GSFF shocker

Viewers faint watching 'visceral' short film.

by Jennie Kermode

Flamingo
Flamingo

Events took a dramatic twist yesterday when a film screening at the Glasgow Short Film Festival shocked viewers so much that two of them fainted. Bryan M Ferguson's Flamingo, which was screening in the Skinny Short Film Competition in support of his award-winning Caustic Gulp, led to one person becoming instantly unconscious whilst another became so pale and limp as to require urgent assistance.

Eye For Film's Andrew Robertson, who described the film as 'visceral', said that the woman behind him reacted so dramatically to what was shown onscreen that he was afraid she was going to throw up on his coat.

Flamingo, which stars Katie Armstrong, Stascia Bantouvakis, Kristopher Curran and Joanne Pirrie, tells the story of an aspiring dancer who befriends an obscene phone caller after they discover a mutual interest in self-amputation.

Fortunately, audience reactions as dramatic as this are rare. The last one we're aware of happened in August 2015, when horror fans at the Fantasia International Film Festival fainted and vomited during a screening of Chad Archibald's entomological transformation shocker Bite.

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