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Early in Mladen Djordjevic’s tragicomic satire, Working Class Goes To Hell, a young girl eats her lunch in the husk of a dead factory. A faded mural “Long Live Labour Day” peels off the burnt out walls above her. She eventually joins her union brethren outside protesting, by grabbing a sign with a picture of her dead mother to hold up for the TV cameras.You may think from this deliberate intro, that this is a kitchen-sink realism drama. You would be wrong. Those who might have encountered Djordjevic’s transgressively hilarious 2009 film, Life and Death of A Porno Gang, or wondered why this film was playing in the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness programme, might be hip to what is what. Indeed, here things...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

There’s an air of sad desperation that hangs over Working Class Goes to Hell. Things have been rough in this unnamed Serbian town since a fire at the May Day Factory killed nine people. And while the town’s wealthy elite, including a shady bar owner, organized crime boss Snowman, and even the corrupt mayor are all prospering, the titular working class are struggling to get by.

The film opens with Ceca (Tamara Krcunovic), an unofficial labour organizer, leading a protest outside the factory owner’s office. He’s plotting to open a new eco-incinerator that will supposedly bring jobs, prosperity, and attention to the region, but it’s clear that wealth won’t trickle down to those who need it.

In the meantime, the residents get by working shifts at the local tavern, becoming de facto sex workers at a new hotel, or engaging in long shot schemes...

"There's no turning back now." Something new from Serbia! TIFF has unveiled a festival promo trailer for a Serbian horror dark comedy called Working Class Goes To Hell, the second feature film by director Mladen Djordjevic. Sounds like something wacky and funny and weird and crazy. Here is the quick TIFF intro: "A small-town labor union turns to the dark arts for empowerment against the corrupt forces in their community in Mladen Đorđević’s timely and disturbing socio-horror satire." Essentially it's about a group of workers from a factory that has closed who decide to reach out to the supernatural in a struggle for personal dignity. They, of course, unleash mostly just madness. "One is reminded that sometimes the only salvation for the working class, besides solidarity, is a sharp sense of humor." The cast features Tamara Krcunovic, Leon Lucev, Ivan Djordjevic, Mirsad Tuka, Szilvia Krizsan, Lidija Kordic, and Momo Picuric.

Germany-based sales agent Patra Spanou Film has acquired rights to “Working Class Goes to Hell,” which will world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness strand.

Directed by Mladen Đorđević (“The Life and Death of a Porno Gang”), the film follows a group of ex-workers, who, after losing their loved ones, jobs, and dignity to a tragic factory fire and corrupt privatization, seek hope and justice in the supernatural.

The cast includes Tamara Krcunovic (“Humidity”), Leon Lucev (“The Load”), Momo Picuric, Ivan Djordjevic, Lidija Kordic, Mirsad Tuka, Szilvia Krizsan and Tomislav Trifunovic.

“Working Class Goes to Hell,” previously titled “Labour Day,” is supported by Film Center Serbia, Bulgarian National Film Centre, Greek Film Centre, Film Centre of Montenegro, Croatian Audiovisual Centre and Eurimages. The film is produced by Milan Stojanovic (Sense Production), Mladen Djordjevic (Banda), Martichka Bozhilova and Neda Milanova (Agitprop), Maria Drandaki (Homemade Films), Ivan Marinovic...

Glad

Written by Mladen Djordjevic

Directed by Mladen Djordjevic

2002, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

Exploration and ideas are at the core of Glad. This isn’t a film about shock and terror. Rather, Glad is a movie about the paths our mind can take. Some of those paths are truly horrific, and at times Glad gets deep into the rabbit holes that the human mind can wander along. The question to be asked of the film is whether or not it adequately explores said rabbit holes?

The answer to the above question isn’t easy. There are sequences in Glad that speak to a nightmare vision of the human mind. There is no happiness in life, no purity to be found. The reason for that is that we have a brain and our brain will either mess up our life or show us horrors we’d rather not see. At the...

Retrospective to include films from Danis Tanovic, Cristi Puiu, Mira Fornay and more.

A total of 50 films are to make up the retrospective Eastern Promises: Autobiography of Eastern Europe at the 62nd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 19-27).

The line-up includes movies produced since 2000 in the countries that lived under Soviet influence after the Second World War and include some that were never released theatrically in Spain.

