52 Films by Women Vol 8. 40. Broken Bird (Director: Joanne Mitchell)
Pictured : Troubled lady poet Sybil ( Rebecca Calder ) goes for a walk in the park in a scene from director Joanne Mitchell 's horror film, ' Broken Bird ', written by Dominic Brunt . Still: Catalyst Studios (UK) Broken Bird is a modest budget British horror film shot in Serbia that relies less on jump scares and fetishiz ed violence than on unsettling performances and fragmented narrative strands. Not to mention fantasy sequences, exposed intestines and stitched together body parts. Expanded from her short film, Sybil , by director Joanne Mitchell, working from a script by her husband Dominic Brunt, it tells the story of a troubled young woman who has an unfortunate habit of causing every funeral home she works at to close down. Rebecca Calder excels as Sybil who we first meet at an evening of ‘pies, pints and poetry’ in an unspecified Northern town. She fits the stereotype of troubled lady poet, reciting verse slowly and deliberately, as if every word might be the last...