Cine-Excess 2023 Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject
International Film Festival and Conference
17th – 28th October 2023 - Birmingham, UK/Online
An international conference (with options for online and in person attendance) - 17th-20th October 2023
Accompanying guest filmmakers, UK theatrical premieres and exclusive screenings - 18th-28th October 2023
For its 2023 edition, Cine-Excess considers the cinematic, social and cultural significance of the possessed, supernatural and unclean body onscreen. In-keeping with the festival’s established mission to integrate academic and industrial film perspectives, this year’s theme of ‘Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject’ focuses on landmark scholarly texts as well as anniversaries and restorations of cult cinema classics that deal with this subject.
17th – 28th October 2023 - Birmingham, UK/Online
An international conference (with options for online and in person attendance) - 17th-20th October 2023
Accompanying guest filmmakers, UK theatrical premieres and exclusive screenings - 18th-28th October 2023
For its 2023 edition, Cine-Excess considers the cinematic, social and cultural significance of the possessed, supernatural and unclean body onscreen. In-keeping with the festival’s established mission to integrate academic and industrial film perspectives, this year’s theme of ‘Raising Hell: Demons, Darkness and the Abject’ focuses on landmark scholarly texts as well as anniversaries and restorations of cult cinema classics that deal with this subject.
Image courtesy of Arrow Video
Featured Events include: Hellraiser - An Unholy Reunion of Cenobites
Confirmed Guests Include: Doug Bradley (Pinhead Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II) - Exclusive Cine-Excess Delegate Q&A/Recorded Address
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Nicholas Vince (The Chatterer, Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II), Barbie Wilde (Female Cenobite, Hellbound: Hellraiser II) and Simon Bamford (Butterball, Hellraiser, Hellbound: Hellraiser II) - Live on stage at the Birmingham Electric Cinema Thursday 19th October from 7.30pm
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser (1987) alongside its sequel Hellbound: Hellraiser II (Tony Randel, 1988) represent two of the most distinctive and influential of examples of 1980s cult horror. With their seductive combination of intellectual provocation, shocking visuals and thematic abjection, they helped create a Hellraiser universe that continues to inspire fascination and adoration, most recently through a 2022 loose reboot of Barker’s original film. To celebrate the recent 4K restorations of these two cult classics, we are delighted to be bestowing Cine-Excess Innovator of Horror Awards to its iconic cenobite stars Doug Bradley, Nick Vince, Barbie Wilde and Simon Bamford, with the latter three actors appearing live at Cine-Excess on Thursday 19th October 2023.
The Soska Sisters Tales of Terror 2023: Abject Bodies Unbound
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We are delighted to welcome back the inspirational filmmaking duo Jennifer and Sylvia Soska (American Mary [2012], Rabid [2019], On the Edge [2022]). Having received their Cine-Excess award at our 2019 event, the Soska sisters return to the festival in their role as annual mentors of the next generation of filmmaking talent.
They will be judging a very special Soska Sisters Tales of Terror competition that will see film students provide a fresh contemporary vision on the theme of the Abject Body Onscreen. This exclusive live-streamed panel session takes place on Thursday 19th October between 4pm-5pm UK time as part the Cine-Excess 2023 conference. |
Live online Keynote Speaker: Professor Barbara Creed (University of Melbourne), marking the 30th anniversary republication of The Monstrous–Feminine
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Professor Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous–Feminine, first published in 1993, swiftly became acknowledged as a ground-breaking text in the study of horror for its application of feminist and psychoanalytic theory and its foregrounding of Julia Kristeva’s concept of ‘abjection’. Thirty years on, Professor Creed is publishing a second edition of the book, with a new section entitled: ‘Revolt of the Monstrous-feminine embracing the Nonhuman’. This new face of the monstrous-feminine is the topic of a live streamed Cine-Excess 2023 keynote lecture which takes place on Thursday 19th October at 1pm.
Professor Creed’s keynote address forms part of the Cine-Excess 2023 conference. This runs between 17th-20th October 2023 during the daytime sessions of the event and features 40 international scholars discussing a wide range of topics that relate to the theme of Demons, Darkness and the Abject. |
Conference
The Cine-Excess 2023 conference is open to scholars, students and members of the public. Tickets can be purchased as a Cine-Excess delegate pass. This allows either in-person attendance at the conference and related in-person/streamed screenings and filmmaker talks for £150/£75 (concessions) or virtual attendance at the conference and related streamed screenings and filmmaker talks are £100/£50 (concessions).
Possessed Bodies, Monstrous Beings and the Abject: A Screening Season
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To compliment this year’s festival theme, the Cine-Excess 2023 screening season is entitled Possessed Bodies, Monstrous Beings and the Abject. It features startling new film premieres and cult classics that focus on the unnatural, unholy and alienated body.
The screening season includes both in-person UK film premieres and exclusive screenings alongside a range of streamed releases, many of which are being made available for international audiences to watch. The Possessed Bodies, Monstrous Beings and the Abject screening season is open to academics, students and members of the public (aged 18 years and over). In person screenings take place at the Birmingham Electric Cinema, Mockingbird Cinema and the Lume Cinema in Kidderminster (see film descriptions for specific booking details), while online releases can be accessed via the Cine-Excess streaming platform. |
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