Several directors of films in the retrospective will attend the festival to present their works including Sarunas Bartas (Lithuania), Kristina Buožytė (Lithuania), Marian Crisan (Romania), Mira Fornay (Slovakia), Bohdan Sláma (Czech Republic), Malgorzata Szumowska (Poland) and Anna Viduleja (Latvia).

A book will be published to accompany the retrospective with contributions from journalists and critics across Europe.

The titles are:

Kruh In Mleko / Bread And Milk

Jan Cvitkovic (Slovenia) 2001

A modern classic of Slovenian cinema, the tale of a man who went out for bread and milk and lost himself to alcohol...

Reviewer: James Van Maanen

Ratings (out of five): **** 1/2

What was I expecting from this Balkans movie? Something in the way of the infamous A Serbian Film: lots of transgression and sex, adding up to mostly slick/sick exploitation. There is a lot of transgression and sex in The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, the Serbian film from writer/director Mladen Djordjevic, but by the finale of this amazing movie, it has risen so far above mere exploitation that I think the word will no longer cross your mind.

In all the hubbub surrounding the release of A Serbian Film, Mladen Djordjevic's similarly explicit The Life and Death of a Porno Gang was unfairly overshadowed and passed along. Porno Gang is every bit as subversive and explicit as A Serbian Film, but, for my money, Porno Gang is a much better film in the accomplishing of its goals. Where A Serbian Film had to prove its worth at every step in order to be taken seriously, Porno Gang's thesis is much more clearly laid out. In spite of the equivalent levels of offensive material, I haven't really seen anyone go after Porno Gang for being purely exploitative, which is quite a feat considering its content.The Life and Death of a Porno Gang follows...

Here's a bit of news for fans of films that fall far outside the mainstream. On August 14th Synapse Films is releasing The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, a violent, gory, and thought-provoking film set during the final days of Slobodan Miloševic’s Serbian rule.

Synopsis:

A young film student named Marko becomes desperate to make a feature film. Finally getting a job as an adult film director, he quickly runs afoul of the mob and needs to get out of town fast. Assembling a traveling group of misfits into a “porno cabaret,” Marko and his new friends drive though the quiet countryside in a beat-up van performing live sex acts for peasants and farmers. But life is hard on the road, and they find it hard to earn enough money to survive.

Marko meets a shady snuff film producer who says they can make a lot more money shooting actual murders,...

Back in 2010, when everyone was flipping their lid over A Serbian Film, there was another little Serbian feature that went just as far, if not even further in the black heart of the post-Milosevic nation. The Life and Death of a Porno Gang comes to us from director Mladen Djordjevic, and for my money is an even more shocking assault on the nervous system than it's more notorious younger brother.I caught the film on Blu-ray from Germany's Bildstorung, however, it will be fantastic to have a more affordable domestic option when Synapse Films releases their edition this August. For those of you who thought that A Serbian Film was all sizzle and no steak, you may have met your match with The Life...

Destroy All Movies! That’s the cheeky theme to the 12th annual Melbourne Underground Film Festival, which will run on August 19-28.

Festival director Richard Wolstencroft lays out his philosophy for this year’s Muff in an excellent Director’s Statement, which is published in the fest’s program guide. He explains his provocative statement as thus:

“Destroy All Movies” can be taken as a query, a question and even a complaint about cinema itself. Most of us love movies. I still do, of course. I am obsessed by them as ever. Making, watching and showing them. But how often do we question our passion in this kind of ontological sense?

In that regard, Muff is a much more focused and scaled back event this year with less films screening, but with a tighter consideration of local talent, as well as a larger, more provocative stance as ever.

Muff has...

Fantaspoa 2011, billed as “the biggest fantastic film festival in Latin America”, is gearing up down in Brazil, with a whopping 150 films in its line-up, including 55 short films and 95 feature films. Director Rodrigo Aragao’s “The Night of the ChupaCabras” will open the festival, which will also feature the world premiere of Kapel Furman’s “Pólvora Negra (Black Gunpowder)”. And for you International horror fiends, Italian maestro of the horrific, Lamberto Bava will be honored with the festival’s Career Achievement Award. The Fest will run from July 2nd through July 17th, and you can get more details and ticketing info at the festival’s Official Site. The festival is separated into six different sections, including: Documentaries: 6 titles — Cropsey (Joshua Zeman, Barbara Brancaccio), Made in Serbia (Mladen Djordjevic) and The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry (Ángel Agudo). Action Films: 6 titles — Boy Wonder (Michael Morrissey), Mandrill (Ernesto Díaz Espinoza), Sinners & Saints (William Kaufman...

