protean depravity

Time to look at upcoming movie screenings and the Fantasy Filmfest, my dears! (And I'm already loving the -incomplete- program.)   There are a couple of interesting open air screenings left in this summer, and that coupled with the Yorck specials and a few films regularly showing will help bridge the time until FFF begins. Let's have a look. And no, Hokum isn't part of the lineup... yet?    So, the Freiluftkino Kreuzberg is showing a Science Fiction movie , old or new, every Tuesday until the end of August and although I missed "2001 A Space Odyssey", I feel compelled to watch Tarkowski's Solaris  on August 18, at 8.30 pm. I have only seen the newer Solaris movie with Geroge Clooney, and quite liked it, and I generally like Tarkowski's style, so I'm glad they're screening it. Freilichtbühne Weißensee continues its series of screenings of original films from the former east bloc, and there's a two-part mini series called NöNöNö that takes place ...

A couple of weeks ago the Final Girls Berlin held an event-ful Midsummer weekend during which a collection of the festival's best folk horror short films were shown at the open air cinema Freilichtbühne Weißensee, as well as many super interesting talks (all free) were presented at the annual online Brain Binge event. I missed some of the Brain Binge Events, notably and sadly the "The Hills Are Alive: Singing and Screaming in Horror Musicals" which honestly sounds like fun, "The Bleeding Edge" about Menstruation in Horror, and the "Pitch Your Idea Workshop", which is a shame because although I usually stay at a safe distance to horror, and I am an avid reviewer and observer of the genre, I in fact do have a couple of ideas of my own and could use a hand in the realization.

  While slowly moving away from the spring, easing into the summer with the weather still brisk and rainy, let's take a look at the filmic highlights awaiting the horror fan in Berlin...

I only recently discussed all the upcoming movie screenings in Berlin, and today  Final Girls Berlin  announced their spring program under the title " A Night to (dis)member! Underdogs celebration, open air cinema, and more!"  so here's a quick addition to that post because guys, it's awesome!

The 2026 film festival season ends with Fantasy Filmfest Nights this upcoming weekend, but that's no reason to despair because there are lots of fun screenings that can keep you busy until the next big festival. Except for the last Fantasy Filmfest screenings and the Final Girls in March, my film year was really nothing to brag about, and I didn't really see many films that left an impression on me. I hope that will change in the coming months, so let's take a look at some of upcoming film showings and unscheduled titles which give me hope that this year might still turn out to be a good cinematic year.

Barely rested from the last film festival, here I am planing for the next one, the wonderful Fantasy Filmfest Nights  (April 16-19) which impresses with a truly fantastic selection that makes me wish I could see all of the films featured. But the budget is tight, and time isn't endless, so I have to make choices. Although I made my choices generously, I probably still won't be able to see all of the pictures below, especially as I still have to go to work, notably on Saturday. The day is for working but we have nights to watch films and I'll try to fill them with screenings.

The Final Girls Film Festival Edition 11 is over...  The post-festival blues still lingering, here I am with a massive back pain the one week of sitting in City Kino Wedding bestowed me, thinking back of the awesome time I had. Being in the jury and contributing to determine the winner amongst the feature movies, all the great people I met, chatted, watched movies with, discussed those movies and connected... It would be no exaggeration to say I had the time of my life, and even though I didn't cry, I certainly understand fellow jury members who were hit hard by the melancholy. On the picture you see is all that's left from the good days: a lot of stickers and business cards, flyers for the Leiden B-Movie Festival in August, the festival program in which we're all featured, a tote bag, my name tag, and one piece of print art I bought from Henna Räsänen who was sitting at the table next to us, the Otherland table, during vendor day on Sunday. Let us first start with the shor...

As I've written before, this year's Berlinale was a bit frustrating and not all that amazing, but I was able to watch a couple of films nonetheless (even though most of them at the Uber Hall which is cold, and too big, and uncomfortable). I don't want to complain too much, though, I was still able to see nice films, just not super good ones. So this year there's no winner since none of the pictures struck me as great or wonderful or whatever. Here's a short overview of my film haul.

Well, I'm going to say it out loud, this year's Berlinale is a dud. Insanely quickly sold out tickets, a lukewarm selection of films, a lack of genre pictures in its program, and finally idiotic comments from the jury... Berlinale is already a fail and makes me want to look ahead for other festivals. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll give it much space in my future life, I think I'd rather save my leave days for the FFF and the Final Girls Berlin. Sorry for the rant.

