Michal Kosakowski
Polish-German filmmaker and artist Michal Kosakowski grew up in Vienna and shot his first genre short at the young age of ten. During his training at the Fabrica communication research center in Italy under photographer Oliviero Toscani, Kosakowski focused on how images are constructed in media. Today, his oeuvre spans 100 film projects that have been screened at international film festivals and exhibitions and received numerous awards, including for best short at the Milano Film Festival (JUST LIKE THE MOVIES, 2006) and for best documentary at the Chicago Underground Film Festival (ZERO KILLED, 2011).
For his video installation FORTYNINE, Kosakowski created a total of 49 shorts on the subject of murder fantasies, with more than 160 participants from 23 countries. In 2015, he produced the horror anthology series GERMAN ANGST, for which he helmed one episode himself, joining the likes of Jörg Buttgereit and Andreas Marschall.
Currently, Kosakowski is working on his artistic project DARK TOURISM in cooperation with Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen in Berlin, in which he deals with the way filmmakers around the world portray World War II and the Holocaust in their work. The results will be an experimental feature (HOLOFICTION), a digital chronicle (CHRONOFICTION), and large-format collages (SOLOFICTION). Michal Kosakowski has four children; he lives and works with the Austrian artist Uli Aigner in Berlin.
Magdalena Pichler
Magdalena Pichler (b. 1985) cofounded SLASH Film Festival with Markus Keuschnigg in 2010 and served as its director until 2017. In 2015, she completed her master’s degree in theater, film, and media studies. Since 2017, she has been the financial officer for the film distributor sixpackfilm.
As a host and chair of the Verein zur Förderung des fantastischen Films, she has maintained close ties to the SLASH Film Festival.
Thomas Willmann
©Gustav Eckart
Since his early childhood, Thomas Willmann has been fascinated by horror stories and frightful visions. At the time, however, he paid for his curiosity with weeks of nightmares. Over the years, his voracious reading and movie-watching have led not only to a vast arsenal of knowledge about everything from Edgar Allan Poe to Julie Ducournau, but also to a certain inurement. Today, he often sighs, “Oh, if only that gave me the creeps!”
Willmann is an omnivore of all styles and genres of literature, films, and music. He lives with his books and Blu-rays in Munich. As a film critic, he writes for such media as artechock and the Munich-based Merkur. His debut novel, the alpine Western Das finstere Tal (The Dark Valley) was adapted for the big screen by Andreas Prochaska, starring Sam Riley, Paula Beer, and Tobias Moretti. His recently published second novel, Der eiserne Marquis, was awarded the Toucan Prize.