protean depravity

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.

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:

With February gone, a wonderful film time lies behind me and I'm glad I was able to achieve most of my film goals, but also thrilled to be able to do so in smashingly crunchy, sunny weather and I can't imagine closing the winter time in a better way. The last station of Film February 2025 was The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, which took place quite late this year, in March, but considering the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights and Berlinale both took place in succession in February, this was a good choice. I missed/passed all feature film screenings due to a combination of lack of time and lack of interest/already having seen most, but apart from the last two showings on Sunday, I watched all short films, which were divided into following blocks; Hostile Environments, Capitalist Horror, Het Horror, Cults, Midnight, Life Cycles, Pop Horror/Carnevalesque, Sensory Overload, Queer Horror, Revenge, Grief and Nightmares. As each year, I'm super happy with the Final Girls' sel...

The German word "Vorfreude" which describes the happiness you feel before something, a "joyful anticipation" according to internet dictionaries, should be a word in every single language on this world for me to express the joy I yearly feel between New Year's Eve and the month of February when all my favorite film festivals and showings takes place. The constellation of those festivals is somewhat different in 2025, with the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights taking place as late as the first weekend of February and the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival even in March! Even with this shift, it's all fine by me, I have been blissfully busy in my joyful anticipation and putting bookmarks on films I want to see and buying tickets where I can.

    It's brain binge time again! That means the Final Girls Berlin will be offering a weekend (or two afternoons) of talks which you can follow for free on Zoom - and there's even a panel on cannibalism and one workshop.

The 9th Edition of the Final Girl Berlin Film Festival, a film festival which showcases horror made by women*, has been on since last Wednesday and is ending tonight. As usual, my go-to section in this festival is the short film category and I was able to put together for myself an online-presence mixed schedule in order to be able to watch as many shorts as possible, plus one feature film. The shorts were divided into the festival's stable categories of Tech, Family, Queer, Close to Home, Folk Horror, Midnight Movies and Body Horror. I'm not one hundred percent sure but I think there were some new categories this time around, namely Workplace, Eco Horror, le Petit Mort and Absurd and Surreal Horror. I had a blast as usual, and here are my highlights of this year's festival.

Running through the cinema listings, horror film festivals and specials which are taking place in Berlin the next couple of months, I feel a little drunk and dizzy by the sheer abundance of films I want to see, events I want to attend... Too much, almost. Let's take a look!

  As usual, there are spoilers all over this review and it would be best to watch the movie before reading!

    How delightful, on November 22nd a double feature is brought to us by a collaboration between Cathode Cinema and the Final Girls Berlin Film Fest to the City Kino Wedding!

Ever since I (re)watched American Psycho (2000, directed by Mary Harron) last week as the feature film at the Final Girls Berlin Halloween showing, I feel a little bit obsessed with this picture. The first time I saw it must have been fifteen or even twenty years ago and I felt so in awe with the gore and horror back then that I had completely failed to see this film for what it really is - a brilliant and monumental satire. I went home on Halloween night and still couldn't get this movie out of my head - the audience's giggles, the creeping and growing insanity, and Christian Bale fully owning the iconic personage Patrick Bateman...

AAAAAAAAAh! The program for the Halloween Special of Final Girls Berlin* has been published, and I will definitely sell my Blixa tickets, sorry, because not only do the shorts start at 7pm, the feature film is American Psycho at 9pm and I don't want to miss any of it. I might as well take the next day off while I'm at it, hah. So here's the shorts selection for Tuesday October 31, 7pm/19.00h - texts taken from the FGBFF newsletter:

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 so sorry I haven't posted here as often as I should have, but the past February really was a whirlwind month with that outrageous earthquake at home, but also on the positive side with the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival as well as the Berlinale both rocking their post-COVID comeback. Putting the real life horrors of past month aside I'll focus on the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival (FGBFF) which took place February 1 -5 in this first part describing my cinematic experiences. For those of you who don't know - the FGBFF is a festival that showcases movies directed/written/produced by women* in order to strengthen their perspectives in the horror genre. The festival usually spans over four or five days in February and comprises feature films, horror talks, a self-defense workshop and my favorites, the short films. This year the short films were divided into the subcategories Female Pacts, Body Horror, Menacing Presences, Close to Home, Creatures, Bodily Autonomy, Qu...

Something terrible happened! I had already finished this perfectly fine article, with pictures and all, a few weeks ago but during the final touches I accidentally and irreversibly deleted it... After a few hundred moments of looking at the white page in shock and horror I decided to give it a rest for a while. Now I think enough time has passed for me to recover sufficiently to let it go and start anew. Here goes!

Hey everybody! I have been away a lot, this last month was a little busy and I was a little lazy, but I'll soon be back with new books and movies, so hang on. I just wanted to remind everyone that tomorrow is Halloween and that means the Final Girls Berlin* are celebrating Halloween at the City Kino Wedding with their best funny-scary short films, the screening of the disgusting cannibal movie RAW (2016) and a costume contest! You can find a list of their shorts - some of which I have discussed in the past - and the program here. So grab your cat ears and witch hats and see you there if you will!

Talking about movie festivals, the Final Girls Berlin are giving us a summer treat: the "Brain Binge"- horror talk weekend! On June 11th and 12th you can participate via Zoom to some seriously interesting talks revolving around women* and horror. Here's the link for subscription. I'm especially excited for "I am She: The Witch Archetype & Patriarchal Disruption", "Beyond the Freak Show: Disability and Horror" as well as "The Monstruous Feminine & Political Abjection". And all the other too, to be honest! All talks are free and donation based.

Yay, The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival is due in two weeks and their program looks AMAZING! The festival takes place in City Kino Wedding but the very cautious of you or those who can't come can watch the shorts online! Here's their message:

The weekend before last was a horror fan's "that time of the year" again and I hope you had the opportunity to read lots of spooky ghost stories, watch tons of gory films, decorate your house in various shades of orange and eat lots of candy on Halloween. But autumn in Berlin is all the more special because each year the lovely team of Final Girls Berlin does a Halloween special to fuel up your horror tanks before the dark season really starts and it ends in a crazy masquerade where you can go wild, dress up in mad costumes and/or just be and enjoy yourself. If you have good dress-up and make-up skills, you might even win one of the super original prizes FGB has in store for you. As for me, I don't need a prize as long as I can watch the short films. As is the case each year, there were some absolute gems in the selection this time too and here are my favorites amongst this year's Halloween shorts: