Finding the right words to create a meaningful piece of work that reflects their thoughts can be an emotional journey for many artists. That’s certainly the case for both the protagonist in, as well as Emmett Kerr-Perkinson, the filmmaker behind, the new short film, ‘The Retreat.’

The horror movie will have its World Premiere at this year’s Panic Fest, which is set to run April 4-10. In honor of the drama’s premiere at the Kansas City, Missouri-based genre festival, Film Factual is exclusive premiering the project’s poster.

Kerr-Perkinson wrote, directed and edited ‘The Retreat.’ The movie stars Sean Gradwell, Christine Renee Miller and Jesse Ruuttila, and was produced by Robert Ravenscroft.

‘The Retreat’ follows a writer who embars on a self-imposed winter refugee. While on the titular retreat, he finds himself in a series of increasingly bizarre encounters – from an unsettling hole in the ground to the omniscient cashier at a thrift store. As his world begins to fall apart, he must find a weapon within himself to defeat the shadowy forces controlling his fate.

Kerr-Perkinson is a Brooklyn based filmmaker who’s originally from Houston. After spending most of his 20’s gaffing indie features in Austin while dreaming of making his own films, he co-founded Pan Up Productions and moved to New York City in 2016.

The filmmaker’s recent notable crew work has been as a camera operator on ‘Theater Camp’ (Sundance, 2023) and additional cinematographer on ‘Ren Faire’ (SXSW, 2024). As a director and producer, he brings to bear hard won technical knowledge from his years spent in the independent and union crew scenes. His spec commercial for Tinder, ‘Our Story,’ was selected for SHOOT’s New Director Showcase in 2019.

Determined to make the leap to creating his own narrative work, he began writing screenplays in 2021. He helmed ‘The Retreat,’ his first short film, last year.

“The Retreat began as a joke. On my own writing retreat in early 2021 I wanted to write a short film, and decided to just write the dumb one as an exercise – a film about a man trying to write a film. Of course, I ended up liking it,” said Kerr-Perkinson.

“I’d spent a decade and a half working on other people’s films, and a lot of that is present here. To me, this film is about the hubris innate to artistic authorship, the struggle to say or create something meaningful and how my dream project might just be your shitty day,” the filmmaker added.

For more information about Panic Fest, visit its official website.