How to approach Mladen Djordjevic's first film, a documentary on the Balkan porn industry, in the wake of the current crop of transgressive cinema coming out Serbia? It is cheap and shoddy and experimental - pretty much a on-the-job-training-ground for the wonderful and excellent follow-up, The Life and Death of A Porno Gang which lifts the best and most interesting visuals and story elements to puts them in service of a vastly improved narrative and artistic framework. The eventual (hopefully soon) DVD release of latter by Synapse Films will have Made in Serbia included as a supplementary feature; and that is about right place for it. It is overreaching and unwieldy at times, but this 97 minute feature is not completely devoid of charms and insight.

Nenad Bekvalac is a Belgrade film critic with a bit of expertise on European porno films and, I guess, some free time on his...

Shock and awe filmmaking, if handled improperly, will most often net a final product that is shockingly awful. It’s happened before. And while this isn’t exactly the case with Mladen Djordjevic’s The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, it isn’t too far off the mark, either. The problem here isn’t the gratuitous nature of showing a traveling sex troupe and their misadventures in the backwoods of Serbia. It’s the earnest nature of the thing — the way it views itself (and the heavily adult imagery it creates) in such a hyper-serious way. The only problem is that there are only so many ways to make a deep, poignant moment in which a man fellates a horse. And this movie didn’t find any of them. I love Fantastic Fest for many reasons. Chief among them is the risks they take in programming. Last year saw Tim League and crew make a...

The 9th annual Lausanne Underground Film Festival may just run for a mere five days in Switzerland on Oct. 20-24, but it hits with the force of a 10p-ton megaton bomb over that time period, packing in so much mind-boggling underground madness it’ll make your head explode.

Every year, the fest feels like 5 or 6 festivals crammed into one. There’s the fest that pays homage to the history of experimental filmmaking, there are the retrospectives of several cult festivals, a feature film competition section, a short film competition section and more.

Three filmmakers are especially getting major retrospective love this year. First, there’s legendary Canadian experimental filmmaker Michael Snow who will be in attendance at screenings of his classic films Wavelength, <–> and La région centrale, plus several of his other short films.

Also being feted are German extreme horror filmmaker Jörg Buttgereit, who will attend screenings of his classic Nekromantik,...

The 2010 edition of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival has just announced their complete Noves Visions program. The program where the festival places the young, edgy material, this is the big discovery program of the festival. Here's the announcement!

Noves Visions, The Most Indie

And Daring Section At Sitges 2010

The 43rd Sitges - International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalonia, that will take place 7 to 17 October, presents its lineup for the Noves Visions section:

Noves Visions - FICCIÓ Section

Exploration of new territories in narration, placing emphasis on both thematic and formal aspects of films that are a vision of the present as well as a disturbing premonition of times to come.

A Horrible Way To Die (Adam Wingard, USA)

Chatroom (Hideo Nakata, UK)

Dispongo De Barcos (Juan Cavestany, Spain)

Earthling (Clay Liford, USA)

Everything Will Be Fine (Christoffer Boe, Denmark)

Finisterrae (Out of competition. Sergio Caballero, Spain)

Isolation (Stephen T. Kay,...

The 4th annual Sydney Underground Film Festival, which runs for three days on Sept. 9-11, will screen about 10 features from all over the world and a veritable ton of short films from even further out there.

The fest will open with the latest documentary by a Hollywood icon. It’s Oliver Stone’s South of the Border, which has the director meeting with South American politicians and dignitaries. (The film opened to mixed reviews here in the States earlier this year.) Also screening is Trash Humpers, the latest film by indie rabble-rouser Harmony Korine, which has been confounding audiences on the indie film fest circuit, and Gaspar Noe’s Enter the Void, which has been earning rave reviews.

The rest of the features in the lineup are an eclectic, oddball concoction, including Mladen Djordjevic‘s Serbian atrocity Life and Death of a Porno Gang, Victor Nieuwenhuijs and Maartje Seyferth’s twisted Netherlands tale Meat,...

