For the tenth time /slash Filmfestival invites its audience to a rendezvous with Fantastic Film: From 19 to 29 September 2019 aficionados of the genre and all others can look forward to over 60 handpicked films, exciting guests and the best parties! Two weeks ago we have announced our opening film THE LODGE and the historic program focus FEMALE TERROR.Today we want to give you a a small sneak peek of our line-up.

The category /animated presents a fine selections of fantastic animation films – from family friendly gems to bans for young –, e. g. Amp Wong’s and Zhao Ji’s colorful animation masterpiece WHITE SNAKE, the surrealistic action packed thunderstorm RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR by Milorad Krstić and Hiroyasu Ishida’s gorgeous anime PENGUIN HIGHWAY.

/vortex shows the full range of Fantastic Film in all its many forms: from André Øvredal’s horror thriller SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK and Alexandre O. Philippe’s ALIEN documentary MEMORY – THE ORIGINS OF ALIENS to Laura Melia Guzmán’s and Israel Càredenas’ HOLY BEASTS, a fascinating love letter to artist Jean-Louis Jorge.

For the second year in a row /slash will not only host a short film competition (audience award) but will also award a feature film. The /competition is a podium for smaller films made by talented filmmakers, not (yet) known to a big audience, who have a drastic or innovative approach to both the stilistic elements and the narrative tradition of the genre. An international jury will evaluate the films in the course of the festival and present the winner on the final evening. The /competition films include horror comedy EXTRA ORDINARY by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman, Gabriela Amaral’s sinister family disintegration THE FATHER’S SHADOW or Joe Begos’ psychotronic nightmare BLISS.

The full line-up will be available online by the beginning of September. Ticket pre-sale starts on September 6, 2019.

/competition
EXTRA ORDINARY

All that driving instructor Rose wants is a normal life, but her supernatural abilities have always stood in the way of that. And so she turns her back on chasing ghosts and demons – until an aging rock star enters into a deal with the devil and casts his eye on her lover Martin’s teenage daughter. Rose activates all of her extraordinary abilities in order to stop these satanic goings-on. The Irish director duo Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman manage to land a grand surprise hit with EXTRA ORDINARY: extremely quirky, incredibly funny, and given life by numerous excellent figures (and ghosts), this horror comedy is everything but ordinary.

Directors: Mike Ahern, Enda Loughman | Ireland, Belgium 2019 | 94 min
Cast: Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte

/competition
BLISS

Nowhere to go but down: the painter Dezzy smokes non-stop, drinks like a fish and uses the word FUCK at least once in every second sentence. Usually more often than that. A creative block makes her revive old alliances and soon she loses herself stuffed with psychotropic substances. Joe Begos’ psychotronic nightmare BLISS only knows full speed. Through overstimulation it evokes a sensory collapse in the viewers, and also in terms of the volume of bodily fluids keeps up with previous work of the mad and insanely talented director. A maximally indigestible affair in a DIY punk spirit, that leaves the audience members wanting a shower, and probably a drink and a smoke.

Director: Joe Begos | USA 2019 | 80 min
Cast: Dora Madison, Tru Collins, Rhys Wakefield

/competition
THE FATHER’S SHADOW

The death of the mother throws a wrench into the life of a Brazilian family. While the father Jorge goes on about his day to day in an almost catatonic state, little Dalva delves deep into voodoo magic in the hope that it can help her fix everything that was broken. Gabriela Amaral Almeida once again shows the exceptional talent of young Brazilian cinema with her second feature film: THE FATHER’S SHADOW is a realistically grounded family disintegration contorted with pain, yet at the same time a massively sinister fantasy of making wishes come true, spiritually connected to Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary, of which Dalva watches the first cinematographic adaptation.

