Filmmakers

Born in Istanbul, 1982, Can Evrenol ("To My Mother and Father") graduated from the University of Kent at Canterbury with joint honours in 'Art History' and 'Film Studies'. In the summer of 2007 he shot his first independent short film "The Chest", with his family and friends on the street he grew up on. It went on to be screened at such festivals as "Montreal, Fantasia Film Festival", "Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival", "Sydney a Night of Horrors". He is now based in London, running his own filmmaking and editing company. In 2009 he edited the full length feature documentary "A Film About Races". Read more

Michael Swertfager lived a normal life in the rat race of the Silicon Valley until he attended the 2005 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival. That weekend his interest in H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe shifted from a hobby to an obsession. He has since been consumed by an unyielding desire to document the evil deeds of Edgar Allan Poe's actions during eight horrific nights in 1842. With years of study in animation and art, Michael stepped away from his domestic world and entered the craze of the artist. Read more

Raised in the Northeast on a steady diet of macabre and arcane fiction, Kurt Lustgarten owes much of his storytelling style (and neuroses) to the work of H.P. Lovecraft. His screenplay based on William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki the Ghost-Finder was inspired by a love of supernatural horror and the detective/adventure genres. He is currently developing the sci-fi thriller Futures with writer Jesse Mittelstadt (Across the Hall), which Kurt is attached to direct. Read more

Andrew W. Jones' edgy, irreverent comedy and horror shorts have won honors at dozens of festivals world-wide. This makes it doubly strange that his young professional life has been in children's cartoons. Jones has worked on productions for the BBC, PBS, Cartoon Network and most notably the Walt Disney Company, where his segments of Disney's American Presidents recently won a Parent's Choice Award. 2010 is his second year at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, his first being 2008 with the animated horror short The Book Dealers. This year he is thrilled to return to "the only festival that understands" with Frank DanCoolo: Paranormal Drug Dealer Read more

Nicolas Simonin ("DERAILED") is a native of France currently living in San Diego since 2010. He began his professional screenwriting career in Europe where he worked on TV shows like (R.I.S.—French C.S.I. or Lea Parker— an "Alias" spy show) for five major networks in France. In addition, he worked in the feature movie industry (EUROPACORP) as a screenwriter, professional reader and story analyst. He spent five years as a TV screenwriter and 18 months as a story coverage reader for Europacorp. Read more

Erika Hallberg co-produced, worked as assistant director, did the make-up and composed the music for the short Fyren (Keeper of the Light). While young, she has a solid background in music, theater and film. She also worked as script supervisor on Kammaren (A Legend Told). She's currently getting her degree as a cantor and it shows in the end credits of Fyren.

Erika and Robert P. Olsson lives in the city of Karlstad, in the county of Värmland, a county known for its many famous authors and poets.

Robert P. Olsson has produced, written and directed his third Lovecraftian short called Fyren (Keeper of the Light) screening at this years HPLFF. His earlier efforts inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's work’s, 13:de mars 1941 (March the 13th, 1941) and Kammaren (A Legend Told), screened at the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival in 2005 and 2007. Read more

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has spent the past year in production on a feature film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's classic weird tale, The Whisperer in Darkness. Now, as they near completion of the film, the movie's producers join the HPLFF to talk about the project. In addition to discussing the trials and tribulations of indie filmmaking, they'll also show a never-before-seen scene from the film and will premiere a new trailer. Read more

Andrew Leman’s interest in the works and worlds of H. P. Lovecraft was first kindled by Sean Branney during their high school years, and that interest has grown into an ongoing 26-year creative partnership. Starting with their own high-intensity brand of live-action role-playing games, their efforts have expanded into music, film, radio drama, historical writing, and vintage document replicas. As a founding member of the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society, Leman has served as its president and an editor of its monthly publication, Strange Eons, and a developer of its massive website. He has written and produced numerous live-action gaming events, involving helicopters, herds of horses, mummified bodies, ancient documents Read more