EXCLUSIVE: First look stills from Amy Cudden’s horror short ‘After Birth’

First Look

7 Oct

6 October 2026 | By Molly Lipson

Amy Cudden, best known for her role as Becky Swain in UK soap Coronation Street, has released a short film about the pressure on parents, particularly mothers, to live up to unrealistic expectations. It follows Ma who, after her baby accidentally breaks her nose, puts on a bunny mask to cover it up so as not to scare her. As the day goes on, chores and stresses mount. After finally putting her baby to bed, Ma tries to remove the mask only to find that her face comes off with it.

“I want everyone watching, regardless of their parenting status, to feel the alone-ness of our central protagonist, identify with her overwhelm, and laugh at the moments of ridiculous weirdness,” Amy Cudden says. Her sister, Lucy Cudden, produced the film, the most recent of the pair’s many collaborations over the years. “Amy and I have collaborated since we were young, whether subjecting our parents to dance routines we'd made up or putting on plays,” she says. “As actors, we've performed together a few times, including on the London fringe many moons ago. But this collaboration feels different. We've each pursued our own paths, and now, both in our 40s with our own families, building a production company together feels exactly right.”

The film has already gained a number of significant accolades: it was longlisted for the BFI Short Film Fund and the Unsolicited Scripts Short Film Fund, and it won the Unrestricted View Short Film Fund. It has just been selected for FrightFest's inaugural About Bloody Time showcase, celebrating women creating, leading and reshaping genre cinema.

“Moving behind the camera has been hugely empowering. As a working freelance actor in her late 40s, the roles I'm offered have significantly narrowed. Taking a leap of faith into creating, producing, and shooting our own work has been an incredible rush of affirmation in our joint ability to be so much more than a narrow bandwidth of female stereotypes,” Amy says.

You can find first look stills and BTS images below.