TFFF: City Wide Fever Synopsis

The Final Film Festival 7-9 Aug 26
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City Wide Fever (2025)

Sam, a young film student, discovers a hard drive detailing the life and career of forgotten Giallo Italian horror director Saturnino Barresi. As she begins to investigate his mysterious disappearance, Sam finds herself pulled into a violent conspiracy eerily similar to those of the films she adores.

When Sam finds a USB dossier on the mysterious Italian auteur Saturnino Barresi, she sets out on a hunt across New York City for his unfinished final masterpiece 'City Wide Fever' and the secret behind his disappearance. But the line between reality and the violent films she loves starts to blur - a maniac is on the loose and anyone who tries to unpick the conspiracy soon winds up dead. City Wide Fever is a gleeful homage to the Giallo genre that revels in all the sordid trappings of its source material with a knowing wink to its audience.

Director Josh Heaps' debut feature, executive produced by Guy Maddin, is full of self-aware cinephilic nostalgia and lovingly employs the garish Giallo aesthetics that you might expect - but its iPhone-era sensibility (this black-gloved killer dons a hot-pink ski-mask) and scuzzy shot-on-video DIY approach elevates it from pastiche to anachronistic gem, dragging the genre into the modern day without any apology for the sex, violence, and sleaze that comes with it.

This screening will be followed by a video Q&A with director Josh Heaps and actress Diletta Guglielmi.

- Jack Higgins