trapped, previously explored in short films, Hell Is. . . (2013) and Inferis (2024). I was inspired to write a film which dealt with suicide. Mainly due to my own personal experience of losing two close friends who took their own life. I am using the film to highlight the tragedy of people who take their life and meditate on the possible reasons such events take place. I am classing the film as emotional horror.
I have set the film in the genre of psychological, supernatural horror as the horror film allows a filmmaker to explore deep themes while also raising emotion and suspense with the audience. The low-budget production relies heavily on performance, actor reaction, silence, and sound, aiming to be both powerfully dramatic and disturbing. It is set in a few locations but was filmed in one place with limited props and cast.
Logline
Banished to the “suicide shift” for breaking spirit call centre regulations, CARMILLA FERRY, now deals with the most tortured of souls moving from this world to the next. After being blasted by her line manager on the phone, Russell, Carmilla is feeling even more isolated and demoralised than usual. After a series of heart-crushing calls, culminating in a particularly stressful shift, Carmilla is then faced with the most heart-wrenching call of all.
Pitch Outline
In mythical days past, the souls of the dead were carried to the other side by Charon the Ferryman. In the present, the handling of souls has now been modernised and is managed by call centres run by managerial bureaucrats and office workers who exist in limbo, somewhere between heaven, hell and the mortal world.
It is the spirit call centre’s job to manage the dying as they pass into the next world. The employees are not allowed to intervene. Only coordinate, process and record death. The workers communicate via a supernatural telecom system which is heard in the mind of the dying. Any worker who intervenes risks having to work alone in ‘Limbo’.
Banished to the ‘Suicide Shift’ for breaking spirit call centre regulations, CARMILLA FERRY, now deals with the most tortured of souls moving from this world to the next. After being blasted by her manager, RUSSELL, on the phone, Carmilla is feeling even more bullied, isolated, and demoralised than usual. Especially because Russell will not let her see her teenage daughter, a mortal named, Lucy. Russell controls everything and watches Carmilla via a CCTV camera and screens.
During a particularly stressful shift, Carmilla has had to deal with a whole night of heart-crushing calls from the dying. Then, in the early hours of the morning Lucy is suddenly put through to Carmilla having taken an overdose at a party. Carmilla must listen as her frightened daughter’s life slowly drifts away, powerless to intervene. The true horror of work and existence dawns on her.
Last year I wrote and produced seven monologues inspired by the deadly sins. With careful planning, myself and a quality cast and crew shot them all in one day at Raindance Film School. I’m now releasing them online via YouTube. They are in essence a proof of concept project with an aim for myself to develop them into a feature film screenplay. Below are episodes 4 to 7!
PITCH
“Let those without sin cast the first stone.”
An anthology of 7 monologues based around the seven deadly sins. Moments, drama, humour, character studies and themes exploring the darker side of human nature. Influenced by: Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, Inside No. 9, Tales of the Unexpected and Amicus/Hammer horror film anthologies.
PRIDE starring Myles Horgan
Bishop, a retired spy with a gun in his face, delivers a powerful monologue as he attempts to deduce the identity of the assassin that faces him.
LUST starring Tom Cavendish
Danny, a police officer racked with guilt, confesses as to why he thinks he cheated on his beloved fiancé with her sister.
ENVY starring Malcolm Jeffries
Len, a covert photographer, reveals how his obsession with a client’s wife brings back haunting memories from his past.
WRATH starring Julia Florimo
Sadie describes in detail how and why she plotted revenge by poisoning her cheating ex-boyfriend, Stephen.
CREDITS
Writer and Producer: Paul Laight Camera and Post-Production: Gary O’Brien Sound: Ali Kivanc Camera Assistant: Maka Natsvlishvili Music by: Epic Violin Music NO Copyright royalty free music Special thanks: Raindance Film School and Universal Video
The Cinema Fix presents 