Horror Favourites from Final Girls Berlin Film Fest – Alexandra Serio

The Final Girls Berlin Film Fest runs between February 6 – 9, 2020 at City Kino Wedding offer a sensational line up of horror features, horror shorts and horror talks. We where lucky enough to hear to some of the amazing people taking part including Director of Tingle Monsters Alexandra Serio.

Alexandra Serio is a Webby nominated director, writer and producer based in New York City. She is co-founder and chief content officer of Nameless Network, a media and production company that creates video programming for the smartphone generation. Guerrilla filmmaking and female-driven narratives are her passion. Her latest film Tingle Monsters examines the link between internet harassment and physical violence against women

Tingle Monsters follows an ASMR vlogger who returns to her online fan base after an extended absence with a livestream that quickly spirals out of control. ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, is the subjective experience of what is described as low-grade euphoria characterized by positive feelings and a tingling of the skin most commonly triggered by auditory or visual stimuli. As of October 2019, 13 million videos in the ASMR genre have been published to YouTube.

Alexandra says “I was compelled to make Tingle Monsters because I believe that violence against women truly starts with words. With this in mind, I designed the film’s unconventional viewing experience to feel like a real ASMR livestream in order to convey the vérité experience of internet harassment.

Shot in screenlife format with no extra score or sound design, the film is designed to transport viewers into a scenario they are already familiar with—the harassment of women on the internet—ultimately inviting the audience to examine the link between what we say and think about women and how this affects their real-world treatment.”

Below Alexandra Serio discusses one ofher favourite horror films The Love Witch:

“Horror is such a rich, comprehensive genre that really pushes the medium of filmmaking forward. I think my favourite thing about horror today is its capacity for allegory, social commentary, titillation, comedy and mass appeal to exist within the same narrative.

A film that excels at this is Anna Biller’s The Love Witch. Biller takes gender politics, cinematic tropes, weaponized female sexuality and pastiche camp and puts it in a blender to reveal a horror comedy dripping in technicolor aesthetics that somehow manages to feel fresh and nostalgic at the same time.

On one level, you can fully enjoy the sumptuous visuals of The Love Witch as a simple homage to films from the 60s and 70s. But to a more discerning eye the film becomes a deep metaphor and examination of the femme fatale archetype reappropriated through a female lens told with wit, tenderness, the occult and a dash of gore. It’s a cinephile’s fever dream!”

The fifth edition of Final Girls Berlin Film Festival will take place between February 6 – 9, 2020 at City Kino Wedding continuing to raise the bar by showcasing horror written directed, and/or produced by women and non-binary filmmakers. The exciting program features eight curated short blocks and nine feature films, a horror-inspired self-defense workshop, an exhibition, a festival party with multimedia drag performances, and specialist talks.

TWITTER: @finalgirlsfest
INSTAGRAM: @finalgirlsfilmfest
FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/finalgirlsberlin
WEBSITE: www.finalsgirlsberlin.com

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Alex Humphrey

Alex studied film at the University of Kent and went on to work for Universal Pictures in their Post Room gaining an inside look at the movie industry from the very bottom. Constantly writing reviews in everything from local magazines to Hip Hop sites Alex honed his critical skills even spending a brief period as a restaurant critic. Read more

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