The Final Frame
Horror Short Film Competition

In conjunction with our annual horror convention, StokerCon, the Horror Writers Association is proud to host the 9th Annual FINAL FRAME Horror Short Film Competition.

Each year, between ten to fifteen short-short films (13 minutes and under) are showcased as part of the StokerCon Horror Writers Convention. The coveted StokerCon Final Frame Award and cash prize will be awarded to one film and filmmaker, the best film shown at our event as decided upon by a panel of industry judges. We also present a variety of prizes to first runner-up, second runner-up, best writing in a short film, and the audience award.

Competition judges for 2024 include:

TANANARIVE DUE is an award-winning author who teaches

Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. A leading voice in

Black speculative fiction for more than 20 years, Due has won

an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a

British Fantasy Award, and her writing has been included in

best-of-the-year anthologies. Her books include The

Reformatory (a New York Times Notable Book), The Wishing

Pool and Other Stories, Ghost Summer: Stories, My Soul to

Keep, and The Good House. She and her late mother, civil

rights activist Patricia Stephens Due, co-authored Freedom

in the Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the Fight for

Civil Rights.

She was an executive producer on Shudder's groundbreaking documentary Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror. She and her husband/collaborator, Steven Barnes, wrote "A Small Town" for Season 2 of Jordan Peele’s "The Twilight Zone" on Paramount Plus, and two segments of Shudder’s anthology film Horror Noire.

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PHILIP FRACASSI is the author of the story collections

Beneath a Pale Sky (a finalist for the Bram Stoker award) and

Behold the Void (named “Best Collection of the Year” by

This Is Horror). His novels include A Child Alone with

Strangers, Gothic, and Boys in the Valley. His upcoming

books include the story collection, No One is Safe and the

novels Sarafina and The Third Rule of Time Travel.

Philip’s stories have been published in numerous magazines

and anthologies, including Best Horror of the Year, Nightmare,

Black Static, Southwest Review, Centipede Press, and Interzone. As a screenwriter, his feature films have been distributed by Disney and Lifetime. He has several stories in development for film adaptation with major studios.

Philip lives in Los Angeles and is represented by Elizabeth Copps at Copps Literary Services. For more information, visit his website at www.pfracassi.com.

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JAMAL HODGE is a multi-award-winning filmmaker and writer

whose films have been seen at Sundance, Cannes, Tribeca,

Chelsea, and The Hip Hop Film Festival, among others. Jamal

has been a segment director on the hit PBS doc-series

Southern Storytellers (2023), and is the director of the

upcoming series Madness & Writers The Untold Truth,

Maybe? (2024). He is a Producer on the Animated feature

film 'Pierre The Pigeon Hawk’ (starring Will.I.Am, Jennifer

Hudson, Snoop Dog, and Whoopi Goldberg). As a writer,

Hodge is an active member of The HWA and The SFPA,

being nominated for a 2021 & 2022 Rhysling Award. His

work is featured in Quail Nous 2, CHIRAL MAD 5,

Unioverse: Stories of The Reconvergence, and The Year's

Best African Speculative Fiction 2022. Jamal’s debut poetry

collection, ‘The Dark Between The Twilight, is out now.

One of A.V. Club's 10 female filmmakers to hire, IZZY LEE is a director and author on the rise. Lee shadowed Adam Egypt Mortimer on the SpectreVision film Archenemy and is in post on her own feature, House of Ashes. Several of her short stories have found publication, including The Beginning in Dark Matter Ink’s Haunted Reels anthology, curated by David Lawson, Jr. Released on 2/13/24, I Can See Your Lies is her first book, also from Dark Matter Ink. See what she’s up to at nihilnoctem.com.

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LISA MORTON is a screenwriter, author of non-fiction books,

and prose writer whose work was described by the American

Library Association’s Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror as

“consistently dark, unsettling, and frightening.” She is a six-time

winner of the Bram Stoker Award®, the author of four novels

and 200 short stories, and a world-class Halloween and

paranormal expert. Her recent releases include "Calling the

Spirits: A History of Seances and The Art of the Zombie Movie";

she also hosts the popular weekly “Ghost Report” podcast. Lisa

lives in Los Angeles and online at www.lisamorton.com

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