Director: Gabriela Amaral | Brazil 2018 | 92 min
Cast: Nina Medeiros, Julio Machado, Luciana Paes

/anmiated
WHITE SNAKE

A general sucks the life energy out of snakes with black magic in the hopes to gift the emperor eternal life. The title-giving WHITE SNAKE is a powerful creature that can take on human form and is given the mission to stop the evildoer. Every child in China knows the legend of the white snake: for centuries the story of the forbidden love between the demon and the human has inspired artistic expression, but never before has the story been told so magnificently, so powerfully, so over the top, as it is in this Chinese animation masterpiece that is actually the origin story to the original legend. In any case: hold on to your eyeballs, it will be colorful.

Director: Amp Wong, Zhao Ji | China 2019 | 99 min

/anmiated
PENGUIN HIGHWAY

The bookworm Aoyama is a bright elementary school student: when his village is suddenly overrun by an abundance of penguins all waddling away in the same direction, the curious boy decides to follow them together with a dentist’s assistant in order to find out what is at the end of the Penguin Highway. Hiroyasu Ishidas feature film debut is an overwhelmingly complex and unabashedly gorgeous anime that combines mystery elements with coming-of-age, all carried by lush animation flooded with sunbeams and shadow plays. Both the animation studio Studio Colorido as well as Ishida himself are names to remember for anime fans. Presented in cooperation with AniManga.

Director: Hiroyasu Ishida | Japan 2018 | 118 min

/anmiated
RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR

Ruben Brandt has rather eccentric nightmares in which he is attacked by some of humanity’s most famous artworks. Shot by Warhol’s Double Elvis, stabbed by one of the men in Hopper’s Nighthawks, and dragged to the bottom of the ocean by a mutated Botticelli Venus (with tentacles!): in order to combat these unpleasant dreams, psychotherapist Brandt commissions some of his criminal clients to steal the original artworks. RUBEN BRANDT, COLLECTOR is a hyper referential, action packed thunderstorm, garnished with a dash of Hungarian surrealism, and easily one of the coolest and most unforgettable animation films of the year.

Director: Milorad Krstić | Hungary 2018 | 94 min

/vortex
SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK

1968 might have been a turning point for the rest of the world, but in the sleepy town of Mill Valley life continues just as before. For generations the teenagers there have been fascinated by the run down Bellows house: when some of them find an old book in the creepy building and begin to read from it, monsters and other ghastly creatures begin to roam Mill Valley and soon turn the sleepy little village into a cabinet of horrors. André Øvredal turned the iconic series of teen books that made an entire generation into a tricked out, perfect horror thriller, which among others was produced by Guillermo del Toro, who poured some of his overly abundant imagination into the crisp script as the co-author.

Director: André Øvredal | USA 2019 | 111 min
Cast: Zoe Margaret Colletti, Michael Garza, Austin Zajur

/vortex
HOLY BEASTS

The diva Vera plans to make a film out of a script written by the late Dominican underground cult director Jean-Louis Jorge. Yet the tribute to her good friend already runs into difficulties in its early stages due to conflicts with the team and rampant loss of grip on reality. Jorge, who was in fact a real obscure filmmaker from the Dominican Republic only produced three feature films, all of which were mixtures of classic Hollywood pathos, melodramatic camp and a sleep-walking atmosphere. HOLY BEASTS is a love letter to this artist, cast with friends and contemporaries that surfed the underground of the 1970s just as Jorge did, amongst which is (of course) Udo Kier.

Directors: Laura Melia Guzmán, Israel Càredenas | Dominican Republic, Argentina, Mexico 2019 | 90 min
Cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Udo Kier, Luis Ospina

/vortex
MEMORY – THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN

Ridley Scott’s ALIEN is a pretty cool film as well as being a central part of pop mythology that has not lost any of its impact four decades after its premiere. Yet in MEMORY – THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN, the exceptional documentary filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe is not so much interested in how this classic was made in the sense of a making-of, but rather in the development of its concept per se. Sci-fi films from the 1950s, EC comics, Lovecraft, Kubrick and a painting by Francis Bacon are all only small parts of the mosaic that inspired especially ALIEN script writer Dan O’Bannon to craft this iconic story that in earlier versions actually was entitled MEMORY. Enlightening!

Directors: Alexandre O. Philippe | USA 2018 | 90 min