In a month’s time, the 15th SLASH Film Festival will once again hit the Austrian cinema audience with the heftiest films international genre cinema has to offer in 2024. We present the first five works that will vie for the “Golden Urn” in the SLASH Competition 2024. The competition comprises a total of 10 feature-length fiction films, one of which will be presented with the award by an international jury. The entire selection will be announced in the coming weeks. The award is endowed with €1,000 and is sponsored by our long-standing partner Bestattung Himmelblau, which is also contributing the stylish trophy.
THE FIRST FIVE TITLES OF THE SLASH COMPETITION 2024:
Fresh from its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, SLASH presents the Austrian premiere of Thibault Emin’s mesmerizing feature film debut ELSE: Cass and Anx have just met when a strange virus breaks out that causes people’s bodies to merge with objects. A body horror romance with impressive themes and visuals.
ELSE (FR/BE, R: Thibault Emin) | SLASH Competition 2024
Reincarnation can be quite frustrating when, like Agnes, you meet the man of your dreams – only to die shortly afterwards. Alice Lowe’s TIMESTALKER delivers blood, absurd comedy and self-empowerment made in Britain, with Nick Frost in the role of the spurned husband from a previous life.
TIMESTALKER (GB, R: Alice Lowe) | SLASH Competition 2024
Keyboard fetishism, an investigative postman, a database-hacking optician and a lonely kidnapper, all wrapped up in an 80s videotape look: what must have seemed like a completely absurd mixture in the script is exactly that in its cinematic manifestation, and yet in Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConaghy’s DEAD MAIL it miraculously comes together to create a mystery thriller that is as coherent as it is quirky.
DEAD MAIL (US, R: Joe DeBoer, Kyle McConaghy) | SLASH Competition 2024
In Pedro Martín-Calero’s debut film, which will celebrate its international premiere at SLASH after the San Sebastian Film Festival in September, an invisible force is stalking young Andrea. She can feel it, but cannot see it. And then there’s that menacing sound: THE WAILING.
THE WAILING (ES/AR/FR, R: Pedro Martín-Calero) | SLASH Competition 2024 (c) Manolo Pavon
Rachel Kempf and Nick Toti deliver a never-before-seen variation on the found footage genre with IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS, which must be seen in the cinema and only there. Because according to the directing duo, this movie will never ever be available to watch as an online stream. It took around 20 years to complete this disturbing work, which teeters precariously on the border between documentary and fiction.
IT DOESN’T GET ANY BETTER THAN THIS (US, R: Rachel Kempf, Nick Toti) | SLASH Competition 2024
Further film highlights from the 2024 SLASH program
One year after her sister’s murder, clairvoyant Darcy turns up at the home of her widowed husband and his new partner – with a gift as unusual as it is sinister. Damian McCarthy’s highly effective folk-mystery shocker ODDITY has been considered one of the best horror films of the year since winning the audience award in the Midnighter section of the SXSW festival.
ODDITY (IE, R: Damian McCarthy)
Nikhil Nagesh Bhat contributes the Indian contender for the best entry in the “carnage on a train” film genre and delivers some of the most fast-paced action scenes of recent years: a special forces soldier sets off for New Delhi to prevent his girlfriend’s arranged marriage. And because this movie is called KILL, a bunch of bandits turn up on this very journey. Have a nice trip!
KILL (IN/US, R: Nikhil Nagesh Bhat)
An epic martial arts masterpiece and homage to Hong Kong cinema of the 80s awaits with Soi Cheang’s TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN, in which fugitive Chan has to fight his way through a gang war. The project simmered in production hell for around 20 years until it finally exploded onto the big screen in 2024 and became Hong Kong’s most-watched locally produced film of all time.
TWILIGHT OF THE WARRIORS: WALLED IN (HK, R: Soi Cheang)
If you’re not a fan of fecal humor, you’re sure to have a pretty shitty time with Vivieno Caldinelli’s SCARED SHITLESS: A plumber and his son, who is unfortunately a germaphobe, head out to an apartment complex. Because laboratory-bred creatures are clogging the pipes and attacking the residents directly from the shitter. A feast of tastelessness!
In PLASTIC GUNS, a suspected family murderer is arrested at Copenhagen airport – only he refuses to admit that he is the long-wanted Paul Bernardin. Jean-Christophe Meurisse’s latest prank has plenty of WTF moments in store, each one stranger than the last, just like his characters, with a few crazy dance interludes thrown in for good measure.
PLASTIC GUNS (FR, R: Jean-Christophe Meurisse)