The latest short film from White Rock Productions has received seven nominations from the 2026 Glowfare Short Film Festival.
It kicks off in April and will see the Guernsey based production company compete for some of the top honours for its post-apocalyptic action short film, ‘Sands of Purgatory’.
The film is lead by Bryony Tebbutt (Deliver Us Mars – video game) and features familiar local faces including Brandon Ashplant, Sapphire Brewer-Marchant, Sarah Hansmann-Rouxel, Andrew Hislop, Jade Irish, Dave Hyett, and many more.
The 80-strong cast and crew has credits in ‘The Odyssey’ (2026), ‘True Detective: Night Country’ (2024), ‘Black Mirror’ (2025), ‘Steal’ (2026), ‘Marooned Awakening’ (2022), ‘Whispers of Freedom’ (2025), and ‘Occupied’ (2021).
Out of the 16 total awards on offer, ‘Sands of Purgatory’ is in the running for seven including two acting nods and five for its production.
The nominations are:
- Best Film
- Best Director
- Best Supporting Actor – Brandon Ashplant
- Best Supporting Actress – Sapphire Brewer-Marchant
- Best Cinematography
- Best Editing
- Best Score
Alex Bates, the Writer and Director told Express he is very proud of everyone involved.
“Myself and the rest of our amazing cast and crew are beyond excited about this news!
“It’s been a long journey – I wrote the first draft of the script back in April 2023 and since then everyone involved has poured so much love and passion into this post-apocalyptic short film. It’s really rewarding to be gaining recognition for all of our hard work.”
Mr Bates said local locations for filming included Les Vardes Quarry, Vazon Bay, and La Varde Dolmen.
He was grateful to everyone for their support, he said.
“We arranged to have Vazon closed for the day back in September 2023 to film one of our main action set pieces – it was a challenging shoot, but really fun and rewarding.
“We absolutely couldn’t have pulled the shoot off without the support we received from Guernsey Museums, the States of Guernsey, The Little Big Hotel Group, and the sponsorship from Guernsey Arts, Stephen Ainsworth, and Stephen Collas.”
The film will debut at the Harrogate Film Festival in March, before the screening at the Glowfare Short Film Festival in mid-April.
Mr Bates added that there’ll be a chance for islanders to view the new short-film too.
“We’re having a screening of the film in Guernsey on Thursday 2 April, sponsored by Delimited,” he said.
“Tickets will go on sale during March and more details will follow soon!”
You can find out more about the Glowfare Short Film Festival, and the other nominations on the awards page HERE.