Cine-Excess 15 Online: ​19th-24th October 2021​

For its 15th annual edition, Cine-Excess enterd a new decade of the twenty-first century and considered the diverse history and growing hybridity of cult cinema and its representations.

​The focus of this year’s conference theme: Bodies as Battlegrounds: Disruptive Sexualities in Cult Cinema, considered the extent to which the struggle for inclusive representation by various marginalised groups is enacted through a variety of cult film genres and their forms and technologies.
 
Cine-Excess 15 brought together international filmmakers, critics and scholars for a series of talks, interviews and UK premieres/exclusive screenings.
Supported by:

Guests of Honour

Pollyanna McIntosh (The Woman, The Walking Dead, Darlin’)
Guest of Honour to Cine-Excess included prolific horror actor and director Pollyanna McIntosh, who was the recipient of the Cine-Excess 15 Innovator of Horror award and attended the event to discuss her career in light of this year’s theme of Bodies as Battlegrounds. Pollyanna McIntosh conducted a live Streamed Interview and Q&A.
Brandon Cronenberg (Possessor, Antiviral)
Leading edge Canadian body horror director Brandon Cronenberg attended Cine-Excess 15 to discuss how his films fuse differing genres and technologies to challenge the accepted boundaries of physiology and human identity. Brandon Cronenberg participated in a streamed discussion on the changing role of the body in horror.
Prano Bailey-Bond (Nasty, Censor)
UK Horror auteur Prano Bailey-Bond attended Cine-Excess 15 to discuss her new film Censor (2021). The film has been acclaimed as a ‘striking and wholly original’ horror film about a reviewer working for the Board of Censors during Thatcherite Britain. Prano Bailey-Bond participated in a streamed discussion on horror cinema and censorship with Professor Julian Petley (Brunel University).

The Soska Sisters Tales of Terror: New Visions of American Mary

We were delighted to welcome back the contemporary horror filmmaking duo Jennifer and Sylvia Soska (American Mary [2012] and Rabid [2019]). Having received their Cine-Excess award at the 2019 event, the inspirational Soska Sisters returned to the festival in their role as BCU Fellows in International Cinema Practices. They judged a very special Soska Sisters Tales of Terror MA film competition related to the upcoming American Mary TV series.

Artwork courtesy of Ash Loydon

Bodies as Battlefields: The Cine-Excess 15 Conference

Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Dr Alison Peirse
Running throughout the daytime slots of Cine-Excess 15 was the four-day conference Bodies as Battlefields: Disruptive Sexualities in Cult Cinema, which considered the extent to which the struggle for inclusive representation by various marginalised groups is enacted through a variety of classic and contemporary cult film genres and their forms and technologies.
 
This theme informs the work of the two keynote speakers who attended Cine-Excess 15. Keynote Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has written eight books on cult, horror, and exploitation cinema, includeing 1000 women in horror (BearManor Media, 2020). She has also published Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study (McFarland, 2011), which will celebrate its 10-year anniversary at Cine-Excess with a new revised edition.

​Keynote Alison Peirse also considers women’s contributions to the horror genre. Alison’s multi award-winning edited collection ‘Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre’ (Rutgers University Press, 2021) has been praised for transforming the discourse on women-led horror.
 
The focus on disruptive cults representations considered by both keynote speakers also informs this year’s call for papers, which sees a wide range of international scholars and critics consider global cinema traditions, subversive filmmakers, and performers whose work can be understood as engaging with the socio-political struggle for inclusive representation.
 
The Cine-Excess 15 conference was open to scholars, students and members of the public.
The Unsettling (Harry Owens, USA, 2021)

Bodies as Battlefields: The Cine-Excess 15 Screening Season

​To compliment this year’s festival focus, the Cine-Excess 15 screening season was also entitled Bodies as Battlegrounds and included a range of innovative new releases that embody cult film’s focus on the struggle for inclusive representation by various marginalised groups.

The Cine-Excess 15 screening season included UK film premieres, exclusive screenings and an upcoming release from the Cine-Excess Digital Film Channel, with many premieres being available for international audiences to watch.