The Oldenburg Film Festival has long been the place to find the strange, the negligent and the non-incorporated in independent cinema. The Hollywood Reporter chose five essential features of the typically eclectic range of this year, ranging from a Belgian punk satire to a Mexican cartel thriller to a horror film told entirely from the point of view of a retriever of Nova Scotia.
Horseshoe
Irish drama Horseshoe The centers of four brothers and sisters were forced back to their childhood house after the death of their father, to discover that his ghost is not ready to let them go. With only 24 hours to decide the fate of the house, the old resentments boil, the secrets are exposed and the changing alliances test the obligations. Darkly funny and deeply melancholy, the film transforms the family domain into a grieving in sorrow, resentments and a reluctant affection.
Horseshoe
Jaro-Walcheck
Under the burning sun
Yun Xie’s Slamdance Breakout Under the burning sun Follows Mowanza, a young pregnant woman after an assault in a country where abortion is prohibited. Armed with a little more than a car and a bottle of water, she heads for the desert to a neighboring state where the procedure is legal. A microbudget gem that channels her feminist outrage in a heartbreaking and haunting epic.
Under the burning sun
With the kind permission of the Oldenburg Film Festival
Summer success machine
Jerome Vandewattyne Regular Oldenburg (winner of the Audacity 2023 prize for The Belgian Wave) Return to the festival with another musical satire, inspired by its behind the scenes which film the group Boogie Punk produced by Jon Spencer The Experimental Tropic Blues Band. In Summer success machineA group is locked in a studio to record a cover song which, according to their eccentric label boss, will win a successful successful summer prize. But while his grip on reality begins to fracture, the recording session has become uncontrollable.
Summer success machine
With the kind permission of the Oldenburg Film Festival
Good boy
Ben Leonberg’s Good boy,, What comes to Oldenburg of Sxsw is a supernatural horror entirely told from Indy’s point of view, a faithful retriever with duck toll of Nova Scotia who feel the forces hiding in the dark shadow of the house of its owner. As the dark forces threaten his master, the brave puppy must fight to protect him. A fresh and canine perspective on the haunted house trope.
Good boy
With the kind permission of the Oldenburg Film Festival
Crocodiles
J. Xavier Velasco’s Crocodileswhich was presented at first at the Guadalajara film festival and will have its European first in Oldenburg, follows Santiago, a young photojournalist from Veracruz who dreams of exposing injustice. When his mentor is murdered and the investigation is buried, he decides to become a public despite warnings that it could cost him his life. Based on the real dangers faced by Mexican journalists, the film builds a thriller stretched around the courage that it takes to continue to dig the truth when silence is the safest choice.
Crocodiles
J.-Xavier-Velasco
The Oldenburg 2025 film festival takes place from September 10 to 14.
