Splat!FilmFest On Tour. Three Films, Ten Cities, No Holds Barred
Some film festivals like to play by the rules. Splat!FilmFest is definitely not one of them. One of the world’s leading festivals of new genre cinema is hitting the road for the first time ever. As part of Splat!FilmFest On Tour, the festival will visit nine cities across Poland, bringing three films from this year’s programme: a horror that sinks its claws deep into the audience’s soul, a bold piece of Polish genre cinema, and a black comedy where gruesome horror meets outrageous laughter.
These three films perfectly capture the spirit of Splat!FilmFest: uncompromising, surprising and constantly pushing the boundaries between beauty, weirdness and genuine unease.
The first is the festival’s opening film, the Danish “No Rest for the Wicked”. Visually stunning yet utterly merciless, it is a story in which love emerges as a primal force, while breathtaking fjords provide the backdrop for a tale of attachment, obsession and horror.
Audiences outside Warsaw will also get to see “ÒPI”, an extraordinary Polish film that barges its way into the country’s genre cinema and immediately pushes a few boundaries. It has a distinctly folkloric atmosphere and an audacity that Polish screens have sorely needed. Above all, though, it delivers a kind of fear that lingers long after the credits roll. The story follows a young woman planning to escape her family home and get away from her deeply devout mother. But before she can put her plan into action, two mysterious relatives arrive unannounced. Their visit quickly turns an apparently ordinary situation into a nightmare. The film stars Wiktoria Kruszczyńska, Magdalena Boczarska, Gabriela Muskała and Iwona Bielska.
The third pick is “Big Break”: a gruesome thriller crossed with a hysterically funny black comedy. A group of comedians find themselves up against a serial killer. Who will have the last laugh? The film comes from New York-based comedy collective Simple Town, whose members are travelling to Poland especially for the screenings, as well as live performances at Teatr Humory.
The main edition of Splat!FilmFest will take place from October 22 to 31. The programme features nearly 100 films, most of them festival discoveries, European premieres and Polish premieres. The festival will also welcome more than 60 guests, including legends and some of the most important contemporary genre filmmakers from around the world.
Splat!FilmFest On Tour will stop in nine cities: Białystok (Kino Forum), Bydgoszcz (Kino Orzeł), Gdynia (Gdyńskie Centrum Filmowe), Katowice (Kino Kosmos), Kraków (Kino Mikro), Łódź (Kino Charlie), Poznań (Kino Pałacowe), Szczecin (Kino Pionier) and Wrocław (Dolnośląskie Centrum Filmowe).