Final Girls Berlin Film Festival announces 2018 films

Returning for the second year the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival brings women directed horror and gore to the forefrontFebruary 1st - 3rd!

Watch the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival 2018 Trailer HERE!

​Berlin, DE – The 3rd edition of Final Girls Berlin Film Festival will take place in Berlin, Germany from the 1st to the 3rd of February 2018, with a program consisting of 5 feature films, six curated short blocks, a horror storyboarding workshop, a talk on vampires and women, and a filmmaker panel. Final Girls Berlin Film Fest showcases horror films that were directed, written, and/or produced by women and non-binary filmmakers.

Festival co-director Eli Lewy says “this year we have selected a range of unnerving feature films - most of which are also exclusive German premieres!” Fellow co-director Sara Neidorf adds "we're excited for another three days of communal fear and challenging discussions with filmmakers and spectators. Underground horror cinema is alive and well with the works of women who are steadily reshaping the landscape of the genre."

THE BOOK OF BIRDIE

​The opening night feature is Anami Tara Shucart and Elizabeth E. Schuch’s offering THE BOOK OF BIRDIE. When a fragile, imaginative teenager is placed in a remote convent, will her unusual obsessions and hallucinations become a mark of sainthood or dark heresy? Reserved teen Birdie is sequestered to a life of religious servitude by her grandmother, in the hope that it will suppress the young girl‘s dark thoughts. Now far from home, her interests remain far from pious, as she develops a fascination with blood and sparks a romance with the groundkeeper's daughter. This haunting and aesthetically arresting directorial debut of Elizabeth E. Schuch features an all-woman cast. UK, dir. Elizabeth E. Schuch (2017, German Premiere)

LYLE

​A mother’s grief turns to paranoia when she begins to suspect her eccentric neighbors are involved in a satanic pact. Starring Gaby Hoffmann (Transparent, Girls) and Ingrid Jungermann (WOMEN WHO KILL), and paying homage to ROSEMARY'S BABY, this queer psychological horror brings the viewer through a nightmarish journey of gaslighting, loss, loneliness, and mistrust. USA, dir. Stewart Thorndike (2014, Berlin Premiere)

PIN CUSHION

​Iona and her mother are new in town and excited about starting a new chapter in their lives, but things don’t go as they hoped in this off-kilter, heart-wrenching film about two generations of outcasts. This ‘social horror’ film world premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival. UK, dir. Deborah Haywood (2017, German Premiere)

PREVENGE

​A pitch black, wryly British comedy, PREVENGE follows Ruth, a pregnant woman on a killing spree that’s as funny as it is vicious. It's her misanthropic unborn baby dictating Ruth's actions, holding society responsible for the absence of a father. The child speaks to Ruth from the womb, coaching her to lure and ultimately kill her unsuspecting victims. Struggling with her conscience, loneliness, and a strange strain of prepartum madness, Ruth must ultimately choose between redemption and destruction at the moment of motherhood. UK, dir. Alice Lowe (2016)

MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND

​MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND is a psychological thriller set in the world of undocumented female immigrants hoping to make a life in New York City. Shot on Super 16mm with an intimate, voyeuristic sensibility, MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND chronicles one harrowing day in the life of Luciana, a young woman struggling to make ends meet while striving to escape her past. As Luciana's day unfolds, she is whisked, physically and emotionally, through a series of troublesome and unforeseeable extremes. USA, Dir. Ana Asensio (2017, German Premiere)

Short Film Programs

Obsession

PLEASE LOVE ME FOREVER (Dir. Holy Fatma, France, 2016)

FRY DAY (Dir. Laura Moss, USA, 2017)

NOTHING A LITTLE SOAP AND WATER CAN'T FIX (Dir. Jennifer Proctor, USA, 2017)

:(  (Dir. Sydney Clara Brafman, USA, 2017)

WASTE (Dir. Justine Raczkiewicz, USA, 2016)

DON'T EVER CHANGE (Dir. Don Swaynos, US, 2017)

DEAD. TISSUE. LOVE (Dir. Tasha Austin-Green, UK, 2017)

Mind Games

BBROWN WRECK-LOOSE (Dir. Tristian Montgomery, USA, 2017)

LIZ DRIVES (Dir. Mia’kate Russell, Australia, 2017)

THE HEAVY ATOMS (Dir. Alice Evermore, Germany, 2017)