...because that's when Berlinale starts again!

It is almost the end of the year again, ugh... Almost time for the end of the year post, but not quite. Before we look back at my reading year and choose the best books of the year, let's see what's going on in and around Berlin in terms of events and films. Let's also take a first little peek at the upcoming Fantasy Filmfest White Nights, which, this year, is scheduled for the end of January. But there's a lot going on before and after, so let's see...  First off, next Wednesday, December 10th, 8pm, there's a screening at the Odeon cinema of the horror documentary  Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages . The appealing visuals suggest a quasi-serious, silent movie which uses brief episodes to explore witches. I've got my ticket already and I'm very excited for this! If you always wanted to meet the science fiction author Charles Stross, you can have your chance on Thursday, December 11th at 7.30 pm, because he will be at the  Otherland for a Q&A , seemi...

It is not very often that an epigraph reflects the overall atmosphere and mood of a particular book ideally, but Samanta Schweblin's latest short story collection Good and Evil and Other Stories opening with Silvina Ocampo's words "strange is always truer" is a great example. It is an atmospheric, quite unique, strange work about seemingly everyday situations and people that are just a little bit eerie, but never openly horrifying, yet always slightly terrifying.

Let us, for a brief moment, shift our focus to one of Berlin's most interesting film curators in the field of independent cinema: Eli Lewy. When she's not planning one of the many Final Girls Berlin events, she has her own thing going and is orchestrating numerous projects, all in Berlin. Here are two of her projects, two film series that might interest you guys, one ongoing and the other starting in December.

Are you still hanging on to the dated (and frankly, creepy) Oktoberfest, the fest of the drunks doing drunk things? Well, there's so much better fests and events in Berlin, and you needn't be drunk to endure them - in October alone we have not one but two indie genre film fests going, plus Halloween screenings, plus an author's evening with Samanta Schweblin who will present her new book (And it's possible another author will be presenting her new book at the Otherland, but I'll announce that when it is certain!). Let's take a look at what's coming up!

Another September has come, another Fantasy Filmfest has ended with nothing left behind but the memory of more or less awesome films and a week-long escape into other worlds (and, in my case, with a DVD set of a film I miraculously WON at the FFF! More about it under my review for Sweetness ⬇). I watched twelve feature films in total (I walked out on one of them because it was getting very late and I was worrying I might miss my last train as it was a week day), nineteen short films, of which three were animated and three stop motion. Let's see which ones I saw and my personal winners of this year's Fantasy Filmfest (There is an official winner of the festival you can find on their website  when they are through with every city on their program.)

  The 39th edition of  Fantasy Filmfest is just around the corner (3.9 – 10.9. in Berlin) and if you haven't gotten a festival pass (I know I haven't!) the tickets for the movies will be available from August 22nd, that is next week. So it was about time to draw a roadmap to have an overview of the screenings and weed out those that will be shown regularly while highlighting those I will probably not have a chance to see somewhere else. The reason I didn't get a festival pass is (I know I announced I'd go full program, but changed my mind) that even though the FFF announces on its website that the rows for the pass owners are reserved for them, there are a lot of pass owners who fill empty seats with their backpacks and coats and other stuff, and there's nothing more terrifying for an introvert to walk around the room, ask if the seat is empty and if yes, could they please put their stuff away, (possibly endure a side eye or two) and then sit next to that person yo...

Sure, I'll gladly play the broken record again and let me not miss another opportunity to express my despondency over the weather this summer, which has been five hot days and raining cats and dogs on all of the other time. I swear at some point I will move somewhere warmer, but not yet. Not as long as there are such great things going on as in this summer so far (just not good weather).

  The summer was turbulent so far, in terms of both the weather and all the fun things you can do with lots of amazing films, concerts, events, readings all around... And it doesn't look like that's going to change in the near future, so let's keep on looking at some of the stuff a horror fan can do in and around Berlin this summer.

Guys, I forgot to add two important things to my early summer blog post that you shouldn't miss if you can; This weekend, starting tomorrow and going on Sunday, it's time for the Final Girls Brain Binge again! I'm just pasting a picture of the program here, you'll need to subscribe as usual, and, of course, it is free as usual:

Even though the weather hasn't noticed it yet, the summer is supposed to be knocking on our doors, and that means more events, open air cinemas, new challenges and similar stuff. Let's take a look at what's up in Berlin and in my reading plans in the early summer 2025.