Always on
This project successfully funded on 4th March 2026, you can still support them with a donation.
Kevrinyow - a Cornish SciFi Folk Horror 16mm film
Truro, United Kingdom
Aim
We won a £5,000 Screen Cornwall grant, shot an epic 16mm Cornish language folk horror film. Buy our art & plant a tree to finish our film!
In May 2024, a film makers dream came true and we won a £5,000 grant from Screen Cornwall's Cornish language FlymK award in a hotly contested film shorts script competition.
This was judged by leading industry producers including Denzil Monk (Enys Men, Rose of Nevada for Mark Jenkins) and the tireless director of Film Cornwall, Laura Giles along with Cornwall Council's Cornish language team.
Shot entirely in the Cornish language on real 16mm and Super 8mm film with a paid professional crew, the executive producer being Denzil Monk himself, supported by Kodak UK, Kevrinyow is a love letter to the British and American science fiction and folk horror television and films of the 1970s to the 1990s.
The plot
A military AI, Merdhyn, finds a lead to the location of a lost Super 8mm film alleged to show a Star Cult UFO abduction. The Super 8 was made by two London journalists who vanished without a trace while visiting the far West of Cape Cornwall and Penzance in 1987.
Merdhyn sends 2 investigators - Commodore Gideon Aldermarsh and Professor Morovoren Tregagle - to Morrab Library in Penzance to unearth the film and learn it's secrets, Kevrinyow is the Cornish language word for Secrets.
The inspiration
Driven by a love of directors like David Lynch, Stanley Kubrik, television such as 1970s era Dr. Who, The X files, Owl Service, Stone Tapes, Sapphire & Steel, Children of the Stones, The Wicker Man, Prisoner and many other classics.
The brief to the cast and crew was to imagine a 1970s cult TV film shot by David Lynch. We put together a like minded team of amazing local Cornish actors and a highly experienced professional crew to ensure the best possible film was made. And we did it!
Our progress
Using £4000 of our £5000 grant, plus money invested by the Director, we have shot, developed and scanned 38 minutes of 16mm film footage for Kevrinyow and paid our actors and crew within our budget.
Work began on the film in January 2024 when we shot the found footage Super 8mm film Denladrans, (abducted in Cornish) at the director's Brisons Veor artist residency at Cape Cornwall. Set meticulously in 1987, cars, props, set, makeup and music all designed to invoke the 1980s. This was a vital step to creating the world of Kevrinyow. This Super 8 format film is projected as part of the film.
With our grant from Screen Cornwall, money from the director and sponsored by Kodak film, who kindly provided 1200ft of 16mm analogue film and supported processing and developing, we shot Kevrinyow during October 2024 on location at Morrab Library, Penzance in Cornwall. The film has been developed and scanned successfully and is now in the final stages of post production, which is what we are raising funds for here.
Sound post production in the prestigious The Ambience Factory is under way using a vintage 24 track analog tape, outboard analog mixing desk that was used on Back to The Future, giving the film an incredible sound.
An original soundtrack is being composed by the award winning musician and the film's director, Peter Arthur Moon who has scored 2 top 20 albums in the last 2 years with Talk Talk alumni Held by Trees, many of the band from the original sessions for the cult albums Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock.
The actors
Starring Angeline Morrison, beloved folk artist, academic and decolonisation activist. Angeline Morrison was awarded "Folk Album of the Year" by the Guardian newspaper who said her work is ‘Abundant with meaning and feeling…masters the precision of storytelling, as well as its poetry…’ - The Guardian, 4/5 stars.
Angeline plays a powerful neurodiverse character, Professor Morvoren Tregagle. Morvoren is a mystical occult technologist who invented and created the Artificial Intelligence Merdhyn, partly using incantation and magic. Angeline channels her powerful story telling talent here in the Cornish language and has a masterful screen presence bringing a powerful mystical element to our film, also challenging the trope of female victims in horror.
Ben Kernow, Director of the amazing award winning Cornish language film Art with many credits in film and theatre including Warhammer games. Ben has created so much of value for Cornish culture and is a champion of the Cornish language, of which he is a highly skilled speaker. Ben masterfully portrays the colourful Librarian and is the guardian of Morrab Library. A mysterious and guarded character with hidden talents, this librarian is perhaps not one to who you want to bring your books back late...
Micheal Fenner has credits in East Enders and London's Burning who also teaches acting and Shakespeare at The Globe Theatre in London. Micheal is an accomplished playwright himself. Micheal plays the iconic Commodore Gideon Aldermarsh, RAF spook who deals with the more mysterious and occult side of signals intelligence and threat assessment. He discovers slightly more about mysterious signals than he might have wanted to...
Finally, but not least, the voice of the AI Merlyn is performed by the famous American Jamaican Moroccan voice artist Laila Pyne, with acting credits including Star Wars, Foundation, Assassin's Creed Gold and many others. Laila also co-wrote the film with Peter Arthur Moon, bringing years of experience as an actress to the dialogue and a commercial Hollywood shine to the production.
Director, co-writer and producer
Peter Arthur Moon is a successful Cornish musician with two top 20 albums to his name with the band Held by Trees and Unknown Replica with a passion for analogue film making. Living in West Cornwall, Peter owns and runs the only all analog commercial music studio in Cornwall, The Ambience Factory in Truro.
We are raising additional funds in stages for:
1. To pay for professional post production. The quality of the film is quite exceptional, as you can see from the stills below, and we feel it deserves professional editing, colour grading and sound post production. This is not possible within the existing budget. This will allow us to present the highest quality end product for screenings and competitions. This is what we would spend the target raise of £2000 on.
