Page 244 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

Alberto Sciammas hilariously trashy La Lengua Asesina {Killer Tongue, 1996), Karim Hussain's ultra-
controversial nightmare trip Subconscious Cruelty (1999), Michael Walker's psychological masterpiece
Chasing Sleep (2000), Brad Andersons chilling asylum terror-tale Session 9 (2001) and Nicholas
Winding Refn's dark drama Fear X (2003).
Espoo Cine has also held major retrospectives of leading European masters of fantasy, horror and
screen violence. These include Italian Dario Argento and Austrian Michael Haneke among others.
We also did a retrospective of the American fantasy-film legend John Landis, who was out guest of
honour in 1991, and we are planning to do the next one on Richard Stanley, the South African-born
filmmaker of such cult classics par excellence as Hardware (1990) and Dust Devil (1992).
Espoo Cine also arranges acclaimed seminars and panel discussions on topics concerning film
both as an art form and as an industry. During the years the topics have included scriptwriting, sound
editing, animatronics, C G I and special effects, just to mention a few. Some of the special guests we
have had include Peter Parks, the special E F X designer who worked on Alien and Excalibur, and
another great E F X designer John Richardson, whose work we can admire in such classics as Richard
Donner's The Omen (1976) and Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971). Some of the seminars are
restricted to film and cinema professionals or students, but generally most of them are public.
Considering the ultra-strict film censorship law we had up until the beginning of 2001, Espoo
Cine has been one of the only places where cinema lovers have been able to see more dark and violent
celluloid creations in Finland during the past ten years. This is because during the censorship era,
film festivals had exceptional permission to screen titles which would have been otherwise banned
or cut for normal commercial distribution in Finland. Through this unique position the Festival has
actually contributed to a maturing interest in horror and exploitation cinema in Finland. These films
are hungered after in the country, which clearly shows in the ever-stable popularity of Espoo Cines
Melies and Night Series sections. The end of cencorship era has not stopped the hunger, even though
it has made the selection of the Festival little less exceptional. Violent celluloid creations are now easier
to get your hands on, but of course with some titles the Festival works as the only place to see them on
the big screen. The censorship law in Finland was very much targeted against video nasties', and was
actually created during the late 1980s when video hysteria was at its highest in Finland.
While the Espoo Cine Festival maintained a privileged position during this dark period of
celluloid repression, it was still able to court controversy - even though it attained special permission
to screen Europe's darker treasures. Some cinematic extremities, like the small-scale horror and
exploitation series the Festival ran in conjunction with its now-dead collaborator, the Dark Fantasy
Society, back in the early 1990s, included ultra-provocative titles that tested the very limits of artistic
expression in Finland at that time.
Some golden memories are also attached to the Herschell Gordon Lewis retrospective we did
in the early 1990s. People were not really expecting what they got, as our main venue's screen was
suddenly filled with the screamingly bright gore colours of Blood Feast (1963), among other Lewis
classics. The highly popular retrospective got us lot of attention, mainly positive reactions, but created
also some huge controversy. To finish that dive to the waves of American horror with a red-blooded
cherry on top, we also screened Frank Henenlotter's Frankenhooker (1990) and Jim Van Bebber's
Deadbeat at Dawn (1988) in the very same year.

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