The Haunted House Hotel will be shown at the Realtime International FILM Festival 2026.
The film will be shown during the festival, which takes place from October 23 to 25. It’s in Worcester. Tickets are available now.
It’s always fun when a new audience gets to watch The Haunted House Hotel, and I hope everybody at Realtime International enjoys it. You could also see lead actor Bojidar Nikolov as the main image on the announcement of the Realtime selections for a while.
I have a real soft spot for this film, and loved making it. To celebrate its release to YouTube, I revisited the characters for a sequel, set in the modern day.
The Cost of the Crown had its latest screening. It was shown at Amenno at The Hub, in St Albans.
The team behind the festival do a great job – certainly always leaving Crown director Moe Acharki impressed. I’ve got a program from when they screened The Eyes in the Box. They do an excellent work on the presentation, which is so important.
I couldn’t go, so I’ll quote Moe’s report of the evening:
He said: “I’m incredibly proud of how well the film is doing, and I’d like to thank the folks at The Amenno Project for selecting it to be screened at their latest event. I always say this, but I love what the Amenno team are doing for independent and local cinema.
“A huge thank you as well to everyone who came along to support both my film and the event. Your support is truly appreciated.”
The Cost of the Crown had a screening at Wolverhampton’s Lockworks Cinema, with both Moe and I signing posters and talking about our future plans.
The screening was part of The Hive Connect (June Edition), during which two films were shown. As well as The Cost of the Crown, we also watched I’m Toby.
After the film was shown, director Moe Acharki and I answered questions, then took part in a networking session. It was tremendous to meet so many passionate filmmakers, and I love what the guys behind The Hive are doing. We heard about lots of exciting projects. Some are in post-production, others in pre-pre-pre-production. I can’t wait to see them all come to fruition.
As part of the event, a signed Cost of the Crown poster was given to a member of the audience, and we were signing copies as part of the network event. It’s a beautiful poster, and that was reflected in the interest. Thanks to everyone who bought one, or who came and chatted with us.
We managed to talk a little bit about our next project together – a feature film set against the backdrop of an historical event in Morocco. We also were asked a few times about a sequel to The Cost of the Crown, although neither of us really wants to do it. Don’t forget, I wrote a sequel to The Haunted House Hotel here.
We both really enjoyed our time with The Hive. I’d seriously recommend them to filmmakers in the West Midlands. Check out their Instagram for details of any upcoming events.
A new interview with Moe Acharki in the Gibraltar Chronicle looks back on our work together, and hints at what’s coming next.
Following the success of The Cost of the Crown, Moe gave an interview with his local paper. The interview goes into the making of the film, the challenges of working on two projects at once and hints at what we’re working on next.
It’s very early days on that project, and you never know how things are going to go. We know roughly where we’re heading towards and have a mountain of reference films and materials we’re exploring. But we’re also not in any rush on this one. Either way, we’re having fun exploring what it might end up being.
Moe and I have worked on a number of projects together, including The Eyes in the Box, The Haunted House Hotel and The Cost of the Crown.
The Cost of the Crown has had another major win – Best Film at the WLV Screen Awards.
Moe travelled to Wolverhampton yesterday to see our latest film screened at the Wolverhampton-based festival, and came away with the award for Best Film.
It’s our second screening, and our second award. The film won Best Cinematography at Leavesden in April.
The Cost of the Crown is an historical drama. It follows a king as a mob of his angry followers try to knock down his door. It takes place over just a few minutes.
We made the film at Nu Boyana studios in Sofia, Bulgaria, and shot it at more or less the same time as The Haunted House Hotel.
