Final Girls Brain Binge Weekend on June 3rd and 4th

My favorite final girls in Berlin* are back with another Brain Binge weekend on the 3rd and 4th of June.

The discussions this year are pretty awesome ranging from women's contribution to horror sfx makeup, to the lesbian vampire following the model of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, to motherhood and the reluctant mother as monster in horror cinema and so much more.

I'm not sure if I'll have time on Saturday, will definitely try make it, but with a program this great I definitely plan on staying at home and joining all the Sunday discussions and panels as they all sound extremely interesting. The talks that piqued my attention the most are:

🧠 "Locating Women's Contribution to Horror Practical Effects Makeup" by Dr. Abby Whittall, which concentrates on women as artisans in the field of horror makeup, such as Eryn Krueger Mekash and Ve Neill, as well as women performing using said makeup.   

 🧠 "Bathory's Daughters: The Lesbian Vampire and Leather Ritual" by Annie Rose Malamet, which uses a collection of films that utilize the figure of the Countess Elizabeth Báthory as the lesbian vampire. Such a freaky concept, really! 

🧠 "Women in Trauma within Horror Cinema" by Mo Moshaty who divides female characters in horror fiction roughly into five categories: Possessed or Possessor, Revenge Fantasy, Grief-stricken, Objectified and Hysterical and will provide filmic examples to each. 

🧠 "Historical Horror: Behind the Scenes of Kindred (2022)" by Adia Cullors. Finally a lecture that focuses on a literary work, and most importantly on Octavia A. Butler's Kindred, a classic (in which an African-American woman travels periodically in time and is thrown back into the antebellum period to suffer the life of a slave). Cullors has actually worked on the series production for Hulu FX and will provide interviews with those involved in the project as well as a general discussion of historical horror as a subgenre.

🧠 "The Ghosts of Gothic Arthouse Cinema" by Samm Deighan. A look at common Gothic elements like ghosts and haunted houses specifically used in arthouse cinema and in films made by women and/or focusing on female protagonists.

🧠 "Maternal Horror Panel" by Ariel McCleese & Rhonda Jackson Joseph consists of two parts, "Reclaiming Monstrous Motherhood" and "If Mama Ain’t Happy, Ain’t No Happy Home: Maternal Despair as Parallel to Domestic Decay". While the first focuses on the woman who has "achieved her greatest purpose yet remains unsatisfied" and analyzes the four horror films Lamb (2021), His House (2020), Resurrection (2022), and Huesera (2023), the latter goes into our homes and takes a look at the domestic collapse caused by the negligence of mothers through the examples of “The Yellow Wallpaper”, Hereditary (2018), The Babadook (2014), and “The Bride Before” from Horror Noire.

I'm pretty psyched to be honest and can't wait for the brain binge weekend. You can find the whole program and register for the discussions here.

* Final Girls Berlin Film Festival showcases horror cinema that’s directed, written, or produced by women and non-binary filmmakers. We are committed to creating space for female voices and visions — whether monstrous, heroic, or some messy combination of the two — in the horror genre.