FESTIVAL WARM-UP
FILM CONCERT
ALIPATO: THE VERY BRIEF LIFE OF AN EMBER
Khavn, Philippines/Germany, 2016, 87′
7 April / 19:30 / Pritličje / Free admission!
Philippine underground filmmaker and punk poet Khavn returns to the megacity of Manila to show us the lurid bleak face of his hometown in this singular, hallucinatory and ultraviolent saga – the only possible answer to the chaos of violence and perversion of lawlessness in the land of Duterte. A movie not only about, but from the slums of Manila. An uncompromising vision of a radically engaged cinema. In collaboration with the Association of Slovenian Film Critics (FIPRESCI) and Pritličje.
THIS IS NOT A LOST FILM BY KHAVN
Music & Films by Khavn, 60′
12 April / Kinodvor Café / Free admission!
Film concert featuring “The Lost Film Trilogy”, composed of Filipiniana, Aswang (1933) and Juan Tamad Goes To The Moon (1898), and an excerpt from Nitrate: To The Ghosts Of The 75 Lost Philippine Silent Films (1912-1933).
CONTEMPORARY
BAMBOO DOGS
Khavn, Philippines, 2018, 83′
Four criminals, four cops and a van are the ingredients of Khavn’s tense, pitch-dark and claustrophobic crime thriller and road movie mixture, based on the Kuratong Baleleng Rubout Massacre of 1995, the biggest police conspiracy in Philippine history.
BALANGIGA: HOWLING WILDERNESS
Khavn, Philippines, 2018, 115′
Filipino rebel poet Khavn De La Cruz returns to the site of the 1901 Balangiga massacre under American occupation with this masterful, hypnotic and hallucinatory, brutal yet soulful anti-war odyssey of a boy and a child.
HANAGATAMI
Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan, 2017, 168′
With Hanagatami, master Nobuhiko Obayashi returns to his very first screenplay (written before the surreal cult classic Hausu) to fulfil a decades-long filmmaking dream. In the hands of this ageless and forever unconventional filmmaking genius a timeless story about the pureness of youth sacrificed at the altar of war becomes an avant-garde cinematic fever dream. A hallucinatory pacifist masterpiece.
UN COUTEAU DANS LE COEUR
KNIFE + HEART
Yann Gonzalez, France/Mexico/Switzerland, 2018, 102′
Yann Gonzalez’s ultra-stylish and gorgeously campy murder mystery Knife + Heart, shot on 35mm, is not merely an ode but a revival and reincarnation of the seventies, the golden age of giallo, grindhouse and porno chic.
HELLO, RAIN
C.J. ‘Fiery’ Obasi, Nigeria, 2018, 30′
Based on Hello, Moto, an afrofututuristic short story by World Fantasy, Nebula and Hugo award winner Nnedi Okorafor, Hello, Rain was presented in Official selection at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen and won the Jury Special Mention at Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.
HOMAGE: SERGIO MARTINO
IL TUO VIZIO È UNA STANZA CHIUSA E SOLO IO NE HO LA CHIAVE
YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY
Sergio Martino, Italy, 1972, 97′
Sergio Martino’s fourth foray into giallo, loosely based on Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tale The Black Cat and featuring not one, but two iconic queens of the cultish genre, Edwige Fenech and Anita Strindberg, is a lush, stylish and sensuous enigma, as twisted and allusive as its lavish title.
I CORPI PRESENTANO TRACCE DI VIOLENZA CARNALE
TORSO
Sergio Martino, Italy, 1973, 92′
Sure, there’s a ski-masked, bow saw-wielding murderous sex maniac on the prowl. But Sergio Martino’s madcap proto-slasher Torso packs so much exhilarating fun, suspense and titillation, even its victims can’t stay serious in the face of danger.
