BRUTAL, WEIRD, TRASHY, SLEAZY, STYLISH, SCANDALOUS, KILLER SOUNDTRACKS, HYPER-STYLIZED, UNHINGED, TRANSGRESSIVE, EXCESSIVE, AND CULT CLASSICS

Midnight movies are cinematic outsiders that thrive in underground screenings, cult followings, and rebellious audiences. These films break traditional storytelling rules, push boundaries, and are best experienced late at night, surrounded by a crowd that embraces their madness. For this cycle, Filmstelle presents a collection of films that celebrate the weird, the brutal, and the bizarre.

This is cinema at its most unruly: films that refuse respectability, that blur the lines between art and trash, pleasure and pain, comedy and horror. From animated apocalypses (Mad God, Mind Game) to erotic nightmares (Femina Ridens, Café Flesh), from queer provocation (Pink Flamingos) to surreal spiritual journeys (The Holy Mountain), these are films that twist your brain, punch your gut, and sometimes make you laugh when you probably shouldn’t.

Whether it’s the dirty psychedelia of Blue Velvet, the punk techno chaos of City of Lost Souls, or the absurd beauty of Cemetery Man, each entry is united not by genre, but by attitude — a refusal to conform, a love of excess, and an embrace of the perverse.
This program invites you to lose control. To stay awake when the world sleeps. To celebrate cinema that lives in the margins.

Kim Spieser