ABOUT
Alison is from Leeds. She has now moved a full ten miles way and lives in Bradford. She spends her days in her garden shed, writing books and making video essays about feminism and horror films. She is drawn to the untold stories of women working in film, both in front of and behind the cameram and she has a particular penchant for historical studies, because they require her to squirrel around in film archives (a Great Joy).
Her films, books and essays have won numerous awards around the world, and she has been interviewed about her research for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Guardian and Radio 4, amongst others.
Alison is Professor of Film at the University of Leeds, UK, where she teaches screenwriting. She has worked in industry as a script reader, script editor and scriptwriter, and has collaborated with BBC WritersRoom, Penguin Random House and the Royal Court Theatre. She also works as a film critic, specialising in horror (obvs), and has provided essays and audio commentaries for Second Sight Films, Arrow, Shudder, Buzzfeed and the Stylist.
She very much enjoys collaborating with film festivals. She has worked as a judge, curator and panelist for many international film festivals, including Sitges (Spain), Leeds International Film Festival (UK), Offscreen (Belgium), Etheria Film Night (USA), Final Girls Berlin (Germany), Ax Wound (USA), Kurja Polt (Slovenia), KurzFilm Festival (Germany) and SlashFilm Festival (Austria). She loves old films, and believes in her heart that retrospective / archival screening series are the best thing in the world.
These are some of her most favourite films. They are not all horror. But, you know. Mostly:
Orlac's Hände / The Hands of Orlac (1924), Vampyr (1932), Island of Lost Souls (1932), Cat People (1942), The Seventh Victim (1943), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Rope (1948), Les Diaboliques (1955), Night of the Demon (1957), Bōrei kaibyō yashiki / Mansion of the Ghost Cat (1958), Vertigo (1958), Some Like it Hot (1959), Les yeux sans visage / Eyes Without a Face (1960), The Apartment (1960), Carnival of Souls (1962), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), Salinma / A Devilish Homicide (1965), Badlands (1973), Don't Look Now (1973), Grey Gardens (1975), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Gremlins (1984), Labyrinth (1986), The Lost Boys (1987), Withnail & I (1987), The Thin Blue Line (1988), Veerana (1988), Looking for Langston (1989), Paris is Burning (1990), Bound (1996) and Janghwa Hongryeon / A Tale of Two Sisters (2003).