‘We Put the World to Sleep’ Reaches Black Sunday Film Festival

Few independent horror films arrive with a production story quite as unconventional as We Put the World to Sleep. Shot across three countries over almost a decade and built around years of improvisation, the latest feature from Romanian filmmaker Adrian Tofei is now set for a UK festival showcase when it screens as part of Black Sunday Film Festival‘s Midsummer Scream programme on 18 July.

The film follows Adrian and Duru, two performers who gradually lose themselves in the apocalyptic roles they are playing before embarking on a secret mission to end the world itself. What begins as performance slowly blurs into something far more unsettling, with the boundaries between fiction, reality and obsession becoming increasingly difficult to separate.

Although described as the second chapter in a spiritual trilogy that began with 2015’s cult favourite Be My Cat: A Film for Anne, the new film has been designed as a standalone experience, with connections between the projects intentionally kept loose for new audiences.

Written by Adrian Tofei and Duru Yücel, who also star together, We Put the World to Sleep has already built considerable momentum on the international festival circuit. Since making its world premiere at Nightmares Film Festival in 2025, the feature has travelled to events including FilmQuest, IndieLisboa, Panic Fest, Romford Horror Fest and the Museum of the Moving Image’s First Look festival in New York. Along the way it has collected honours including Best Midnight Feature at Nightmares Film Festival, Best Director at Montevideo Fantastico, Best International Film at MidWest WeirdFest and Best Found Footage at A Night of Horror International Film Festival.

Critical reaction has been equally enthusiastic, with Rotten Tomatoes critic Anton Bitel describing it as “The F for Fake of found footage”, while filmmaker Joe Gietl called it “one of the best found footage flicks ever”. Other festival audiences have praised its unusual blend of psychological horror, science fiction and experimental storytelling, establishing it as one of the more talked-about independent genre titles to emerge over the past year.

Tofei is no stranger to unconventional filmmaking. His debut Be My Cat: A Film for Anne developed a devoted following after its 2015 festival run, earning praise from outlets including IndieWire, Blumhouse and Dread Central before its release by Terror Films. For his latest project, he reunited with his wife and creative partner Duru Yücel, who co-wrote, produced and stars in the film.

According to the director, the project evolved over ten years of development and production, with filming taking place across Romania, Turkey and Ukraine. Rather than working from a conventional screenplay, the production relied heavily on improvisation, eventually generating around 150 hours of footage before being shaped into its finished form during an extended four-year editing process.

Tofei has said one of his ambitions was to combine the philosophical ideas of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the realism associated with The Blair Witch Project. At the heart of the story lies a disturbing moral contradiction, with the central characters believing that ending humanity would prevent future suffering rather than create it. It’s an unsettling concept, though the film appears just as interested in exploring how those beliefs develop as it is in their consequences.

We Put the World to Sleep screens at Black Sunday Film Festival: Midsummer Scream on Saturday 18 July from 3.15pm, followed by short films Itch and The Eating Of Sin. Festival passes and individual tickets are available now.

We Put the World to Sleep trailer

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