red rooms

Kim (16), Justine (14) and Camille (13) are dead. Kidnapped, tortured, sexually abused and dismembered, they found their bestial end on the darknet in front of the cameras. Months later, their presumed tormentor is on trial: with an emotionless expression and behind safety glass, Ludovic Chevalier attends the prosecutor's disturbing deployment of the evidences and stares at the traumatized relatives. His lawyer pleads "not guilty". Two young women are captivated by the "Demon of Rosemont"’s trial as well: Clémentine, who is ardently defending Chevalier in front of the camera, has fallen in love with him. Kelly-Anne, a model and hacker, becomes even more consumed by her curiosity about what has probably happened in Chevalier's "Red Rooms."

RED ROOMS leaves no one cold, makes you angry, speechless and sticks to you long after the credits have rolled. This sensitive, never lurid psychological thriller is celebrating one festival success after another, and quite rightly so.

nightwatch: demons are forever

The courageous medical student Emma works as a night watchwoman at the forensic institute. The job pays well. Secretly, however, she hopes to find out more about her troubled family history. It was here that her parents once just barely escaped the serial killer Wörmer – a trauma that they never got over. In fact, there are plenty of gruesome details circulating at the institute about the crimes committed in the morgue. But the most explosive discovery: Wörmer is not dead, as Emma assumed, but is living in an asylum nearby. This awakens in the young woman the obsessive idea of meeting the perverse murderer who scalps his victims. At the same time, the neighbourhood is once again shaken by a series of mysterious deaths...

Ole Bornedal once more presents Scandinavian thriller fare at its eeriest: the dark corridors and tiled autopsy rooms full of corpses in glaring neon light are the perfect setting for his horror scenario with a top cast.

hundreds of beavers

If he only had taken better care of his apple distillery! He wouldn't have to fight through the deep snow completely penniless. But Jean Kayak knows how to help himself: He becomes a fur hunter! And with the help of ingenious traps, he messes with sarcastic raccoons, gay hares and hundreds of beavers. If only the man-sized animals weren't much cleverer than him...

Staple your eyelids to your foreheads, because blinking is forbidden during the 108 crazy minutes of this visual madness. It feels as if Buster Keaton, Monty Python animation genius Terry Gilliam, the chaos troupe of the Looney Tunes and Wes Anderson, the grand master of eccentric humour, had joined forces to a veritable frenzy of brilliantly absurd gags. The award-winning live-action cartoon amazes, enraptures, irritates, makes you laugh out loud and leaves you in delight. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson also get involved.

amelia’s children

Thanks to a DNA test, Edward, who grew up in an orphanage, finally learns the truth about his bio- logical family. With his girlfriend Ryley he heads to rural Portugal to meet it. The huge mansion, in which his sickish old mother and his twin brother live, quickly turns out to be a dark labyrinth in which the past is more present than ever. But only Ryley seems to notice the increasingly bizarre behaviour of Edward's relatives and their almost manic cheerfulness. Worried, she investigates and discovers long-buried secrets told reluctantly by the villagers.

Director Gabriel Abrantes has closely studied his role models. In this atmospheric homage to classic European genre cinema, he renounces to cheap special effects and jump scares, and uses instead a sophisticated interplay between camera, lighting and bloody, grotesque masks to create a shocker that literally gets under your skin.

when evil lurks

Superstition is deeply rooted in the Argentinian province. For the brothers Pedro and Jimi, it leads to naked panic when they find a horribly disfigured man in their immediate neighbourhood, rotting alive in his bed. He must be possessed by a demon! But how do you get rid of the bloodthirsty creature from the depths of hell when seven strict rules make any inter- vention impossible and the appointed exorcist lies torn to pieces in the bushes? Their desperate attempt to avert evil leads to disaster. Because it knows no mercy, with nothing and no one.

Demián Rugna already taught us about horror with TERRIFIED. Now he has surpassed himself in terms of terror, violence, paranoia and nerve-wracking suspense and fills big footsteps: the demon classic THE EXORCIST made the audience ran out of the cinema in shock, while others fainted. WHEN EVIL LURKS also has what it takes to do so. The inter- national festival hit already has cult status!

we are zombies

The "Living Impaired," as the official term for zombies is, are quite docile. They don't want blood, guts, or living brains; they just want to be treated as equal members of society. However, the hurdles are numerous, and there is also a large corporation that conducts secret and dubious experiments. After TURBO KID and SUMMER OF 84, the director trio RKSS returns with their own wacky zombie cinema feast.

closing night

vermin

Because of a glitch in the power supply, one of Kaleb's most venomous and aggressive spider species escapes. It spreads unnoticed at first, but then a strange death is recorded, triggering a cascade of events with a brutal outcome. Sébastien Vaniček's creature horror film with quick-witted lines, French rap music, and a talented young cast will not only test arachnophobes but will have you scratching you for quite some time.

fresh blood

birth/rebirth

Rose works as a pathologist in a hospital. Socially awkward, it is only science that awakens her interest in bodily processes. Celie works as a midwife in the same hospital. When her infant daughter suddenly dies and the body Rose was autopsying disappears, she discovers that Rose is secretly experimenting with reanimating the dead. A pig has already been successfully revived, and the girl is the first successful attempt on a human. The two women decide to make a pact, but the price is high.

Director Laura Moss manages to turn familiar genre tropes into a powerful vision of her own, a horror thriller that literally gets under your skin and makes you uncomfortable, yet remains stylish despite all the gore. As Rose, Marin Ireland is astonishing in her radical interpretation of the mad scientist.

„science fiction hinterfragt!“

archive

"Science Fiction Scrutinised" is the motto of an exciting and educational film evening organised in cooperation with the Stiftung Planetarium Berlin. ARCHIVE (2020) starring Theo James (White Lotus/Divirgent) will be shown in the cinema of the Zeiss Planetarium. After the screening, we will discuss with social scientist Dr. Dierk Spreen and Dr. Jürgen Rienow, Head of Production at the Planetarium Berlin Foundation, whether the content of the film is more "science" or "fiction".

About the film: George, a robotics engineer, has been given three years by his company to develop the next level of artificial intelligence in a strictly isolated laboratory. After two less than successful prototypes, which have been his only companions during the project, he is now on the verge of a breakthrough for J3: an android with real feelings, consciousness and memories.