Can’t believe it’s almost that time of year again! The GFF programme launches this Wednesday and I am super psyched. Already got my tickets to the Opening Gala – woohoo! This year it’s Girl, the first feature by Adura Onashile, who did the excellent short Expensive Shit, and starring Deborah Lukumuena, from the The Braves and Robust. Can’t wait! Plus, the Opening Gala soiree is back, and I’m gonna put my hands to those canapes like old friends I haven’t seen since the pandemic.
Frightfest is back too, and the line-up promises weirdness. The trailer Smoking Causes Coughing opens on a repulsive and tatty rat puppet in the type of superhero outfit you’d see from the 70s, and it only gets stranger from there. The members of Tobacco Force are sent away on a team-building retreat, to mixed results. All star cast, with Gilles Lellouche from Kompromat, Vincent Lacoste from The Green Perfume and Lost Illusions, Anais Demoustier from Anais In Love, and Belgian national treasure Benoit Poelvoorde, from My Father’s Stories and The Brand New Testament.
Irati also looks amazing. An atmospheric folktale from the director of The Devil and the Blacksmith, Irati tells the story of an early Christian nobleman seeking the help of the pagan peasant girl who was his childhood friend, and going a journey that is action, adventure, fantasy and myth all wrapped into one. Looks ace!
Mother Superior sees a woman take the job as nurse to an elderly lady tucked away in an old manor house as a pretext to getting at the birth records she believes are stored in her archives. Marrying Nazi occultism to their eugenics breeding program, the film gives strong Lovecraft vibes of fearing what lies in your bloodline.
Plus a whole host more of nunsploitation, splatstick, slashers, possessions, and die-for-internet foot footage goodies! So excited!