Mondo Culto | Offscreen
The beginning of a new academy year this October at film school RITCS means also the renewal of the series of cult classics in collaboration with Offscreen at Cinema RITCS: MONDO CULTO.
4 November 2024
HEREDITARY
This November, Mondo Culto presents Hereditary, Ari Aster’s 2018 debut film, for a raw horror experience. After the death of Ellen, the matriarch of the Graham family, they encounter sinister, supernatural events linked to inherited traumas. With intense performances, especially from Toni Collette, the film establishes an oppressive atmosphere, enhanced by dollhouse-like aesthetics and haunting visuals. Hereditary balances between family drama and horror, offering a chilling look at legacy and family curse.
20 February 2024
MALPERTUIS
A fresh-faced sailor is taken from a port full of sleazy bars and Art Nouveau mansions and held captive in a crumbling Gothic house called Malpertuis: we only discover why at the end, in a denouement that is as scandalous as it is devastating. Kümel draws inspiration from surrealist painting (Magritte, de Chirico) and weaves sinuous patterns from the intrigues between the many characters.
Preceded by a lecture, Belgian Cult Cinema, by Ernest Mathijs (University of British Colombia, Vancouver) and followed by a Q&A.
11 December 2023
S (MET SPECIAL GUEST NATALI BROODS)
A young woman finally decides she's had enough of people taking advantage of her and does something about it in the violent Belgian drama S.. S. (Natali Broods) is the product of a blighted childhood - her father was a murderer who often molested her, while her mother was a prostitute who wasn't around much. Grown to adulthood, S. is a confused and angry bisexual who one day discovers her boyfriend cheating on her - so she kills him. S. is later spurned by another one of her lovers (this one female), and soon she has gone on a crime spree, shooting people who in her mind symbolize her problems, including the manager of a sleazy peep show and a priest with physical designs on her. S. features music by the Belgian rock band dEUS; it was shown as part of the 1999 San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.
8 November 2023
THE EVIL DEAD
Slapstick meets horror in this debut film by Sam Raimi. Five young people on a weekend getaway in the woods inadvertantly awaken the forces of evil. A true cult phenomenon!
10 October 2023
SUSPIRIA
Jessica Harper plays an American ballet student who enrolls in a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg, Germany, only to discover that the school is being terrorized by sinister and supernatural events. The 4K restoration enhances the bloody violence and dazzling cinematography.
8 May 2023
THE WARRIORS
Walter Hill's talent for dazzling graphic violence comes into its own in this explosive urban epic in which nighttime New York turns into the playground of several gangs.
6 February 2023
STRANGER BY THE LAKE
Summertime. At a lakeside cruising place, gay bachelor Franck finds himself falling for Michel, a handsome fellow brimming with dangerous energy. Despite his reservations, Franck cannot contain himself and gives himself over to Michel’s affections.
5 December 2022
TROLL 2
The Walls family is heading out for a vacation in Nilbog ('goblin', but spelled backwards). Before their departure, son Joshua receives a nightly visit by the ghost of his grandfather, who warns him that goblins in Nilbog will turn the family into plants in order to eat them. However, Joshua's family does not heed the ghostly warning and travels to Nilbog, which has dire consequences.
7 November 2022
MAD GOD
A would-be assassin descends into a hellish dystopia in this animated feature from an Oscar-winning effects visionary. It's a stop-motion smörgåsbord of squished corpses and gruesome autopsies, where subhuman entities are trapped in an endless cycle of atrocity. Bosch, Bruegel and Svankmajer would surely approve.
3 May 2022
THE LOVE WITCH
In a visual tribute to 1960s Technicolor movies, the beautiful, young sorceress Elaine is desperately on the prowl for a man. She uses potions to seduce potential suitors, but they may prove to be fatally effective… Witty and thought-provoking, this film by the director of "Viva" is imbued with a strong feminist message.
1 March 2022
BATMAN & ROBIN
In Batman & Robin, the villainous Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Poison Ivy (Uma Thurman) team up to take over Gotham City. Their insidious plan is to freeze it whole! Luckily, Batman (George Clooney), Robin (Chris O’Donnell) and Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone) are there to foil their plans. However, Poison Ivy’s seductive superpowers throw an interesting wrench in Batman and Robin's teamwork.
