A travelling horror film festival — featuring the work of local filmmakers — will stop in the city in March.

Blood in the Snow 2019 has screenings at Market Hall on March 1 and 2.

The touring festival showcases horror, sci-fi, thrillers and action.

It'll also be showcasing the talent of local artists along with some familiar sites from the area.

Peterborough film directors Adriano Ferreri, Michelle Foster, Michael Hayes and Jamie Oxenham all have skin in the game, from shorts to full-length films.

Blood in the Snow is the first on-the-road festival produced by Blood in the Snow (BITS) Canadian Film Festival.

Peterborough native Kelly Stewart launched BITS in 2012.

The festival grew out of Fright Night, a monthly horror movie night Stewart hosted in Toronto.

Not long after kicking off Fright Night, Stewart noticed Canadian-made horror films pilling up faster than he could screen them. So, he decided to go an all-Canadian route.

BITS has grown over the years to become a nonprofit and has transformed from a one-man show to a dozen staff members.

Typically, the festival runs in Toronto at the end of November — and it will this year, too — but Stewart decided to add a spring tour to the mix, stopping in the hometowns of filmmakers.

That means festival films are tailored to the city they're screened in, with shorts or films by other Ontario filmmakers peppered in.

"We kind of wanted to cross pollinate the different kinds of stuff," Stewart said.

The festival features four full-length films and five shorts.

On March 1, I'll Take Your Dead and PeaNut screen at 7 p.m. PeaNut is a nine-minute short directed by Oxenham.

Late Night Double Feature and One More for the Road, both written and produced by Stewart and shot in Peterborough, also screen that night at 9:30 p.m.

Following the films, there'll be an after-party at The Sapphire Room on Hunter Street West, where audience members can meet filmmakers and chat with fellow horror fans.

Stewart said after-parties are a big part of Blood in the Snow, so he wanted to bring that vibe to Peterborough.

"We want to create an experience that if you came to the Toronto festival you'd get the same thing … it's more than just movies."

On March 2, E.M.P 333 Days, directed by Ferreri, Abduction, directed by Foster, and The Doorway, directed by Hayes is on the bill.

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Tickets for each screening are $12 in advance or $14 at the door. Passes to all screenings are available for $30. Tickets are available at www.bloodinthesnow.ca

jessica.nyznik

@peterboroughdaily.com