Brad Katzen is an award-winning South African writer/director and co-founder of Johannesburg-based production company, 33 Films. Having worked with companies and industry professionals namely SABC, MNET, SANRAL and Disney to name a few, he has also written and directed projects such as The Beginning (Cannes Film Festival screened), The Stick Up (SAFTA winner), Broken Vows (SAFTA winner) and Imbewu (SAFTA winner). With his first feature film, The Domestic (2022) exclusive to Amazon Prime, and his second feature film in production with Netflix, Brad’s dedication to his craft has allowed him to cultivate a variety of other skills within the TV and film industry which includes editing and post-production. Horror is a unique genre in that it is driven by compelling concepts rather than big budgets and A-list casts. The uniquely South African setting affords us the opportunity to subvert audience expectations with common horror tropes, showing them in a brand new way, peeling back the layers on the macabre, unnerving, and unfortunately real sub-culture of African witchcraft. With this film I wanted to create a thrilling, one-of-a-kind cross-cultural experience for horror fans around the world, exploring themes of tradition versus modernity, class struggles and inequality, and personal sacrifice, all filtered through a tense, exciting story of a woman forced to confront her traumatic past in order to defeat a grave threat from inside her own home. There is nothing more frightening than the idea of your own personal space being under threat. Where do you find safety if not in your own home? The Domestic is a film that unpacks that idea: the horror comes from within, naively welcomed by our protagonists, quietly festering and rotting from the inside until it spills outwardly, unable to be ignored. The Domestic screenplay was featured in the Screencraft Horror Screenwriting competition, a respected US script assessor, where it was called “a tense, disturbing, and truly unique horror film” while being praised for its originality: “… nice to see something which introduces South African cultural elements in a way which is a) genuinely interesting and b) which weaves in so well with more established horror tropes.” Thank you for showcasing my film. - Brad Katzen Writer/Director/Editor/Producer/Music