London-based writer-director Max Vanderspuy is bringing his body horror short Fishbrain to the BFI London Film Festival. It world premieres on October 7, with a second screening on October 18, and both shows have already sold out.
The film follows Ori (Chloe Lea), who returns to her grandfather Jeb’s (John Henshaw) isolated coastal home to care for him. Dead fish cover the shoreline outside, and inside the house years of resentment fester in the kitchen and sickroom. As the sea’s contamination seeps into the home and warnings go unheeded, Ori has to face what escape might actually cost her. Karren Winchester (Coronation Street, EastEnders) co-stars.
Ori (Chloe Lea) wears green rubber gloves as she prepares a large fish in a dim kitchen in Fishbrain.
Vanderspuy cites The Thing, Under the Skin, and Eraserhead as touchstones. He uses body horror to make the pressure of caregiving physical, through food, skin, smell, water, and the daily rituals of keeping someone alive. He says the film started with a single image of a coastline littered with dead fish. The real terror, he explains, is inside the family, where care begins to feel like captivity.
The cast has serious credentials. Lea won a Children’s BAFTA for Katy and has appeared in Dune: Prophecy, Foundation, and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Henshaw is a veteran of British comedy and drama, best known for Early Doors and Born and Bred. He won a British Independent Film Award for Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric and also appeared in The Angels’ Share and Stan & Ollie.
Fishbrain is produced by Viridian Films, the filmmaker-led studio Vanderspuy founded, and BAFTA-shortlisted producer Daniel Panyko. The short has already won Best Production Design on a Short Film at the 2026 British Film Designers Guild Awards. Vanderspuy, an NYU Tisch alum whose previous short Recursive Dreams played Oscar- and BAFTA-qualifying festivals, is now developing Fishbrain into his debut feature.
