BROKEN BIRD marks the feature directorial debut of Joanne Mitchell, who for nearly 15 years has honed her craft as a horror storyteller. BROKEN BIRD is a feature film adaptation of her & Tracey Sheals’s 2018 award-winning short Sybil, screenplay by Dominic Brunt.

Sybil Chamberlain is a quiet, creative soul. Her hobbies are taxidermy and poetry. She works in a funeral parlour with the deceased. She likes dead people. They understand her.

At just ten years old, she experienced trauma in a tragic accident which took away the family she adored. Now, an aching loneliness prevails in a void which she seeks to fill. But poetry and a vivid imagination provide an escape from the harsh realities of a lonely life.

Reality and reason are slipping away from Sybil and her ‘dark desires’ become more and more insatiable. Her fascination with the dead takes a dark and strange twist. And in a horrific climax of gothic proportions, she finds her own kind of happiness and contentment with the people she keeps as a company – dead people.

BROKEN BIRD will open this year’s FrightFest and will be coming to UK Cinemas from 30th August.