8 February 2022
SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM
Based on a novel by the infamous Marquis de Sade and set in Mussolini’s fascist Italy, Saló is a film about power, corruption, and the brutalization of the human body. It is a devastating, feral scream, coming from one of the most controversial authors in film history.
7 December 2021
WHAT'S SO BAD ABOUT FEELING GOOD?
New York is in thrall of a COVID-esque pandemic. A virus circulates, claiming thousands of new victims every day. The big difference with our present is that the virus doesn’t make people ill.. It just stops them from feeling bad.
9 November 2021
CRAZY LOVE
Not for the lighthearted... Crazy Love (1987), directed by Belgian filmmaker Dominique Deruddere, is an adaptation of various texts by Charles Bukowski. The film focuses on the impossibility of love, depicting three days in the life of a man named Harry Voss. Harry has an idealized view on love, but his facial acne makes him hard-pressed to find affection. The only women he manages to sleep with are, to put it mildly, quite passive. This beautifully shot film quickly attracted attention for breaking cinematic taboos, and ended up becoming a well-regarded work of world cinema.
3 March 2020
DELICATESSEN
After collaborating on a number of short films, friends Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet decided it was time for a full-length feature: their debut, “Delicatessen”, also turned out to be their big breakthrough. This surreal black comedy takes place in a murky post-apocalyptic France where food is scarce and the eccentric inhabitants of an isolated apartment block are obliged to resort to cannibalism to survive. Imaginative low-fi production design, delightfully cartoonish caricatures, deftly choreographed comic set-pieces and a touch of Grand Guignol add up to a bizarre and uniquely entertaining film experience.
4 February 2020
DAZED AND CONFUSED
In 1993, Richard Linklater (known for the "Before" trilogy and "Boyhood") came up with the hilarious coming-of-age movie "Dazed and Confused". It is May 1976 in Texas. The last schoolday of the year has arrived and with it the annual hazing of new freshmen. Meanwhile, the local teenagers experiment with drugs, alcohol and sex. The star cast includes (in junior version) Ben Affleck, Jason London, Milla Jovovich, and and excellent Matthew McConaughey.
3 December 2019
DEAD MAN
In this atypical western, accountant William Blake (played by Johnny Depp) goes looking for a job, but the endeavor proves more difficult than expected. Moreover, it's no coincidence that Blake shares the same name as the late British poet. "Dead Man" is a must-see for lovers of original genre films, not only because it features Iggy Pop in a dress, but also thanks to its beautiful poetry, Robby Müller's cinematography (his fourth collaboration with Jim Jarmusch), and Neil Young's incredible soundtrack.
5 November 2019
MYSTICS IN BALI
"Mystics in Bali" is called the 'holy grail of Asian cult cinema.' It's the film that introduced a new kind of vampire to the world's cinema screens. A sensation on its initial release in Asia, "Mystics in Bali" was deemed too bizarre and shocking to be screened in the west.
1 October 2019
LOST RIVER
Inspired by Nicolas Winding Refn and David Lynch, Ryan Gosling's directorial debut is a dark and surreal fairytale about the life of a single mother (Christina Hendricks) and her two children in a dilapidated and bleak little town. To keep her home, she accepts a job that will confront her with the most macabre aspects and people of the area. Meanwhile, her eldest son discovers the magical and mysterious origins of the lost river, while fighting to maintain what he loves.
2 April 2019
UNDER THE SKIN
Roaming the cities and highlands of Scotland, a mysterious young woman (Scarlett Johansson) seduces lonely men and lures them to a secluded hangar where she reveals to them her true, frightening nature. A visually and aurally stunning vision of mankind as seen through extraterrestrial eyes.
5 March 2019
THE EXORCIST
A terrifyingly plausible story in which a 12-year-old American girl (Linda Blair) is possessed by a demonic entity. When modern medicine proves powerless, her desperate mother calls on two priests for help. Popular and controversial from the moment of its release, this masterpiece of supernatural horror still leaves audiences shaken and disturbed. To be shown in the Extended Director's Cut.
