Transylvania Tapes, a mix of the found footage and Eurohorror genres directed by filmmaker Brad Sykes, will have its Romanian premiere at the Lună Plină/ Full Moon Horror and Fantasy Film Festival in Biertan on August 16.
The film, shot entirely in Bucharest and Sighisoara, follows Mara Enescu, a young woman in her 30s who travels from Los Angeles to her home country of Romania to discover the truth about her mother’s disappearance in Transylvania years ago. Together with a cameraman friend, she journeys from Bucharest “to the birthplace of Dracula himself.”
The movie, produced by Josephina Sykes, stars newcomer Valeria Badiuc (in opening photo) as well as Gabriel Spahiu, who recently had roles in Radu Jude’s Kontinental ’25 and Dracula, and Ion Haiduc, recently seen in Trancers: The Whole Dethly Affair.
Transylvania Tapes had its world premiere this June at the Horror-on-Sea Film Festival in the UK. It also screened at GrossFest Film Festival in Pittsburgh.
“Transylvania Tapes is a unique mix of found footage and Eurohorror genres that my wife and producer, Josephina, and I have been wanting to make for twenty years. After writing several different scripts, creating multiple budgets and taking far too many meetings, we finally decided last year that if we wanted to make our dream project, we needed to make it completely independently with the resources we had available. This meant calling in favors from friends going back to the late 1990s, when Josephina and I first met on a Romanian movie set, as well as working with some brand-new talent. Making Transylvania Tapes was an exciting journey for all of us and one of the most intimate, personal movies I have ever directed,” director Brad Sykes explains.
Filmmaker and author Brad Sykes graduated cum laude from Boston University’s film program. After moving to Los Angeles and working in production and development for companies including Paramount Pictures, Scott Free, and Full Moon Entertainment, Sykes made his professional writing/directing debut with the horror comedy Scream Queen, starring genre icon Linnea Quigley. Since then, he has written and directed over twenty-five feature films, including the digital 3D horror movie Camp Blood.
Sykes’ film Death Factory was its distributor’s all-time top-grossing title. His other writing-directing credits include Goth, Mad Jack, Demon’s Kiss, Plaguers (winner of Best Screenplay at the 2008 Estepona Film Festival and Best Actor Steve Railsback at 2008 Shockerfest), Hi-8: Horror Independent Eight and its sequels Hi-Death and Hi-Fear. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, producer Josephina Sykes, where they operate Nightfall Pictures, a full-service development and production company.
Josephina Sykes, who was born in Bucharest, graduated in 1999 from the National University of Theatre and Film UNATC with a major in screenwriting. She also spent a semester at La FEMIS film school in Paris in 1998, on a scholarship from the French Foreign Ministry. After graduation, she worked for film studios Castel Film and Media Pro Pictures. Since relocating to Los Angeles in 2001, she has continued to work in film, both as a screenwriter and in production on various indie features. In 2004, she founded Nightfall Pictures, a full-service development and production company, with her husband.
She has produced several feature films, including the thriller Within the Woods, the drama Dead Letters, starring C. Thomas Howell, actioner Mutation, the debut of Katie Featherston, and the award-winning sci-fi/horror film Plaguers, starring Steve Railsback. She is one of the co-creators and executive producers of the horror anthology Hi-8: Horror Independent Eight, which was selected in the official competition of over twenty film festivals.
(Photos: Nightfall Pictures)
simona@romania-insider.com
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