Headfirst Editor's Pick
"A sharp slap to true crime’s guilty conscience! Winner of Sundance’s NEXT Innovator Award, Charlie Shackleton’s Zodiac Killer Project dissects the genre with dry wit and honesty. Over Bay Area backdrops and junkyard B-roll, Shackleton narrates the ghost of a film he never made in a meta elegy for our morbid obsessions and the salacious myths they breed."
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A event held at The Cube on Monday 8th December. The event starts at 19:30.
WINNER — NEXT Innovator Award, 2025 Sundance Film Festival
‘There is no film like it’ — Jury head Elijah Wood
Having tried and failed to make a true crime documentary, filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of what might have been.
In this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work, the true crime boom is put under the microscope as filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of his abandoned documentary about the infamous Zodiac Killer, describing beat-by-beat how he imagined it playing out.
Over vacant Bay Area landscapes, stylised re-enactments and clips from recent true crime hits, his wry voiceover conjures the unrealised project in real time, offering an object lesson in creative frustration—and a hilarious critique of a genre at saturation point.
The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Charlie Shackleton.
‘A true-crime flop turned documentary masterpiece... a sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work of both celebration and critique’
THE DAILY BEAST
Doors open 30 minutes before advertised start time. All film screenings are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with no more than a 10 min selection of trailers.
The Cube is a membership venue, please remember to bring your card. You can join on the door for £1.
Entry requirements: 18+
‘There is no film like it’ — Jury head Elijah Wood
Having tried and failed to make a true crime documentary, filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of what might have been.
In this wholly original, self-aware cinematic work, the true crime boom is put under the microscope as filmmaker Charlie Shackleton tells the story of his abandoned documentary about the infamous Zodiac Killer, describing beat-by-beat how he imagined it playing out.
Over vacant Bay Area landscapes, stylised re-enactments and clips from recent true crime hits, his wry voiceover conjures the unrealised project in real time, offering an object lesson in creative frustration—and a hilarious critique of a genre at saturation point.
The screening will be followed by an in-person Q&A with Charlie Shackleton.
‘A true-crime flop turned documentary masterpiece... a sharp, hilarious, self-aware, and acutely insightful work of both celebration and critique’
THE DAILY BEAST
Doors open 30 minutes before advertised start time. All film screenings are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with no more than a 10 min selection of trailers.
The Cube is a membership venue, please remember to bring your card. You can join on the door for £1.
Entry requirements: 18+