german premiere

fresh blood

sweetness

After a concert by her favorite band, 16-year-old Rylee is hit by a car driven by none other than the band's singer, Payton — her absolute crush! He drives her home but passes out on the way. Rylee knows she is the only one who can help him get off drugs. So she chains him up in the basement of the empty house next door. Emma Higgins' dark and captivating thriller SWEETNESS is a kind of MISERY for a new generation.

german premiere

fresh blood

slanted

A long time ago, Joan came with her parents from China to the U.S. She has long since become an average high school girl, who dreams of winning the crown of prom queen. But her competition seems unbeatable: popular, perfect, and above all, white. What begins as a coming-of-age satire becomes a dark vision of the future: in Amy Wang's science fiction scenario, surgical self-optimization has become the norm.

german premiere

fresh blood

roqia

After an accident, Ahmed returns home completely bandaged and having lost his memory. A voice in a foreign language begins to whisper to him, and a dark secret from the past comes to the surface. Thirty years later, two experienced exorcists are confronted with a series of cases of violence. With his feature film debut, Yanis Koussim develops his own unique vision of the exorcism genre: eerie, fascinatingly different, and brimming with mysticism.

german premiere

fresh blood

fear good

the home (hemmet)

Joel returns to his difficult childhood house to help his mother Monika move to a care home. The old woman had a seven-minute trip to the afterlife due to a heart attack! This changed her in a strange way. Suddenly, she knows well-kept secrets of people around her – and begins to torment everyone. THE HOME is an atmospheric ghost movie with surprising twists that takes a haunting look at the everyday horror of getting older.

centerpiece

german premiere

exit 8

An anonymous office worker exits the subway and heads toward “Exit 8.” But something feels off. No matter how hard he tries, he seems trapped in a maze of endless, identical corridors. Then he notices signs on the wall: Level Zero. Level One. Level Two. And ... back to the beginning. Genki Kawamura’s film adaptation of the indie game hit "The Exit 8" is a dark and unsettling paranoia thriller set in a purgatory-like world of looping dread and disorientation.

german premiere

fear good

dog of god

A perpetually furious priest rules with the power of a straw from Jesus’ manger. When the holy relic goes missing, he accuses the local tavern owner — after all, isn’t she a witch? A werewolf carrying the devil’s testicles completes the picture. After FLOW, DOG OF GOD once again showcases the power of Latvian animation.

We start with the short film STRANGER’S DREAMS OF DEATH by Jelizaveta Averko.

german premiere

code 3

“Your job sucks!” says the new trainee after just a few hours on the road with paramedics Randy and his driver buddy Mike. The duo knows everything about their miserably underpaid profession — and yet, the next 24-hour shift will be a tough one. THE OFFICE star Rainn Wilson plays a cynical representative of a broken healthcare system in this crude dark comedy, full of absurd incidents, nasty accidents and ungrateful patients.

screen legends

angel’s egg

A pale girl with white hair and sad eyes wanders through the deserted streets of a decaying future world. She carries an egg the size of a human head — what grows inside remains her secret. Mamoru Oshii, best known for GHOST IN THE SHELL and its Palme d’Or-nominated sequel, is the mind behind this early masterpiece. It’s a shame that ANGEL’S EGG was never properly released outside of Asia — now is the time to finally discover it with us.

director’s spotlight

german premiere

fear good

the piano accident

THE PIANO ACCIDENT is a grotesque media satire and a bitterly evil commentary on today’s society, positioning itself somewhere between AMERICAN PSYCHO and SICK OF MYSELF. Director Quentin Dupieux stays true to his style: directing, writing, cinematography, and music, all from one source, all completely crazy. After murderous tires, talking leather jackets, and mutant flies, now we have an influencer who strives for self-destruction. The pain is real. Maybe. And there's definitely no shortage of blood.

german premiere

other

After her tyrannical mother’s sudden, brutal death, Alice returns to the abandoned family home. But something is watching: an elaborate surveillance system tracks her every move. Haunted by noises, voices, and shadows, she must face her traumatic past. MADS director David Moreau delivers a gripping psychological horror starring Marvel’s Olga Kurylenko.

Short film COME AND FIND ME by Carmine Carpenito: A boy is asked for help by the ghost of his dead mother.