As the COVID-19 crisis continues to alter our collective lives in a myriad of unprecedented and increasingly disastrous ways, its impact on the industry we love is all too apparent. Amidst forced festival cancellations and upended film releases, we felt an overwhelming need to come together and join forces to present a first-class film experience for the larger genre community this Halloween season. The challenges posed this year are immense, but so too is our desire to remind our fans of the thrill, amusement, and wonder of discovering new movies, even from home.

By uniting, we aspire to both show our determination to overcome this time of anxiety and uncertainty, and demonstrate our strong will to continue to support bold and visionary films and filmmakers from around the world. Now more than ever, we are dedicated to celebrating cinema and providing filmmakers with the opportunity to have their films seen and enjoyed by eager audiences.

The launch of NIGHTSTREAM, a unique virtual festival experience, will continue each of our missions to bring communities together and showcase the best that the genre scene has to offer, while also giving back to those in need who have supported us. To that end, we’d like to stress that all proceeds from sales of NIGHTSTREAM will be shared in the manner outlined below.

Your ticket purchase will be going directly to all the artists we showcase, to charitable causes and struggling small businesses in each of our festival’s home cities, and to each of our organizations to recoup expenses from our canceled physical events, and help sustain us through these turbulent months so that we can all return to public gatherings when it is safe to do so.

The genre film community is not defined by our physical proximity to theaters. It is our love of film in all its forms that binds us and will continue to keep us close. Now is the time to reimagine the future of festivals, our future, and what can be achieved through cinema. Let’s do it together.

“It is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that account we shall be more attached to one another.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

Sincerely,