2. We also want to send the film to festivals to promote the Cornish Language and culture, and bring the language alive introducing it to a new audience. We have a small budget in mind of £1000 for this, so a £3000 raise would allow us to enter international competitions. A stretch goal of a further £1000 would help pay for professional PR to promote the film overseas.
3. With grant funding so competitive and diminishing by the day, we would like to use our film to generate income that makes our future film making self sufficient. We would like to shoot 4 more days footage and extend the film out to 30 minutes so it is of commercial interest to streaming platforms and short film distribution companies.
Once we have a film of this length, it's quite possible to generate enough cash to fund our next film, which is already written. If we raise £7000, then we can make the 30 minute sustainable version of this film.
4. If we are fortunate enough to go over the £7000 level, any additional funds will be used as seed funding to make a feature film based on this story. We already have a script written for a full length Scifi Folk Horror film and avenues to distribution, so, with your help, it's not an impossible ending!
Ethics and environmental impact
Kevrinyow started with a professional environmental and social impact assessment that looked at every stage of it's production. Kevrinyow is a carbon negative production, taking up more carbon than it's production emits. Trees are planted for every pledge in one of the largest forest regeneration projects in the world in partnership with Play it Green.
Every stage of the film was planned to have the lowest possible impact. Even the film used was overstock, kindly donated by Kodak labs at Pinewood Studios.
The Forest of Kevrinyow. This is a unique to the film industry initiative to plant a tree for every donation made on our crowdfunder. Every donation results in a tree planted in the mangrove regeneration project in Madagascar.
During 2023-24, 219,167 trees were planted at the project. Local people are paid to plant the trees and manage the mangrove. The actual impact of this resulted in 3291 work days of employment protecting the environment. 16,175 tonnes of CO2 were sequestered. 10 of the 17 United Nations sustainability goals were supported.
Supporting families in distress
Closer to home, 10% of the donation paid to Play it Green for each tree is gifted to another UK based charity. We have chosen the food bank and anti poverty campaigners The Trussell Trust for our donations through this scheme. The Trussell Trust supported some of the poorest people in the UK with 2.9 million emergency food parcels last year. Their impact can be found on their website here.
Impact of making the film
During production, the cast and crew car shared to get to the location. Our Director of Photography travelled by train. Catering was 50% vegan, crew stayed overnight supporting local hotels instead of driving, further reducing our impact. All the costumes were preloved and most have been sent back to charity shops for another life. The props such as the AI and all the technology were recycled and repurposed from E-Waste.
No one has been asked to work without being paid, including pre production work. Everyone on the crew was paid the Joseph Rowntree foundation living wage and Equity recommended rates for the actors. The only person not paid anything was the Director/Producer Peter who also invested his own money and invested hundreds of hours of his time and his sound post production studio in Truro to make the film happen within the budget.
The Ambience Factory post production studio is powered by 100% renewable energy. The equipment, including the mixing desk and 24 track analogue reel to reel tape machine were rescued and refurbished items once used on Back to the Future! This film has genuine and ground breaking environmental credentials.
Rewards
We have created a series of ethical, locally made rewards using vegan inks, certified low impact organic cottons and chosen items that have the lowest impact. Ceramic mugs for example have a horrific carbon and water footprint, which is why you don't see them here. Your rewards are hand screen printed only 15 miles from our studio in Truro. Each item is carbon offset with a tree planted for every reward level with up to 10 trees planted for the higher levels of support.
Of course, this all costs money and we did not have to do any of this. We did this because we believe in truly sustainable film making. And this means investing in a future for individuals, society, the biosphere and the atmosphere. We are only small, but together with you, we have a big positive impact within the film world. Thank you for reading this far and, we hope, for the support for our film!
Oll an gwella!
Peter Arthur Moon
Our amazing rewards. Every item is hand produced with love here in Cornwall and, importantly, the artists making these are being paid the Joseph Rowntree Living Wage. Every effort will be made for items ordered by 16th of December to arrive in time for Christmas, post office willing of course.
For later orders, or to avoid risking the post timings, you may also collect your items from our music studio in Truro on a day before Christmas (date TBC but likely to be the afternoon/evening of 23rd of December), and save the wait, have some mince pies and meet some of the team!
If we can't meet the demand before Christmas, you will be told by email and have the option to collect directly from the studio. The funding campaign will run until Friday 13th February.
Cornish Language art card and bookmark designed by a local artist and printed on FSC certified art card and a beautiful 32mm metal badge. 250 in stock.
Hand screen printed organic tote bags printed using vegan vegetable ink. 100 in stock.
Below: Hand screen printed vegan ink organic cotton T shirts we have 10 in stock of each size for men and women ready to print or around 100 in total.
Below: 1/250 archive quality paper hand made screen print "Pen Hood - Keeper of the Portal" limited to 250 signed by the artist and the director. These are printed to order by hand and we have materials for 100 in stock.
Below: 1/250 "The Emissary" A4 print on archival acid free paper from the actual 16mm film signed and numbered by the director. These are printed on ordering and we have 250 available.
Below: 1/250 "Star Cult" A4 archival acid free print from the actual 16mm film signed and numbered by the director. These are printed on ordering and we have 250 available.
Below: 1/250 "The Summoning" Angeline Morrison as Professor Tregagle - A4 archival acid free paper print from the actual 16mm film signed and numbered by the director. These are printed on ordering and we have 250 available.
Meur ras/thank you for supporting independent artists in Cornwall!
Peter Arthur Moon December 2025.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made