Tag Archives: thriller

L’Etrange Festival 2015 Preview

EtrangeFestival2015_cropped
21st Etrange Festival poster by Dom Garcia

L’Etrange Festival

3-13 September 2015

Forum des Images, Paris, France

Etrange Festival website

The outlandish Parisian genre and fantasy festival returns from September 3 to 13 with another line-up bulging with wild, unhinged and lost treasures. The festival opens with Simon Pummel’s schizophrenic sci-fi thriller Brand New-U and closes with Bollywood epic Baahubali: The Beginning, with a full range of sleazy subversiveness and avant-garde strangeness in between, from Marcel L’Herbier’s restored 1924 art deco femme fatale tale L’inhumaine to Rolph de Heer’s grotesque family tale Bad Boy Bubby, not to forget a zombie all-nighter.

Highlights include the latest from three Japanese heavyweights: Takashi Miike’s Yakuza Apocalypse, Hideo Nakata’s Ghost Theater and Sion Sono with two films, Tag and Love and Peace. Also screening are The Blaine Brothers’ original and moving Nina Forever, Steve Oram’s category-defying Aaaaaaaah! and Ulrich Seidl’s exploration of Austrian cellars In the Basement.

We’ll be checking out Alex Van Varmerdam’s absurdist thriller La peau de Bax, Raúl Garcia’s Edgar Allan Poe animation film Extraordinary Tales, Michael Madsen’s speculative alien invasion documentary The Visit, experimental Afghanistan-set sci-fi Ni le ciel ni la terre directed by artist Clément Cogitore, and Jason Bognacki’s slick giallo-influenced tale of possession Another.

This year, the guest curators are Guy Maddin (also included in the main programme with his own The Forbidden Room), whose selection includes Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, Teuvo Tulio’s Sensuela and George Kuchar’s The Devil’s Cleavage; Benoit Delepine, co-director of Aaltra and Mammuth, will present Tim Burton’s Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and hopeless Russian road movie The Joy; and Ben Wheatley has chosen Frantisek Vlacil’s sumptuous medieval fable Marketa Lazarova and Michael Mann’s legendary murky Nazi nightmare The Keep.

Documentaries include Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World, B-Movie: Lust and Sound in West Berlin (1979-1989), which features Blixa Bargeld and Nekromantik 2’s male lead Mark Reeder, as well as an exploration of the Turkish golden age of low-budget Hollywood remakes, Remake, Remix, Rip-Off, part of a focus on alternative Turkish cinema.

This year’s musical performance is truly exceptional: legendary masked industrial collective The Residents will play a new version of Shadowland as well as presenting a programme of films and documentary Theory of Obscurity: A Movie about The Residents.

As always, the line-up includes a vast and dynamic selection of shorts, ranging from Can Evrenol’s hard-hitting, gut-punching Baskin and Javier Chillon’s inventive, intelligent Die Schneider Krankheit to classics by Jaume Balaguero, Jonathan Caouette and Bill Morrison.

For the full programme and to book tickets plesae visit the Etrange Festival website.

Electric Sheep at the East End Film Festival 2015

Temple-new-high-res1
Masonic Temple

The Dead Eyes of London

Screening date: Saturday 4 July 2015

Time: 1pm

Venue: Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London

Tickets: £10

Buy tickets

Part of the East End Film Festival, 1-12 July 2015
Director: Alfred Vohrer

Writers: Egon Eis, Wolfgang Lukschy

Original title: Die toten Augen von London

Based on the novel by: Edgar Wallace

Cast: Joachim Fuchsberger, Karin Baal, Dieter Borsche

Germany 1961

104 mins

East End Film Festival website

Electric Sheep is very pleased to be partnering again with the East End Film Festival this year for a screening of The Dead Eyes of London at the amazing Masonic Temple, Andaz Hotel Liverpool Street, London, on Saturday 4 July, as part of the ‘From Murder to Mind Control’ weekend at the East End Film Festival. The film will be followed by a panel discussion hosted by Electric Sheep assistant editor Alex Fitch with celebrated film critic and author Kim Newman, author of Nightmare Movies, and Jim Harper, author of Flowers from Hell, who is currently working on a book on krimis.

The Dead Eyes of London, directed by Alfred Vohrer in 1961, is one of the best examples of the krimi (Kriminalfilm) genre, which flourished in West Germany from the mid-50s to the late 70s. Based on the work of English mystery writer Edgar Wallace like many of these crime thrillers, The Dead Eyes of London revolves around a series of murders committed by blind criminals who lure their victims into London’s dark back streets. And in the shadowy city engulfed in permanent fog hides a monster. Strange and atmospheric, it is a great introduction to a fascinating genre that remains relatively little known and unexplored, and the Masonic Temple the perfect venue to enjoy it!

Listen to Kim Newman talk to Alex Fitch about The Edgar Wallace Mysteries.

Following the screening there will be a short graduation ceremony in which Kim Newman will hand out their diplomas to the alumni of The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies – London.

Next up at the Masonic Temple will be Cigarette Burns’ screening of Sergio Martino’s seductive giallo The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail on 16mm. More details of the ‘From Murder to Mind Control’ weekend on the East End Film Festival website.