THE CLIP (Dir. Maria Forslin, Sweden, 2016)

TONE DEATH (Dir. Sinnead Stoddart, UK, 2017)

HIGHWAY (Dir. Vanessa Gazy, Australia, 2016)

BLACK COAT (Dir. Tatiana Vyshegorodseva, Russia, 2017)

DON'T OPEN YOUR EYES (Dirs. Adrián García Bogliano & Andrea Quiroz, Sweden, 2017)

​Dark Gatherings

WHAT METAL GIRLS ARE INTO (Dir. Laurel Veil, USA, 2017)

BLOOD SISTERS (Dir. Caitlin Koller, Australia, 2017)

SPOTLIGHT (Dir. Joe Savage, UK, 2017)

MADDER ISLE (Dir. Laura Spark, UK, 2017)

THE PENNY DROPPED (Dir. A D Cooper, UK, 2016)

MAB (Dir. Katie Bonham, UK, 2017)

PRAYERS (Dir. Edda Manriquez, USA, 2016)

THE CONTEST (Dir. Aimee Morgan, USA, 2017)

DEVIL IS ON HIS WAY (Dir. Ophelie Neve, Belgium, 2017)

​Metamorphosis

TALKING HEADS (Dir. Alyx Melone, Canada, 2017)

THE DAY MUM BECAME A MONSTER (Dir. Joséphine Hopkins, France, 2017)

APOCALYPSE BABIES (Dir. Anabelle Berkani, Canada, 2017)

BEAUTIFUL INJURIES (Dir. Judith Beauvallet, France, 2017)

NANA (Dir. Yunxuan Wang, China 2017)

LE PEAU SAUVAGE (Dir. Ariane Louis-Seize, Canada, 2016)

Family Dysfunction

UNBEARING (Dir. Aidan Weaver, USA, 2016)

MADAME MACABRE TELLS A TERRIBLE TALE ABOUT RONGUES (Dir. Tracy Rosenblum, USA, 2017)

METAMORPHOSIS (Dir. Elaine Xia, USA/China, 2017)

HOME EDUCATION (Dir. Andrea Niada, UK, 2017)

CRESWICK (Dir. Natalie Erika James, Australia, 2016)

​Serial Killers

STRANGE AS ANGELS (Dir. Austin Elston, USA, 2017)

HOBBY SHOP (Dirs. Stephanie Liquorish & Isabel Stanfield, Australia, 2017)

MARTA (Dir. Lucia Forner Segarra, Spain, 2017)

DON'T EVER CHANGE (Dir. Don Swaynos, USA, 2017)

SHOES (Dir. Ray Kermani, Belgium, 2017)

FRY DAY (Dir. Laura Moss, USA, 2017)

The Woman and the Vampire with Sonia Lupher

What is the significance of the relationship between women and vampires? Whether they are fans, victims, or predators themselves, women enjoy a privileged erotic relationship to vampires onscreen, perhaps out of a perverse affinity to blood. 

Sonia Lupher from the University of Pittsburgh will explore these avenues with particular attention to the European vampire, spanning the 1930s with the Spanish Drácula (1931), the 1970s with Jesus Franco and Jean Rollin’s respective vampire exploitation films, and culminating with two Spanish short films directed by women: Jules D. by Norma Vila and Asuntos Domésticos by Alexia Muiños Ruiz.

Storyboarding with Elizabeth E. Schuch

Storyboarding is the art of pre-planning a film using a sequence of drawn or digitally constructed frames to help the creative and technical team visualise what the final film will look like. Especially when using visual effects and extensive post production, storyboards can be a time and cost saving tool to help get make the director’s vision come to like.  Making a storyboard is also a great way to hone your directing skills and share your ideas.

Director/designer Elizabeth E. Schuch has been working in London and internationally as a professional storyboard artist for 15 years, creative visuals for film (Wonder Woman, Pacific Rim 2), TV (BBC, History Channel, Discovery Channel) as well as live events (The Last Jedi London Premiere, The Kingsman London Premiere, TED Talks.) THE BOOK OF BIRDIE is her feature-length debut.

Filmmaker Panel

An array of filmmakers, who are screening their films throughout the festival, share insights into their experiences and creative processes. The audience has a chance to ask questions and engage in dialogues with filmmakers about the state of women in horror.

 

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