Thinestra Wins Best Sci-Fi/Horror at Flickers' Vortex Film Festival

After its acclaimed run at Raindance in London and Sitges in Spain, Thinestra returned stateside to receive the Vortex Award for Best Sci-Fi/Horror at Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival — one of the most decorated independent film festivals in the United States and the only festival in New England to hold both Academy Award and BAFTA qualifying status.

The Vortex Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror Film Festival is RIIFF's dedicated genre showcase — the largest of its kind in New England — held annually in Providence and Newport and drawing over 45,000 attendees. Founded over two decades ago, the Vortex has become a home for the most inventive, daring, and boundary-pushing independent genre cinema in the country, with a legacy that includes world and US premieres from filmmakers across more than 100 countries. Winning here carries real weight: it places Thinestra in a lineage of genre films recognized by serious festival programmers, not just fan audiences.

For Thinestra — a film that uses the body horror genre to excavate the quiet violence of diet culture, self-image, and shame — the recognition felt earned. The Vortex jury responded not just to the film's visceral practical effects and dark comedy, but to the seriousness with which director Nathan Hertz and lead actress Michelle Macedo approached its central character. Penny is not a horror archetype. She is a fully realized, deeply human woman — and the award acknowledged that distinction.

The Vortex win capped a remarkable international festival circuit for the film and set the stage for its North American streaming release via Breaking Glass Pictures on April 14, 2026 — bringing Penny's story to audiences across the continent.