10th Grossmann Fantastic Film and Wine Festival is already in full effect. Enchanted Cinema, our new program section, is opening its door for the very first time, inviting all kids and parents to the screening of British animated hit film Chicken Run by Peter Lord and Nick Park.
In our main competition program Vicious Cat we present three ferocius films today. First of them will be Serbian fantastic horror Nymph which has just recently won the Audience Award at Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival. The screening will be attended by director Milan Todorović, our last year's short film jury president and author of the first ex-Yu zombie film Zone of the Dead, producer Marko Jocić and actor Dragan Mićanović. Nymph also features legendary Italian actor Franco Nero, our last year's guest of honour, and it is a great pleasure to say that this collaboration was arranged right here in Ljutomer.
Open Air Cinema will be terrorized by today's second Vicious Cat candidate, explosive German thriller The Samurai, in which a young village policeman must face an ominous stranger wearing a woman's dress, wielding a samurai sword, and spreading destruction and death. The film was financed by Indiegogo campaign and has already won Melies d'Argent award at Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival. Screning will be attended by writer / director Till Kleinert. He already made a name for himself with three award-winning short films that he made during his studies. The Samurai is his first feature film and his diploma film at the same time.
The third Vicious Cat contender will be Irish supernatural horror The Canal, directed by Ivan Kavanagh, a macabre tale of a film archivist who learns that his home was the site of a brutal series of murders many years ago. Did you think that new horror movies cannot terrify you anymore? With its masterfully crafted atmosphere, deliberate pace and extemely creepy visuals, The Canal will teach you how to fear again.
Our Shock Doc section will send shivers down your spine with documentary On Tender Hooks, directed by Kate Shenton who spent a year following diferent individuals and groups who hang themselves on hooks, transforming their bodies into bizzare art pieces that defy logic and challenge the most hardened of people's perceptions. The film depicts a wide variety of experience and opinions, and delves thoughtfully into this deeply misunderstood and exciting practice, showing how the ordinary human body can achieve extraordinary things.
Medieval TV drama A Miracle, featuring an ill nobleman going alone against a pack of bandits, will be the first film screened in our Retrospective section, dedicated to this year's guest of honour, Serbian director Djordje Kadijević.
We will find out that evil has no boundaries in British zombie horror The Dead 2: India by the Ford Brothers. Following the immense succes of its predecessor which dealt with the outbreak of zombie epidemic in Africa, The Dead 2 follows an American turbin engineer Nicholas who has to battle his way across three hundred miles of zombie infested Indian landscapes to reach his pregnant girlfriend and save her from the undead. Get ready for amazing amounts of thrilling action, death-defying stunts, emotional resonance and spine-tingling fright.
At the Hotel Stela Terrace, the program will start with the presentation of new horror novel The Seducer by our old friend and collaborator Dejan Ognjanović. Its story takes place in a rural area and deals with folk mysticism and superstition. Instead of the threat of direct violence, the emphasis is on the feeling of dread, horror, mystery and tension. Dejan Ognjanović is Serbian writer, film and literary critic, translator and essayist. On past editions of Grossmann he presented his books In Vivo, Faustian Screen: The Devil in Cinema, In the Hills, the Horrors: Serbian Horror Film, A Study in Terror and H. P. Lovecraft's best stories (Nekronomikon) which he edited and provided translations, additional notes and biography.
Noisy Cat competition will roar with Zoran Krema's documentary on cult Croatian band Grč which will give an insight into this uncompromising and unique group and its frontman Zoff. Grč are revered for their dark music, gloomy lyrics and shocking stage presence featuring animal heads and pools of blood. Another two documentaries in competition are Hard Soil – The Muddy Roots of American Music which traces the history and evolution of American Roots music and examines its social and cultural relevance in the 21st century, and Every Everything: The Music, Life & Times of Grant Hart, a revelatory exploration of a singularly unique artistic force, an oral, and aural, history of Husker Du's so-called "wild one", from his rocky family life through the formation of his most well-known band; from their bitter break-up into the musical projects that followed; from his troubled past to his hopes for the future.
More cinematic delicacies will be served within both short film competition programs, Slak's Vicous Cat and Melies d'Argent, offering a fierce selection of live-action and animated films, ranging from comedies and thrillers to all-out gorefests.
Near midnight will be the time for musical pleasures in the Oxygen Club where Ljutomer's own HC/punk veterans Odpisani will treat the audience with the premiere presentation of songs from their upcoming album, supported by Helland from Hungary and Eyecontact from Lendava.
More info on our film, wine and accompanying program can be found on our website:
www.grossmann.si
When The Cat roars for the second time, it brings great joy to hearts and minds!
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Grossmann Festival, Day 2: Enchanted Cinema Opens Its Door
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