Dundead returns with an eye on feminist cinema
Dundee's horror staple will celebrate its 14th edition in collaboration with feminist collective Invisible Women
Dundead, a horror film festival that’s become a welcome tradition in Dundee, is returning to DCA from Thursday 7–Sunday 10 May for its 14th edition, this time premiering a suite of new genre films alongside a special collaboration with feminist collective Invisible Women.
Based in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Berlin, Invisible Women has contributed to various indie cinema programmes. For Dundead, its devised the She’s A Maneater! season, a selection of films that explore women who are willing to go to terrifying extremes to satisfy their appetites. Included in the programme is Julia Ducournau’s rollicking debut feature, Raw, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year; Claire Denis’ Trouble Every Day, an early entry in the New French Extremity movement; and Fruit Chan’s Dumplings, about an ageing starlet clinging to her youth by any means necessary.
Invisible Women will also show a selection of 20th-century films from overlooked female directors, including Blood Diner, Santo vs Frankenstein’s Daughter and The Velvet Vampire.
Invisible Women said: ‘We are delighted to have been invited by DCA to curate the repertory strand for this year’s Dundead festival. The history of women in horror is a complicated and fascinating one, which we are excited to sink our teeth into and give a taste of the extraordinary diversity of feminist-inflected horror cinema.
‘These are bold, sometimes brazen films, yet beneath the gory spectacle they also offer a blood-stained critique of contemporary life, exploring themes such as aging, women’s bodies, consumerism, and “deviant” sexuality with guts and gusto. From vengeful goddesses to urbane vampires, fading starlets to mad scientists, these villainesses and anti-heroines hold up a cracked mirror to the absurdities of the female experience, leaving a trail of gore and destruction in their wake.’
This year’s festival will also screen six premieres of brand-new films, including Camp, a horrific coming of age story; Buffet Infinity, a string of advertisements that slowly teases out a narrative; charming horror comedy Theater is Dead; and Roquia, a supernatural horror from Algeria. Also on the bill is Silencio (main picture), a generation-spanning tale of vampires, and Her Will Be Done, which explores some of the same themes as the She’s A Maneater! season.
Festival programmer Michael Coull said: ‘This year marks my fifth festival programming Dundead, and I thought what better way to celebrate that than to open up the programming of the repertory side of this year’s festival to our friends from Invisible Women archive activist film collective. They really are some of the best programmers and curators in our industry, ceaselessly seeking out under-explored corners of cinema history. I often think about how we can make the often horrific worlds we are drawn to more inclusive, more thoughtful and more open, and to have Invisible Women on board in this way is really special.'
Dundead, Dundee Contemporary Arts, Thursday 7– Sunday 10 May.