As we end the Summer of 2010, we leave a series of box office bombs behind us, and look forward to an incredible film festival season this fall. With such film festivals as Toronto, New York, and Venice to look forward to, this year may still be saved for the cineastes of the world. One film festival in particular that may not be on your radar, but deserves to be placed alongside those others, is Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, taking place September 23-30.

Last month they announced their first wave of films (listed below), and this morning, they’ve announced their second wave, a total of 16 more films. It is an incredible line up of horror, martial arts, sci-fi, and other genre films. I’ve listed the films announced below, and while I won’t be able to make it to Austin next month to attend, I can tell you that if you are going,...

The 7th annual Atlanta Underground Film Festival is like having four different fests crammed into an exhaustive three days on Aug. 27-29. It’s an outrageous underground fest, an animation festival, a documentary fest and a horror movie festival: The culmination of a month of fests run by Atlanta’s Festival League. There’s tons of short films, documentaries, features and more.

There’s lots of great stuff to recommend, too. On the last night of the fest, there will be a screening of Chris Hansen‘s second feature film, Endings, which tells the touching story of three people spending their last day on Earth together. The film was reviewed on Bad Lit a few months ago. On the short film front, there’s Loretta Hintz‘s wild lesbian bestiality (sort of) tale, The Sheep and the Ranch Hand and two films by the perpetually awesome Neil Ira Needleman, Meeskit...

Toronto -- Yuya Ishii's Japanese chick flick "Sawako Decides" picked up the best feature prize at Montreal's Fantasia International Film Festival, which wrapped on the weekend.

The comedy about a young woman, played by Hikari Mitsushima, on her fifth job and her fifth year in Tokyo, bowed in Berlin and the New York Asian Film Festival before receiving its Canadian premiere in Montreal.

Mitsushima also earned the best actress trophy at the Montreal genre festival for her star-turn in "Sawako Decides."

Fantasia also gave a special jury prize to South Korean writer-director Lee Hae-jun's "Castaway on the Moon," a romantic comedy about a man stranded on an island within Seoul.

The Montreal jury also gave the best actor award to Noah Taylor for his performance in Simon Rumley's "Red, White & Blue," while the best director prize went to South Korea's Lee Jun-ik for "Blades of Blood."

Other Fantasia prize...

You might have noticed the coverage of this years ultra-sized Fantasia film festival in the Reviews and Interviews column of the site from a number of contributors taking in the festival:  Mack, Shelagh, Peter, Todd, and myself, as well as a plethora of other Twitch writers hither and yon.  Covering a festival of this size is a massive undertaking and I hope you enjoyed all the updates, interviews, and reviews.  Rest assured there are still a few more to come.  As Fantasia winds down with a screening of Metropolis Extended Edition and full orchestra, it seems to have been a raging success this year across the board.  The festival announced its Jury and Audience awards, and they are below.  It seems that the Subversive Serbia sidebar was a big hit, with controversial A Serbian Film getting one of the big audience awards.

Montreal, Wednesday, July 28, 2010 - As the 14th edition...

The Dead Movie Still 2010

Fantastic Fest 2010 is taking place in Austin, Texas beginning September 23 and this film festival lasts one week. This event hosts some of the finest in film, from horror to sci-fi and even some fantasy is thrown in. This year Fantastic Fest has announced the first thirteen films in the line-up and this year's event will show some of Asia's most horrifying, while offering a quaint tale of a "psychokinetic automobile tire" in Rubber (Fantastic). Have a look at the first wave of cinema for Fantastic Fest here and inside.

Bedevilled (2010)

Director: Cheol-soo Jang, South Korea, 115 minutes

"If you beat, brutalize, dehumanize and torment a country girl for her entire life, take note: when she reaches the breaking point, you’d best hide the farm implements" (Fantastic).

Corridor Movie Still

Corridor (2009)

Directors: Johan Lundborg and Johan Storm, Sweden, 80 min

"Lonely medical student Frank is pleased with his flat,...

We all love our horror film festivals and today Fantastic Fest 2010 announced the first wave line up including the film Rubber aka the crazy tire that rolls around and kills people! I have to see this movie!

