PREVIEW: 2021 FINAL GIRLS BERLIN FILM FESTIVAL

The premier German showcase for horror films directed and produced by women and non-binary filmmakers will return for its 6th edition in 2021, marking its first iteration as an online event. The Final Girls Berlin Film Festival will run from February 4-7 and present a digital line-up consisting of five features, five short blocks, and sidebar events that include panel talks, a screenwriting workshop and special podcast episodes.

Listed as one of MovieMaker Magazine’s Top 50 Genre Festivals in the World and named among Dread Central's Best Horror Festivals, Final Girls Berlin has firmly established itself as a leading international destination for genre fans and filmmakers alike. In 2021, festival co-directors Eli Lewy and Sara Neidorf have curated works that reflect the new world in which we find ourselves. 

“[The] program includes a number of films about loneliness, technological reliance, and confinement that reflect our present-day reality in chilling ways,” says Lewy. For Neidorf, staging a festival in a global pandemic simply presented fresh challenges. “These times are grim, but they bring an opportunity to virtually connect with an international feminist horror community that otherwise couldn’t normally make it to Berlin,” she says, “so we hope more folks will come join us!“

Three features will have their German premieres at Final Girls Berlin. Italian filmmaker Emanuela Rosi’s Buio (Darkness), featuring Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival Best Actress winner Denise Tantucci (pictured, right), presents a chilling spin on patriarchy and female empowerment set against a dystopic future world; US indie The Stylist expands upon the psychotic mindset of hairdresser Claire (a terrific Najarra Townsend; pictured, top) that director Jill Gevargizian initially explored in her acclaimed 2016 short film; and, Brea Grant’s bloody, blackly hilarious 12 Hour Shift, in which a strung-out nurse (genre favourite Angela Bettis) trading in black-market organs struggles for balance as her life spins out of control.

Screening in the German capital for the first time will be local filmmaker Sandra Mertens’ ‘70s-set dramatic thriller Fellwechselzeit (Time of Moulting), an atmospheric study in oppressive and repressed family dynamics, and Laura Casabé’s Los Que Vuelven (The Returned), an Argentinian creature feature steeped in the horrors of still birth and resurrection.

Australia’s single representative at Final Girls Berlin will be Kodie Bedford, whose short film Scout will screen in the strand ‘An Eye for An Eye’ alongside works from Spain (Carlotta Pereda’s There Will be Monsters; Amy Farjado’s The Hunt); Norway (Marja Bål Nango & Ingir Bål’s The Tongues); Indonesia (Indira Iman’s Rong); and, France (Kelsey Bollig’s The Fourth Wall). They are just a few of the huge selection of global short films on offer, with a whopping 36 works available to the global online audience (features are to be geo-blocked to German territories).

Also streaming to international audiences will be the 2021 panel strands. These include:

• WRITING YOUR FIRST HORROR SCREENPLAY: Hosted by Alison Peirse, Author and Film Academic, Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre. An interactive and supportive workshop focussing on creating horror films led by women and nonbinary characters.

• IF ROSEMARY COULD RUN: WOULD YOU KNOW IF YOU WERE IN A CULT?: Hosted by Seriina Covarrubias (pictured, right) & Susie Kahlich. An exploration of cults in horror narratives and in real life, how they actually work, and how to know if you're in one (and what to do about it).

• GHOULS TO THE FRONT: RETHINKING WOMEN’S HORROR FILMMAKING: Hosted by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Author and Film Critic, 1000 Women in Horror. Rather than presenting a singular alternate history of women’s horror filmmaking, Heller-Nicholas seeks to deconstruct the way we think about this subject, reassessing the history of horror to be more inclusive, more representative, and more fun.

• GIRLS GONE WILD: AUTONOMY, SEXUALITY, AND RESISTANCE IN REPRESENTATIONS OF YOUNG WOMEN IN HORROR FILMS: Hosted by Dr. Kate Robertson, Author and Academic, Devil’s Advocates: Trouble Every Day. An exploration of women-led horror films featuring young women who take active roles in their stories, maintaining control of their bodies, choices, and lives.

• HER HUNGER: THE LESBIAN VAMPIRE AND QUEER IMMORTALITY, SUICIDALITY, AND CODEPENDENCY: Hosted by Annie Rose Malamet. The voice of the popular podcast Girls, Guts & Giallo traces the history of the lesbian vampire in film.

In online audio content, The Gaylords of Darkness podcast will present THE NECRONOMOLOGUE, with hosts Stacie Ponder and Anthony Hudson naming their top ten Final Girls in this first-ever animated countdown video from your favorite queer feminist horror podcast. And 'the Spinsters of Horror' from the popular I Spit on Your Podcast presents SATANIC FEMINISM: EMBRACING THE DARKNESS, an exploration of the representation and importance of Satan as the image of an anti-patriarchal idol and source of empowerment for women with specific reference to the films Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971), Alucarda (1977), Jennifer’s Body (2009), and The Witch (2016).

For full program and streaming details visit the event’s official website.