5 February 2019
GUMMO
The debut by Harmony Korine (writer of "Kids" and director of "Julien Donkey Boy" and "Trash Humpers") is simultaneously repelling and engrossing, brutally real yet hauntingly dreamlike. It's a confronting graphic and voyeuristic portrait of small-town Middle America. In Xenia, Ohio, every bizarre, insensitive and depraved act is committed without a second thought. This is the kind of town you'd never want to call home...
4 December 2018
ROAR
Noel Marshall spent up to 11 years on this special movie known as one of the most dangerous ever. Not only did he take place in the director's chair, but he also plays zoologist Hank who lives among the bloodthirsty wild animals in Africa. When Hank's family joins him on his estate, they'll discover the dangers of staying among lions, tigers, pumas, jaguars, and elephants.
6 November 2018
DEAD SNOW
A Norwegian cult classic from 2009 in which a ski vacation goes seriously downhill when the students are faced with an unimaginable thread: a malicious group of Nazi zombies rising up from the snow.
2 October 2018
PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
In 1980, two years after his death, Ed Wood was voted “worst director of all time”. This turned his low budget movies into cult items, including his science-fiction film “Plan 9 From Outer Space”. The biggest star of the film, Bela Lugosi, died two days after shooting began and was replaced by a lousy double. Criswell (a then famous psychic), Vampira and catcher Tor Johnson complete the cast.
2 May 2018
IF...
A surreal cult classic about three students (led by Malcolm McDowell, in a performance that anticipated his iconic role in “A Clockwork Orange”) who revolt against the suffocating atmosphere and social hierarchy in a typical English boarding school for boys. Their anger turns into a violent confrontation.
18 April 2018
FIGHT CLUB
David Fincher's pitch black satire, an adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's book “Fight Club”, is an uncompromising and cynical uppercut.
7 February 2018
Napoleon Dynamite
Mondo Culto flies into the new year with “Napoleon Dynamite”, the 2004 indie film debut by Jared Hess (“Nacho Libre”) that became an unexpected blockbuster and a cult film for the millennials.
6 December 2017
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Sing-a-long with this musical love letter to low budget science fiction and B-films. Subversive sex, an alien transvestite and Meat Loaf: this is the cult film par excellence!
8 November 2017
Dawn of the Dead
Ten years after the 1968 horror classic Night of the Living Dead, American director George A. Romero made a sequel to his living dead film cycle.
4 October 2017
Battle Royale
Directed by the master of Japanese 70s Yakuza thrillers Kinji Fukasaku, “Battle Royale” is an adrenalin-fuelled extravaganza from 2000 that is being touted as “A Clockwork Orange” for the 21st century.
3 May 2017
Themroc
In this exhilaratingly tasteless fantasy, a man bids his petty life farewell. He turns his appartment into a cave, while all dialogue turns into a weird proto-language of unintelligible grunts and gibberish. A brutal, anarchic and comically absurd attack on the bourgeoisie and its norms and values.
19 April 2017
Profondo Rosso
Italian horror maestro Dario Argento (“Suspiria”, “The Bird with the Crystal Plumage”, “Phenomena”) made his true giallo masterpiece with “Profondo Rosso”. David Hemmings is a jazz musician working in Rome and witness to a murder. “Profondo Rosso” is a psychedelic nightmare full of sadistic yet stylish set pieces.
1 March 2017
El Topo
The counter-culture of the late sixties made “El Topo” into one of the first cult hits in the midnight screening circuit. Sergio Leone's “A Fistful of Dollars” meets “Freaks” in this surreal western. A gunslinger all dressed in black departs on a quest for spiritual enlightment.
1 February 2017
Donnie Darko
It's October 1988 and the end of the world is coming in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. At least, it will be according to Frank, a man-sized talking rabbit that can only be seen by brilliant but troubled teen Donnie Darko (a role by Jake Gyllenhaal).
Offscreen photostream
