10 years of /slash Filmfestival! Austria’s biggest event for fantastical film is celebrating a decade of being and for its anniversary edition it will do what it does best: from 19 to 29 September the best national and international fantastical film productions of the year will be brought to the silver screens of Vienna.

Once again this year, the festival will take place in three locations: on 19 September the kick-off for eleven days full of the fantastical, horror, and great cinematic art will be at the Gartenbaukino at the Opening Night. After that around sixty selected productions will be shown at the Filmcasino and the METRO Kinokulturhaus.

The festivalsujet was designed by Andre Breinbauer and shows the gates to the underworld. It was inspired by Dante’s Inferno and invites its viewers to join on a journey into the inside, to explore the deepest, darkest circles of hell – or the festival program – together with Virgil. Yet the gateway works in both directions. As it is said in Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD: “When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.” Oh, and they will walk the earth! This year, the /slash once again has a superb selection of monsters and grotesque nightmare visions for you.

Opening Film: THE LODGE

19 September 2019, Gartenbaukino (Austrian Premiere)

We could not have wished for a better present for our anniversary edition: the tenth /slash Filmfestival will open with THE LODGE, the sensational international debut of the long-standing /slash friends and supporters Veronika Franz and Severin Fialia.

The dark horror drama with the extraordinary cast including Riley Keoughs (IT COMES AT NIGHT, UNDER THE SILVER LAKE), Jaeden Martell (IT), Lia McHugh, Richard Armitage (THE HOBBIT) and Alicia Silverstone (CLUELESS), and breathtakingly shot by Thimios Bakatakis (THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER), celebrated its world premiere at this year’s Sundance Filmfestival.

Directors: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala
USA/UK 2018 | 108 min | Cast: Riley Keoughs, Jaeden Martell, Lia McHugh, Richard Armitage, Alicia Silverstone, Daniel Keoughs

After a traumatizing event the psychiatrist Richard convinces his two children, teenager Aiden and his younger sister Mia, to spent the Christmas holidays with his new girlfriend Grace in a remote cottage. The dark past of the young woman and the hostility of the children have towards her fuel the claustrophobic Huis Clos in this starkly contrasting Chiaroscuro. At the very latest it gets entirely out of hand once the three get snowed in and creepy occurrences around the house seem to multiply. ‘

FEMALE TERROR

Historic program focus
on horror films by female directors

As in the past years, the /slash 2019 selection of films is a mix of new releases, insider tips, and classics of genre cinema. This year, a historic program focus is placed on horror films by female directors. The highly successful film scholar Dr. Alison Peirse (University of Leeds/UK) curated the special program FEMALE TERROR for /slash that tells of the film history of female horror film. Spanning from Ida Lupino’s essential noir THE HITCH-HIKER, over Karen Arthur’s obscure central piece THE MAFU CAGE, and Mary Lamert’s mega success PET SEMATARY, to the enigmatic OFFICE KILLER by the star photographer Cindy Sherman, and combines both auteur horror and Věra Chytilová’s WOLF’S HOLEor Marina de Van’s IN MY SKIN, as well as wild exploitation visions by Barbara Peeters (HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP) or Amy Holden Jones (THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE).

»›But women were never out there making horror films, that’s why they are not written about – you can’t include what doesn’t exist‹, ›there are really, very few women horror filmmakers working today, that’s why so few are coming up!‹ – This is what you get when you are a woman working in horror, whether as a critic, academic, festival programmer or filmmaker. These assumptions are based on decades of flawed scholarly, critical and industrial thinking about the genre. FEMALE TERROR is an opportunity to begin to set right these misconceptions, exploring a range of woman-directed horror films from 1950s to the present day, from North America, Europe and East Asia. Come and join us as we explore what happens to horror filmmaking when women are behind the camera, rather than just in front of it.«
Dr. Alison Peirse, Curator FEMALE TERROR

»Up until recently, horror film was regarded as an exclusively male genre. At /slash we find a dire need for a revision of this, not least as there are ever more female voices that define horror culture. Thus a collaboration with the film scholar Dr Alison Peirse that yielded the special program FEMALE TERROR came into being.«
Markus Keuschnigg, /slash festival director.