Grip of the Kelpie Mother
Martina Silcock & Claire Leona Apps, Happy Outlier Pictures
Language: English
Based On: Original Screenplay
Project Type: Feature Film (Scripted)
Genre: Mystery
Stage of Development: Seeking cast and financing
Estimated Length (minutes): 90
Director: Claire Leona Apps
Director Bio:
Claire Leona Apps is a British-Canadian award-winning writer and director raised in Hong Kong and educated at Imperial College and the London Film School. Working across film, audio, and prose, With a folk-horror, noir eye, she crafts films with a striking visual language, shaping moral perception and questioning how the audience assigns fault to her characters.
Her debut feature, And Then I Was French (2018), is a psychological thriller that subverts the romcom into a whimsical yet violent take on obsession. Her other writing/directing credits include the Arts Council commissioned Girl Blue Running Shoe, Gweipo, Ruminate, and Ages of Man, the latter screening at 15+ international festivals and winning numerous awards. Her fiction shorts have aired on the BBC, been shown at the Great North Museum, and premiered at festivals including St. Louis, Cork, East End, Florida, and North East International. Her work spans documentary and music video, and she has worked with outstanding actors such as Francesca Annis and Rebecca Hall.
Her Audible Original fiction podcast Aqua Tofana (12×30-minute episodes, 2027) reimagines the 17th-century poisoner Giulia Tofana as the matriarch of a death-dealing sisterhood. Half prose, half audio play, the series is in talks for a TV adaptation and audiobook edition. Her short fiction has appeared in For Page & Screen Magazine, The Basilisk Tree, and Permafrost (print).
She is currently in development on Grip of the Kelpie Mother, winner of the Bold Voice Award at The Writers Lab Canada 2026. A BAFTA Talent and Stowe Story Labs Scholar (2023), she is also the Founder of Dog Eared Studios, a creative hub and production space in Central London.
Proposed or Confirmed Talent:
Canadian Producer - Melani Wood. Proposed cast: Mackenzie Davis, Olivia Colman, Jacob Tremblay
Total Budget: 5m
Percent Confirmed: 0 - not including applicable tax incentives
Currency: CAD
List names of confirmed partners:
Nova Scotia Producer - Melani Wood/Small Engines Film Production Inc. Eligible for Nova Scotia Tax Incentive. Seeking clarity on ability to use Screen Nova Scotia Content Creator Fund. Speaking with BFI about additional UK funding.
What is this project seeking?
Financing, Distribution, Sales Agent, Canadian Agency Info
Logline:
Haunted by tragedy, Ines, an outsider in the remote town of Glenbray, uncovers a body on a Cape Breton beach. Determined to reunite him with his mother, she must confront the town's generational trauma - and her own - before the shape-shifting spirit of a kelpie lures her into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Synopsis:
The residents of the coastal town of Glenbray, Cape Breton, are nestled in beauty yet haunted by history. Only the mothers know of the shape-shifting kelpie seducing inhabitants to a watery grave.
In 2003, new mother Lisa, clutching her baby boy, hears the three fateful whistles from the Ocean Pass coal mine and watches in horror as hundreds of dead miners float to the surface of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, leaving her worried about the fate of her son's father.
Back in the present, Ines, a data analyst for Ocean Pass, arrives at her parents’ summer house in Glenbray to recover from a traumatic stillbirth. Her quest for solace is interrupted when she discovers a body washed ashore - a mysterious young man with cryptic numbers in his pocket and a necklace bearing a kelpie pendant. Along with Officer Tanner Gilchrist, the gruff yet compassionate detective on the case, and Audrey, her talkative neighbor from a Founding Family, Ines works to identify the body and decipher the numbers' connection to Ocean Pass.
Whether in her dreams or waking life, Ines resists the Kelpie's pull as it shifts forms: sometimes Tanner, sometimes her ex-partner, and often the mysterious dead man. As the investigation unfolds, Ines and Tanner become lovers.
Set against the rise of disenfranchised young men and flourishing conspiracy stories, Ines uncovers that the corpse is the troubled son of Lisa: Adam, an incel-in-the-making who believes Ocean Pass deliberately hid the truth behind his father's death in the disaster. The two mothers, disparate yet connected, independently struggle to unburden their guilt over lost sons - one dead from a lack of sacrifice, the other radicalized despite his mother's penance.
Ines finally discovers a decaying house that holds the key to a broken family's demise and the town's darkest secret: there was never a conspiracy. The industrial and environmental exploitation of the land and its people happened in plain sight. Adam's father did not die in the Ocean Pass disaster. Unable to continue within a corrupt system, he abandoned his family.
As Ines uncovers disturbing evidence of Adam's violent, misogynistic views, she finds a bedridden Lisa near death from disease. Lisa, who was also visited by kelpies, reveals that she poisoned Adam, tragically ending the generational trauma. Lisa begs Ines to end her suffering. Ines complies and pulls the trigger - shooting Lisa dead.
Contact Information: martina@happyoutlier.com