From the Press Release:

Fantastic Fest 2010 Announces

First Wave Of Film Programming

World Renowned Film Festival Features Indie and Major Studio Releases

Austin, TX---Tuesday, July 20, 2010--- Fantastic Fest is proud to announce our first wave of programming for the sixth edition of Fantastic Fest, happening September 23-30 in Austin, Texas.

This batch of 13 feature films includes bloody revenge from Korea and Australia, South African and German zombies, Swedish musical terrorists, a renaissance of action heroes from Hong Kong, more disturbing images from Serbia, aging Yakuza from Japan and a psychokinetic automobile tire from France.

Fantastic Fest is scouring the globe for the very best in action, horror, science fiction, fantasy to the truly...

If you were among the hundreds of people who were shut out of screenings of the film Rubber at the Fantasia film fest (or the thousands of us who didn't even make it up to Canada in the first place), then quite possibly a trip to Austin, Texas, is in your future as the flick has just shown up on the first wave of programming for the sixth edition of Fantastic Fest, happening September 23rd-30th.

Thirteen films are listed in the first press release for the Fest, and we're including them all here, even if a few aren't strictly horror, just to give you an idea of how truly diverse Fantastic Fest is:

This batch includes bloody revenge from Korea and Australia, South African and German zombies, Swedish musical terrorists, a renaissance of action heroes from Hong Kong, more disturbing images from Serbia, aging Yakuza from Japan and a psychokinetic automobile tire from France.

By Sean O’Connell

Hollywoodnews.com: With the majority of the film community turning its collective attentions to San Diego for the brewing publicity storm that is Comic-Con, the good folks at Fantastic Fest in Austin have decided to steal a little thunder of their own by announcing the first wave of programming.

The sixth edition of Fantastic Fest, which describes itself as a film festival with the boring parts cut out, is scheduled for Sept. 23-30 in Austin, Texas. The fest will include:

Bedevilled (2010)

Director: Cheol-soo Jang, South Korea, 115 minutes

If you beat, brutalize, dehumanize and torment a country girl for her entire life, take note: when she reaches the breaking point, you’d best hide the farm implements.

Corridor (2009)

Directors: Johan Lundborg & Johan Storm, Sweden, 80 min

Lonely medical student Frank is pleased with his flat, a quiet place to focus on his coming exams. But when he meets the girl upstairs,...

Austin, TX's Fantastic Fest, the country's largest genre film celebration and a self-described "film festival with the boring parts cut out," has announced the first part of this year's program. Highlights include haunted tire saga turned surprise Cannes hit "Rubber," zombie movies from Berlin ("Rammbock") and Africa ("The Dead") and Takeshi Kitano's return to the gangster flick "Outrage."

Here's the line-up so far (descriptions courtesy of the festival):

Bedevilled (2010)

Director: Cheol-soo Jang, South Korea, 115 minutes

If you beat, brutalize, dehumanize and torment a country girl for her entire life, take note: when she reaches the breaking point, you'd best hide the farm implements.

Corridor (2009)

Directors: Johan Lundborg & Johan Storm, Sweden, 80 min

Lonely medical student Frank is pleased with his flat, a quiet place to focus on his coming exams. But when he meets the girl upstairs, his peace and quiet, his sanity and possibly even his life become jeopardized.

It's almost time again for Fantastic Fest and the first titles have been announced which includes a bunch of films we've chanpioned and are excited to see. This includes, but is not limited to:

Corridor A Swedish mystery thriller.

The Dead The zombie apocalypse in the desert! Yes!

and the one I'm most excited for is the German zombie flick Rammbock!

Full list after the break.

Bedevilled (2010)

Director: Cheol-soo Jang, South Korea, 115 minutes

If you beat, brutalize, dehumanize and torment a country girl for her entire life, take note: when she reaches the breaking point, you'd best hide the farm implements.

Corridor (2009)

Directors: Johan Lundborg & Johan Storm, Sweden, 80 min

Lonely medical student Frank is pleased with his flat, a quiet place to focus on his coming exams. But when he meets the girl upstairs, his peace and quiet, his sanity and his possibly even his life become jeopardized.

The Dead...

This year’s Fantasia is taking a while to get off the ground horror-wise, and it wasn’t until the second evening of the festival that we saw the first real horror related film of this year’s program, the documentary Herschell Gordon Lewis - The Godfather of Gore (review here).

