A new podcast from Split Tooth Media about independent filmmakers where Aaron Bartuska interviews various DIY filmmakers about what keeps them creating. In this episode, we dive deep into Avalon Fast's career, covering topics like what happens after your film sees festival success and why warm weather is overrated.
If you were to stumble upon Avalon Fast’s website knowing nothing about the filmmaker, the first things you would see are her name and credentials, a picture of her on set with her friends, and the words “GIRL HORROR” in boldface font. There’s perhaps no better thesis statement for Fast’s body of work than that initial welcome. This past weekend, her sophomore feature CAMP (2025) screened as the centerpiece film at the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival. The festival is known for defying audience expectation, but you’d think it safe to surmise that all of the films screening in their lineup would at the very least fall within the general confines of the horror genre. When I spoke to Fast a few weeks before the screening, she seemed uncertain how her film would be received in regard to its supposed genre — despite the bold proclamation on her homepage. “I’m curious to see if the world will define CAMP that way," Fast said. "It definitely seems like that’s where it’s been programmed. CAMP is fantasy. It’s genre. Is it horror? I don’t know.” She feels the same about Honeycomb (2022), her debut feature and her most widely seen work. The film, a DIY surrealist dreamscape about a group of girls who take to the woods to start their own society, premiered at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival and was quickly pigeonholed in a similar way. The majority of Fast’s short films also tend to lean toward the macabre, but the complex themes they explore make them hard to classify as run-of-the-mill genre fare. She has embraced the label, but that doesn’t mean she won’t challenge it. “I like stories that are dark in that way. I think I’m just naturally attracted to that. Why? That’s something that I’m asking myself every time I make a movie.”
Be sure to read Aaron's full career overview of Fast's work: https://www.splittoothmedia.com/avalon-fast/
Hosted and produced by Aaron Bartuska
Music by Will DiNola
