Side Effect by Liz Adams' has won in the Best Short Film category at the 2008 Germany's Oldenburg International Film Festival

The Oldenburg victory is Adams' second major win for Side Effect. In April this year it won the Cutting Edge Short Film Competition at Scotland's international horror genre festival, the Dead by Dawn Film Festival.

Side Effect is the first horror movie to come out of the American Film Institute's (AFI) prestigious Directing Workshop for Women (DWW). It is a tale of science gone wrong in a pill-popping culture where the cure is more deadly than the disease. The film stars Virginia Newcomb who appears in Michael Lander's upcoming feature Peacock, starring Ellen Page, Susan Sarandon and Bill Pullman.

Set in a world of over medication where the pressure to perform is at an all time high, Adams' Side Effect poses the question, 'What if evil were a side effect''

'I love a good scary movie! Horror films can be so shocking, yet so fascinating at the same time,' explains Adams. 'As fan of the genre, I have always been fascinated by the way horror reflects back the collective nightmares of a society. I hope that my perspective in this area will provoke deep emotion and innovatively alarm viewers.'

Side Effect has also been invited into competition at Sitges International Film Festival in Spain which is regarded as the world's number one horror genre festival. It will be included in the main festival section, competing for the Best Fantasy Short Film Award.

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