The movie was thoroughly entertaining, containing tons of stories straight from Herschell, his collaborators, and high profile fans such as John Waters and Joe Bob Briggs. The screening was attended by the filmmaking team, Jimmy Maslon, Mike Vraney, and the always hilarious and informative Frank Henenlotter. The man himself, H.G. Lewis was also on hand to answer questions, and lead the Fantasia audience through a rollicking rendition of the 2000 Maniacs theme song! Yeeeeee-Haw!

Saturday was the first of many full-day movie watching sessions, and included the Greek zombie apocalypse flick Evil in the Time of Heroes, dysfunctional British family crime comedy Down Terrace,...

[Bring on the Serbian insanity with its special programme at Fantasia this year!   In light of this, Ard's thorough review of most definitely Nsfw The Life and Death of a Porno Gang shall be bumped back to the top of the page for your consideration.]

Is Serbia about to become the new Korea?  The question seems preposterous but a close look at recent festivals reveals a surprising number of hard-hitting genre films which are either gobsmackingly beautiful (like "Tears For Sale") or painfully shocking (like "A Serbian Film"). Films where creators are constantly able and willing to "think out-of-the-box", without forgetting to couple strong content to a strong message. And even the last time a Serbian movie did not manage to enthrall me (which was "Devil's Town") I could not deny that it looked competently made with pleasing production values.

So with that in mind I went to see "Life and Death of a Porno Gang" at the Imagine Festival in Amsterdam. And guess what? It's again a pretty strong film, shocking, funny and surprisingly well-made for all of its grungyness...

It is 2001 during the final days of Milosevic' government. Film student Marko dreams of...

One of the cooler and sicker things to check in addition to the premiere of A Serbian Film at the Fantasia Film Festival 2010 is their Subversive Serbia Film Spotlight and we have got some stills from three of the films that will be weirding up the big screen!

A Holy Place Fantasia Description

"This is the version of Nikolai Gogol's short story “Viy” that foreign audiences have barely ever seen—most have probably never heard of it. Unlike the rather benign Russian fantasy Viy (1967), the Serbian version is definitively for adults, in terms of both erotic and horrific content. The story is still about a reluctant theology student forced to spend three nights in a row locked in a spooky church, reading the Psalms over the (un)dead girl. All the while, supernatural forces are trying to grab him from the holy circle drawn on the floor. Gogol's half-humorous...

Several press releases went out today featuring some huge news coming out of Canada's Fantasia Film Festival including the first batch of films that will be populating this massive three-week long event. Pull up your chair, kids! You're gonna be here for a while!

Dig on the wealth of information below from today's releases and look for more announcements and of course full coverage soon!

Spotlight: Between Death And The Devil

Recent times and crimes have seen extraordinary levels of disillusionment with organized religion, particularly with the Catholic Church, and genre cinema has mirrored this anger with startling impact. In the face of this, we’ve put together this troubling spotlight focused on the abuse of faith, the horrors of ideology and the corruption of Godliness. Several of these films will absolutely stagger you.

Black Death (UK) Dir: Christopher Smith – North American premiere. Hosted by Director Christopher Smith

With the Black Death sweeping across England,...

You want the best of genre film from Canada, the Us and around the globe? Fantasia is the place.

Montreal, June 29, 2010 - For its fourteenth edition, the Fantasia Film Festival is proud to present over 50 titles from Asia. Once again, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China are widely represented, demonstrating the great quality and diversity of their industries. And, as always, the programming team is also dedicated to exposing several hidden gems hailing from emerging national cinemas. Through these, audiences can discover new visions and new sensibilities. Therefore, the public will be privy to works hailing from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and - a first for the festival - Indonesia. The filmic multicultural feast prepared by the 2010 Fantasia Film Festival promises to satisfy film lovers of all kinds.

Fantasia's 2010 occidental lineup of World Cinema is once again on fire with an astounding kaleidoscope of styles and sensibilities.

The Fantasia 2010 announcement onslaught continues ...

Montreal, June 29, 2010. Serbia's terrifying recent history has birthed a confrontational new generation of filmmakers who are using the medium to express their wounded psyches in ways the Western World can barely get its head around. Our spotlight, which we are calling Subversive Serbia showcases the key entries in this intelligently transgressive and politically-charged filmmaking scene. We're also going to showcase a string of retro Serbian genre films never before screened here, programmed in association with Dejan Ognjanovic and the Belgrade Cinematheque.

