‘Mum & Dad’: Parents can be bloody murder...

Mum & Dad (Trailer)

When Lena, a young Polish immigrant working as an office cleaner at Heathrow airport, misses her last bus home, she accepts an offer of help from friendly co worker Birdie, who lives nearby with her 'adoptive parents.' Knocked unconscious after arriving at the house, Lena soon finds herself imprisoned in a suburban House of Horrors, a living nightmare of abuse, torture and murder. Lena's only option appears to be to become part of the family — and join Mum and Dad in their insanity — or die.

Feature. Released Dec 26th 2008.
'The best UK horror of the last decade.'
'Horrifying and utterly unique.'
'One of the defining British horrors of its generation.'


Mum & Dad — History
‘Mum & Dad’ was the first film to emerge from Film London’s innovative Microwave Scheme which was established in conjunction with the BBC to support film makers making the leap from shorts to features. It challenged film makers to make a feature film for a maximum budget of £100,000. Lisa Trnovski came to 2am Films with the project and they were delighted to be able to support the film during the shoot in Nottingham, the post production in London and see it through to its UK release by Revolver Entertainment on 26th December 2008. The film has also been released in the US and has sold to a number of international territories. It has picked up a Silver Melies award and has been to many international festivals where it has generated a great response.


Steven Sheil — Director
Steven Sheil was born in Feltham, London. He studied English and German at the University of Kent at Canterbury before moving to Nottingham where he became involved in the rapidly-developing DV/DIY filmmaking scene, training on Intermedia Film and Video’s intensive year-long ‘Headstart’ course. After the course, he worked as a camera operator, filming on Chris Cooke’s short ‘Shifting Units’ (BFI New Directors) and the subsequent feature ‘One For The Road’ (Film Four Lab/UK Film Council), at the same time developing his own films, including the horror short ‘Cry’ which was a festival success and which has gained almost 100,000 downloads on Atomfilms.

For the past few years he has been developing feature ideas, including the blackly comic British wrestling drama ‘World of Pain’ (with Chris Cooke), while also continuing to make horror shorts including ‘Through a Vulture Eye’ and ‘Deliver Me’. He also continues to work as a DOP/Camera Operator, primarily for his wife, the artist and filmmaker Jeanie Finlay.

‘Mum & Dad’ is his first feature script to go into production. He is currently developing the script for another horror feature ‘Everything Dies' and a sci-fi thriller 'The Beneath'.


Lisa Trnovski — Producer
Lisa is a veteran of short film formats having worked on over 500 commercials, pop promos and idents over the last 10 years. Not satisfied with such brief story telling opportunities, she turned her hand to features in 2004 when she worked as a co-ordinator on Tim Burton’s 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. She produced 'Honeymoon' a Film 4/UKFC short starring Emilia Fox in 2006 for director Miranda Bowen which won Best Film at the Brest International Film Festival at its debut outing and has since screened in London, France, Germany and the US. Looking out for a feature opportunity, she was sent an outline for 'Mum and Dad' in September 2006. Lisa was immediately taken with the strong writing and on meeting director Steven Sheil, got stuck straight into the Microwave challenge of producing a feature for £100,000.

Her passion now is both to tell her own stories and to nurture directorial talent. She hopes to work again with Miranda Bowen and is currently developing Steven Sheil’s 2nd feature with EM Media. She is also working on Jamie Rafn’s 'Dispatched'. Lisa hopes never to make a micro-budget film again.