Windows rattle. The floor shakes. Ripples in your water cup. A bright light in the distance. Then the monsters arrive. Swimming monsters! Flying monsters! A giant mutant eyeball! Lasers! Fireballs! All of this really happened, or could have happened, or is actually happening.

Monsters is a post-apocalyptic East Anglian fairy tale. A documentary about an event that hasn’t happened (yet) created by and starring dozens of ordinary children from all across the region. In derelict barns and abandoned theatres they have imagined a world very different to our own and what they would need to do to survive in it. In this film they will tell you about that world.

They will explain to you what life used to be like before the monsters arrived and all of the ways in which it is different now. They will take you on a guided tour of their new reality, teach you how to hide from a monster and show you the best way to still have a fun when everything seems to be falling apart.

In this experimental short film, created in collaboration with children from four primary schools in East Anglia, the familiar tropes of Hollywood disaster movies are repurposed by a generation that is already very familiar with disaster. Through playing together at catastrophe they try to figure out a new relationship to it, and to the change and uncertainty it brings with it.

A real story in an imaginary world. Or an imaginary story in the real world.

Created by Andy Field and Beckie Darlington with children from Gladstone Primary Academy in Peterborough, Sheringham Primary School, Rushmere Hall Primary School in Ipswich, and Somerleyton Primary School.

Director of Photography Laura Seward
Composer Rhiannon Armstrong
Editor and Colourist Mike Myshko
Graphic Design Will Brady

MONSTERS was commissioned by Norfolk & Norwich Festival, with SPILL Festival, First Light Festival, Nene Park Trust, and Sheringham Little Theatre. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Premiering in 2025