Beyond the screenings, Mr. Ognjanovic will be presenting a multimedia presentation and panel discussion - An Introduction To Serbian Horror Cinema - where he will be joined by the makers of many of the films showcased in our spotlight.

Your eyes are about to be opened. Wide.

"The voices emerging from the new wave of independent Serbian cinema are some of the rawest and...

Really, is there a trailer category above "red-band"? We might need it...

 

Through the site of the Imagine Festival (formerly known as the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival) I learned about the trailer for the Serbian shocker "Life and Death of a Porno Gang".

 

With a title like that, you will Not be surprised that this trailer is nowhere near to be considered "Safe For Work". What might surprise you though is exactly how much Nsfw this one is. We have rampant nudity, inserts of hardcore, bestiality and let's not forget the poor guy who gets beheaded with a chainsaw. You have been warned.

What might also surprise you though is that the film itself is actually pretty good. Looking at both this and "A Serbian Film" you might be forgiven for thinking this was just a national match about who could fit the highest number of shocking images in a film,...

The 7th annual Calgary Underground Film Festival is ready to start off with a bang this year on April 12 and then continue through to April 18. Opening night will see the results of the festival’s wildly popular 48-hour Movie Making Challenge, where registered teams were given a genre, a prop and a line of dialogue; then sent out to craft perfect cinematic masterpieces in just two short days.

Then, the rest of the fest is dedicated to some of the wildest films made in both the fest’s home country of Canada and from around the world, including Indonesia, Serbia, the UK and the U.S.

If you’re attending the festival, there’s one incredibly fun documentary you need to see: Michael Petersen’s Eddies: The Documentary, about the craziest beer commercial-making competition in the world — that happens to take place right in Calgary every year! Petersen profiled several...

The 12th annual Boston Underground Film Festival, which began on March 25 and ends on April 1, has released their list of award winners for this year that also includes Buff’s first ever lifetime achievement award.

There are six winners, listed below, in the categories of narrative, documentary, short, director’s choice and the always popular Most Effectively Offensive, which had some real competition this year thanks to the fest’s concentration on exploitation, or “grindhouse,” films for this edition. The winners are:

Best of Fest Narrative

Red White & Blue, dir. Simon Rumley

Best of Fest Documentary

It Came From Kuchar, dir. Jennifer M. Kroot

Best of Fest Short

Happily Ever After, dir. Jamie Heinrich

Director’s Choice

Someone’s Knocking at the Door, dir. Chad Ferrin

Most Effectively Offensive

The Life and Death of a Porno Gang, dir. Mladen Djordjevic

Lifetime Achievement Award

Mink Stole

The Best of Fest winners...

The teasing is over! This here is the real deal. The moment we wait all year for: The lineup for the powerful, the mighty Boston Underground Film Festival, which is set to run March 25 to April 1. Now in its 12th year, Buff shows no sign of slowing down or taking it easy. In fact, this might be their most demented and transgressive edition yet.

There are homages to Giallo horror, tributes to the grand grindhouse tradition of sleaze and exploitation, sex and violence galore — both separately and together — plus, a resurrected ’80s slasher classic that all combine into an epic celebration of everything that is vicious and twisted in this world. But, in a fun way, ya know.

Alas, I haven’t seen any of the feature films that are playing this year, so I can’t offer any special recommendations of those. Although, there are many (most) that I...

Though Montreal's Fantasia Festival normally waits another month or two before announcing any titles this year they're jumping to it early with an announcement of their first spotlight program. And get ready because they're bringing A Serbian Film to Canada and it's bringing along some friends ... read on!

A Serbian Film to have its Canadian Premiere at the Fantasia Film Festival as part of scorching "Subversive Serbia" spotlight.

March 9, 2010

The Fantasia Film Festival has announced a first slice of programming for its 2010 event. Subversive Serbia: a spotlight on the blistering new wave of confrontational  and edgy Serbian cinema.

At this early stage, the festival can announce only an initial trio of titles: Srdjan Spasojevic's A Serbian Film (Srpski Film), which is about to have its North American premiere at SXSW, Mladen Djordjevic's  Raindance hit The Life And Death Of A Porno Gang (Zivot i smrt porno bande) and,...

