Black Mandala and Red Owl Take Eight Genre Films to the American Film Market
Black Mandala and its Red Owl label are taking eight genre films to the American Film Market, according to Variety, published on 10 November 2026. Black Mandala is handling four of the titles, and Red Owl is bringing four independent features.
The market is a trade event where sellers show unfinished or finished films to buyers from cinemas, television and streaming services. Deals made there decide, in part, which films reach audiences and where they appear, often a year or more after the market.
Two of the films in the line-up were described in detail. Rise of the Rats is a British horror film about killer rats overrunning a village. It was directed by Stephen Roach and stars Grace Gallagher, Adrian Annis and Mark Collier. Its heroine, Kayla Thornhill, travels with her estranged father to Ditchfield, the village where he grew up. There, a figure known as the Rat-Man sets a bloodthirsty swarm loose, and Kayla has to fight to survive.
The second is The Rules of the Game, a psychological thriller directed by Lani Castle and Jon Cohen and listed on the Red Owl slate. It follows Evie, a gifted chess player. She is abducted along with her chronically ill sister and forced into a lethal game streamed on the dark web. Evie and seven other prisoners each stand in for a chess piece, and any piece that is taken is killed. The cast includes Lola Merewether, Gezel Bardossi and Alyson Rudlin.
Both films are part of a wider push by the two labels to put genre work in front of buyers at the same event. The horror and thriller titles sit side by side in the line-up, each with its own cast and creative team.
Nothing in the announcement says which buyers are interested or what terms, if any, have been agreed. Those details usually come out in the weeks and months after a market, when sales are signed and distributors name release plans. Until then, the line-up is a list of films on their way to the deal-making floor.
