THE HAUNTED HOUSE HOTEL

Short Talk with Moe Acharki (director) and Bojidar Nikolov (actor)

BEST SHORT STUDENT FICTION FILM Category

22nd IN THE PALACE International Short Film Festival 2025

Bulgaria, Fiction, English, 00:15:45, 2024

Synopsis: Welcome to the Haunted House Hotel, where quirky charm meets unsolved murders. When Edward DeWitt rises from the grave to solve his own murder—and film a documentary—he faces love, mystery, and the challenges of being Hollywood’s first undead filmmaker. The Haunted House Hotel is a comedic murder mystery about love, loss, and ectoplasm.

Biography: Moe Acharki, a Gibraltarian filmmaker trained by Martin Campbell and a graduate from the University of Wolverhampton. He has directed award-winning shorts like A Part of it All (2021) and The Eyes in the Box (2022). He worked at Nu Boyana Film Studios on The Expendables 4 (2023) and while there directed The Haunted House Hotel (2024). Currently, he’s finishing a new short and prepping a documentary.

Moe Acharki, director

Toma Manov: Where did the idea come from to joke about something like death or murder? 

Moe Acharki: During 2023, I did an internship here in Bulgaria, in Sofia, working in the distribution department. While I was there, my boss told me to take advantage of being in the studio to make a short film. It just so happened that while I was making one short film, the CEO asked me to do another one, The Haunted House Hotel. He wanted the students doing a camera, lights, and grip course to get on-set experience, so he wanted them to crew the film. I basically had one week to prepare. I asked the British writer Matt Grocott to write the script, which he did in two days based on some very odd criteria: 15 minutes, four characters, crime mystery, documentary, and the 1990s. It was a very bizarre combination, but he made it work, and that’s the film we ended up making.

Toma Manov: Since it's a student fiction, were you all students? 

Bojidar Nikolov: Well, actually, we had only two students on board in the cast – Philipa Nikolova and Yana Kushlova. They were, interestingly enough, part of the camera, lights and grip course. Me and Martin Zannato, who you saw announcing The Haunted House, were cast separately and came on board just two days before production. We weren't part of the course. It was quite a challenge because we had only a few hours on the first day to get to know the idea and the team. We already knew the heads of departments from previous projects. But then again, I also had stunt choreography to learn. It was a few hours to get the lines and scenes down, a few hours to rehearse the fight choreography, and a few hours to organize things with Moe. We had a lot to manage in only a few days, it was definitely a challenge. But having real professionals in the crew, and having Moe and Matt’s script, made everything easier.

Toma Manov: How did you approach directing a comedy so early in your career?

Acharki: Yeah, it’s the only comedy I’ve ever made, and I’m still not entirely sure how it worked, but it did. I think it’s mainly because Matt wrote such a beautiful, funny script. He has a great sense of humor. And I had a very passionate, motivated team, especially considering how fast the production was. We shot the whole thing in just two days. I had about 24 hours to edit the first draft because they wanted the students who crewed on it to see the result. So, to answer your question, I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out myself. But I’m glad it worked. When they screened it yesterday at the festival and I kept hearing people laugh, it was all worth it.

Nikolov: I have to say, Moe didn’t sleep.

Acharki : Yeah, that’s true. 

Nikolov: We had less than a week from idea to rough cut.

Toma Manov: How do you approach making that funny?

Nikolov: That’s a really good question. I tried not to take it too seriously, considering how absurd the story is. We also worked on some crazy character ideas. For example, my character, Edward, is a fan of the Spice Girls. So we had Spice Girls music playing on set. We were dancing and doing silly stuff just to get into the vibe. The whole crew was singing and dancing too. I think that helped a lot to set the tone and make it all come together.

Interviewer: Toma Manov

Editor: Martin Kudlac