Multiple Nightmares to Plague This Year's Ravenna Film Fest

More than one nightmare is about to be unveiled at this year's Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival, that in the past five years has established itself as one of the most prominent and innovative horror fests across Europe.

(PRWEB) October 16, 2007 -- More than one nightmare is about to be unveiled at this year's Ravenna Nightmare Film Festival, that in the past five years has established itself as one of the most prominent and innovative horror fests across Europe.

Following the demise of the old Fantafestival, reluctantly transformed into a small, suburban venue for aficionados from the once monumental appointment it was to Italian horror fans, Ravenna has picked up its predecessor's legacy with a bright and innovative program that in the past five years has hosted personalities like Dario Argento, Christopher Lee and John Carpenter as well as screenings of classics that hadn't been on the big screen for decades. With a lineup of titles that include Timur Bekmambetow "Daywatch" and Uwe Boll's "Seed", Ravenna's 2007 edition promises to be even more spectacular than any of its previous years.

But this time there's also something totally new on the horizon.
Some of the few who have seen it describe it as a "horror newscast". Others as one the strangest documentary they've seen in a long time. It may be neither, or both. Produced by Giovanni Pedde for Studio Universal, Universal Studios pay tv network, "The Sleep of Reason" is a series of 10 minute documentaries hosted by British journalist Steve Bell as he investigates the mysterious murder of American psychiatrist Claire D'Ebano, allegedly killed by one of her patients.

Relying on limited financial resources and a small crew comprising just a camera operator and an assistant, Bell began collecting evidence on D'Ebano's murder while he was prepping his third book, dark novel "The Magnolia Tree."

What captured his attention was the strange story of an American psychiatrist based in Rome who had become well known for her ability to cure various disturbances through hypnotic regression. A technique made famous in the fifties by novelist Morey Bernstein, who claimed to have discovered the key to reincarnation by assisting a patient in recollecting events occurred before her own birth, regressive hypnosis has always been viewed with significant skepticism by orthodox psychology for the dangers often arising from an improper use of this mind conditioning technique.

Dr. D'Ebano's case seems to prove this assumption, as she was brutally killed, shortly after commencement of the therapy, by a patient being treated for a simple problem of insomnia. But what struck Bell was the fact that the murder appeared to hide a much darker, almost paranormal explanation as information leaked that D'Ebano had actually been using psychedelic drugs to induce hypnosis, often unbeknownst to her patients.
"The Sleep of Reason" is Bell's personal investigation into this strange murder case, a journalistic Maelstrom that between Rome, London and Los Angeles has taken the journalist far beyond the initial news report he thought he'd assemble.

"The Sleep of Reason" relies on a new format created by Giovanni Pedde and Vittorio Testa that combines the narrative structure typical of drama with the fast paced, eclectic communication flashes of news reports. "The perfect container for my research" - Bell says - "Like a flexible box enlarging or shrinking based on the content it is hosting at an given time."

Steve Bell also adopted a "guiding" topic for each episode (such as regressive hypnosis, the theory of chaos, and even Jung's synchronicity) so as to examine a particular angle to the murder case as new evidence and witness testimonies were being added to the pot. But what's fascinating is how the format generates a line that almost unexpectedly connects all of its apparently unrelated dots. "Sleep is more an effort in coordination than an exercise in narration," Bell explains. "Facts are not ordered chronologically, but rather sympathetically on the assumption that D'Ebano's murder is just one aspect in the extremely intricate web of human relationships and confrontations that ultimately lead to her death."

In this context, Bell enlists the help of a variety of seemingly incompatible yet exhaustive consultants, ranging from police officers and anatomopathologists to mediums and experts in mind altering drugs. Something new in the panorama of television series, which may well find its main means of exploitation on some the internet's premium streamers. "The Sleep of Reason" premieres October 30 as a special event at Ravenna Nightmare and hits the tv screen the day after on Halloween's marathon of horror scheduled by Studio Universal.

###