The Fantasia Film Festival has announced the first slice of programming for its 2010 event. Subversive Serbia: a spotlight on the blistering new wave of confrontational and edgy Serbian cinema. One of the first titles announced is Srdjan Spasojevic's controversial flick A Serbian Film (Srpski Film) which is having its world premiere at SXSW next week. Hit the jump for a sneak peek at what else the 2010 Fantasia Film Festival has in store for you. In addition to A Serbian Film (Srpski Film) , Mladen Djordjevic's  Raindance hit The Life and Death of a Porno Gang (Zivot i smrt porno bande) and, making its long awaited Montreal debut, Uros Stojanovic's Tears for Sale...

The first sliver of programming news came in today for the 2010 Fantasia Film Festival, and as always Canada's premier festival looks to deliver a heaping helping of the kind of flicks we love to watch!

From the Press Release

The Fantasia Film Festival has announced a first slice of programming for its 2010 event, Subversive Serbia: a spotlight on the blistering new wave of confrontational and edgy Serbian cinema.

At this early stage the festival can announce only an initial trio of titles: Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film (Srpski Film), which is about to have its world premiere at SXSW, Mladen Djordjevic’s Raindance hit The Life And Death Of A Porno Gang (Zivot i smrt porno bande) and, making its long awaited Montreal debut, Uros Stojanovic’s Tears For Sale (Carlston za ognjenku), an adored selection at the Toronto International Film Festival, co-written by A Serbian Film screenwriter Aleksandar Radivojevic.

Last week, Bad Lit had the exclusive news about the first picks of the 12th annual Boston Underground Film Festival, including Opening Night film Love Exposure (Ai no mukidashi). This week, I have a couple more selections to add to the list, including the Closing Night film.

The Closing Night film is one we’re especially excited about here at Bad Lit. It’s the first feature film from notorious underground filmmakers Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani called Amer. I’ve reviewed a pair of Cattet and Forzani’s earlier short films, La Fin de Notre Amour and Catharsis, which appeared on DVDs from Montreal’s Cinema Abattoir, the world’s finest purveyor of transgressive filmmaking. Those two short films are a pair of devastatingly brutal and violent — and beautiful — works of art.

Amer is about a young woman with strangely erotic and violent fantasies. The trailer doesn’t give much away,...

[Just when you thought the onslaught of Year End lists had come to an end here comes another.  We welcome Mitch Davis - head of International Programming at Montreal's Fantasia Festival and a very good friend to this site - with his year end wrap up.]

Ignore the grumpy naysayers who groan that 2009 was a weak year for world cinema. Nothing could be further from the truth.  Below are my top 11 picks, personal favourites among favourites (a top 30 list would have been unwieldy!). It bears mentioning that at the time of this writing, I've not yet seen The White Ribbon, Mother, Il Divo, Symbol, Vermillion Souls or Accident, to name but a few. In other words, this list, like all lists, is an incomplete snapshot.

11. In The Loop

If there was a funnier film this year, I must have missed it. Subversive, acerbic and gut-wrenchingly hilarious, like Dr Strangelove meets The Office. Incredible.

10. Drag Me To Hell

Sam Raimi's volume-eleven return to the genre is everything much of us had been hoping for: a grossout EC-comic rollercoaster that combines Grand Guignol horror, loopy wide-eyed humour and extreme physical trauma to make an epic of morbidly...

Year: 2009

Directors: Mladen Djordjevic

Writers: Mladen Djordjevic

IMDb: link

Trailer: link (Nsfw)

Review by: Dejan Ognjanovic

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

[Editor's note: Reposted from Dejan's blog The Temple of Ghoul]

Here is a film from Serbia which succeeds to be shocking and original: Zivot i smrt porno bande (The Life and Death of a Porn Gang, 2009), a debut feature by Mladen Djordjevic. He became known among horror fans with his short films Zivi mrtvaci (The Living Dead, 2000) and Glad (Hunger, 2002) and he earned a wider acclaim with his feature-length documentary about Serbian porn industry, Made in Serbia (2005). These concerns logically continue with his …Porn Gang.

The film deals with an aspiring filmmaker, Marko, who is unable to pursue a career in horror films. He ventures into the porn industry, but his unorthodox style fails to impress producers. Frustrated, he assembles a crew of junkies, homosexuals and transvestites and starts a traveling live porn show. It draws attention of the suspicious police,...