VENDETTA DAL FUTURO
HANDS OF STEEL
Sergio Martino, Italy, 1986, 94′
Starring Daniel Greene, Luigi Montefiori (aka George Eastman), John Saxon and Claudio Cassinelli, who was tragically killed in a helicopter crash during the making of the film, Sergio Martino’s low-budget riff on The Terminator, set in the bleak futureworld of 1997 and populated by sweaty, muscular, denim-clad and arm-wrestling truckers, is a big juicy slice of ’80s B-movie nostalgia.
ENDEMIC
MATINÉE
THE BALLAD OF THE TRUMPET AND THE CLOUD
France Štiglic, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1961, 79′
A dark but illuminating, delusional but undoubtedly clear expressionist ballad about the (ethical) struggle of the common folk during the partisan resistance. A dizzily atypical partisan film, directed by one of our foremost postwar filmmakers. In collaboration with the Slovenian Film Centre on the centenary of Slovenian director France Štiglic.
ROAR
Noel Marshall, USA, 1981, 102′
It took director Noel Marshall and his wife Tippi Hedren (The Birds) 11 years to produce Roar, during what is considered the most dangerous film shoot in history. But the result is beyond compare. A hilarious, bonkers mad and sweat-in-your-seat action adventure where every frame is filled to the brim with volatile wildcats. Welcome to the jungle! In collaboration with Kinodvor’s programme for children and youth Kinobalon.
RETROSPECTIVE: FREAKS
FREAKS
Tod Browning, USA, 1932, 64′
Hoping to repeat the success of Universal’s 1931 Dracula, MGM gave horror master Tod Browning the go-ahead to undertake his lifelong passion project. Browning gathered an incredible cast of real sideshow performers for his grotesque and darkly comedic revenge melodrama. The studio brass cut almost half an hour from the film’s original runtime. What was removed has been lost forever. But Browning’s Freaks remain one of the most unique works in Hollywood history. An infamous cult classic, a call to arms and a fearless ode to the disenfranchised and the outcast.
LA DONNA SCIMMIA
THE APE WOMAN
Marco Ferreri, Italy/France, 1964, 92′
Marco Ferreri’s tragicomic satire and perverse love story, starring Annie Girardot and Ugo Tognazzi, bears all the marks of its maker, the surreal humanism and compassionate nihilism of a master provocateur, an anarchic anti-conformist and a visionary genius. In an act of preventive censorship producer Carlo Ponti eliminated the final sequence, deeming it too shocking. While the French co-producer demanded a different ending to be shot all together. We will present the original director’s cut.
WITCHFINDER GENERAL
Michael Reeves, UK, 1968, 86′
Witchfinder General is the third and final film from director Michael Reeves, who died shortly after the film’s release at the tender age of twenty-five, depriving Britain’s horror cinema of one of its greatest talents. Shot on location and based on the real historical figure of Matthew Hopkins, Reeves’ revenge western cloaked as a rural Gothic locates the origins of evil not in the supernatural, but in the very natural opportunism, corruption and depravity of men.
ILSA, HAREM KEEPER OF THE OIL SHEIKS
Don Edmonds, Canada, 1976, 85′
The one and only Dyanne Thorne returns as the whip-cracking, mini-shorts-wearing harem keeper in the second – most sun-drenched, bubbly and enjoyable – instalment of the infamous ILSA series. One of the most beloved and reviled characters in the history of Canuxploitation and Women In Prison films, Ilsa, the buxom yet heinous international dominatrix is the embodiment of exploitation cinema’s glorious freakery!
DER FAN
THE FAN
Eckhart Schmidt, West Germany, 1982, 92′
West German genre cinema’s hidden treasure and unsung cult classic Der Fan, oozing with teen angst and pulsating with eighties’ electro pop, is a delicious slow burner, patiently propelling its theme of fanatic, all-consuming obsession to its logical and extreme conclusion.
TRAS EL CRISTAL
IN A GLASS CAGE
Agustí Villaronga, Spain, 1986, 107’
Agustí Villaronga’s astonishing directorial debut is a dark and disturbing descent into the horrors and parallels of fascism, forbidden sexual fantasy and sexual violence.