Yay!!
SLASH 1/2 Film Festival will open in less than a month’s time at Filmcasino Wien. From June 17 through 20, we will present eleven wild, outrageous, suspense-filled highlights from the world of international Fantastic Cinema.
Our long-standing partnership with Crossing Europe Film Festival Linz, which announced its lineup yesterday, has been an integral part of our festival. SLASH Festival director Markus Keuschnigg, who curates the Night Sight segment of Crossing Europe, is bringing four titles of the Linz festival to Vienna’s Filmcasino screen for this year’s SLASH 1/2.
With MANDIBULES by chief absurdist Quentin Dupieux and KANDISHA by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, SLASH audiences can look forward to not one but two French productions, and they could not be more different: While Dupieux unleashed a giant fly (“Dominique”! 💙) on us in his bizarre comedy, the directing duo of Maury and Bustillo let loose a bloodthirsty, vengeful demon. The visually stunning horror thriller SON by Irish director Ivan Kavanagh and Frida Kempff’s Swedish paranoia thriller KNOCKING are sure to make everyone’s blood curdle.
The entire program of the SLASH ½ Film Festival is available on May 28 at www.slashfilmfestival.com.
Details
MANDIBULES
FR 2020 | 77‘ | DCP | OmeU
Director: Quentin Dupieux
Cast: Grégoire Ludig, David Marsais
Bzz bzz bzz goes the trunk of the banged-up Mercedes the two simpletons Manu and Jean-Gab jacked to get a briefcase from A to B. The originator of the sound is a fly the size of a bull terrier. The two friends decide to train the insect, figuring they can make some serious cash. Absurdist extraordinaire Quentin Dupieux is an exceptional talent among European directors, not least because of the ridonkulous concepts he realizes with remarkable casualness. The giant fly, by the way, is operated by Dave Chapman, who brought the droid BB-8 to life in the most recent STAR WARS trilogy.
***
SON
IE/US/UK 2021 | 98‘ | DCP | eOV
Director: Ivan Kavanagh
Cast: Andi Matichak, Emile Hirsch,…
As a child Laura escaped from the clutches of a cult. Now she fears for her own son’s life. Ever since a mysterious group of people stood in his room one night (and disappeared again), the boy has been suffering from a strange illness. Laura knows that she must face her own inscrutable past to help her son. Irish director Ivan Kavanagh’s SON is a visually stunning horror thriller whose occult foundation interlocks with a gruesome family tragedy and flashes of grisly violence. Underneath, however, beats a delicate, tender, sentimental, woeful heart.
***
KNOCKING
SE 2021 | 80‘ | DCP | OmeU
Director: Frida Kempff
Cast: Cecilia Milocco, Albin Grenholm,…
Molly needs a fresh start. She wants to leave behind not only the traumatic events of a few months ago but also the subsequent psychiatric treatment. That her new apartment is pretty damn dilapidated doesn’t faze her as much as the knocking she hears at night. Her neighbors don’t seem to hear it, but Molly is increasingly convinced that someone in the apartment above hers needs help. With this paranoiac thriller, Frida Kempff treads in the footsteps of Polanski’s REPULSION and lets her lead Cecilia Milocco kick into high gear.
***
KANDISHA
FR 2020 | 85‘ | DCP | OmeU
Director: Julien Maury, Alexandre Bustillo
Cast Suzy Bemba, Mathilde La Musse,…
Summer in the banlieue: Three teenagers roam the run-down blocks of residential high-rises, talking about boys, telling each other horror stories. When one of them is assaulted by her ex-boyfriend, she conjures Kandisha, the Moroccan demoness of vengeance. The next day, the victim’s aggressor is found dead. Then more boys die—and that is when the young women realize that Kandisha has gone rogue and must be stopped. But how? French director duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo serve up a juicy variation on the CANDYMAN theme, embedded in an urban youth milieu, populated with wonderful young actors and shrill gore effects.