BIRTHDAY (2011)

Laila Cauffield (Shian Denovan), a valuer of rare books, is summoned to a Gothic house in the Scottish countryside, where ‘caretaker’ Victor (Robert Cavanah) gives her some cause for concern. Mystery surrounds the overseer of the estate as he smuggles ‘odd packages’ out of the house, causing Laila to question his honesty. Before long she starts to suffer from illusory childbirth pain, a terrifying apparition persistently haunting her. Victor seeks help from his weird business associates, the ‘mystic’ Akilah (Ghada al Shamaá), keeper of antiquities at a museum, and enigmatic antiques dealer, Hugo (Patrick Bergin), but Laila spirals deeper into despair and seeming madness the closer her birthday gets. With help from Akilah and Victor, she eventually uncovers the secrets of the house; once a psychiatric hospital where her mother died giving birth to her - and where she was persistently physically abused by a Warder (David Hayman).

'Birthday' is a supernatural thriller about a young, insomniac female desperate to stop the nightmares that haunt her each year as her birthday approaches. Harnessing Freudian consciousness concepts and mythological symbolism, the film is an unsettling journey: Laila’s long-dead, mad, maltreated mother having somehow found a way to exact revenge in her quest to teach Laila how to kill...