Kinokwartet: Vampire Empire

13:00 The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983, VSA, 97’)
15:00 Pura Sangre (Luis Ospina, 1982, Colombia, 99’)
17:00 Dracula’s Daughter (Lambert Hillyer, 1936, VSA, 68’)
20:30 Ganja & Hess (Bill Gun, 1973, VSA, 110’)

Every year, Kinoautomat’s Kinokwartet draws you away from the glaring sunlight and into the comforting darkness of the cinema. This time, we’re formally inviting you to a film day to sink your teeth into, with our tribute to an immortal film icon. During Vampire Empire, we celebrate the bat-like neck-biter in all his versatility during a four-part series of screenings that flits through film history.

We kick off with the ice-cool The Hunger (1983). This debut film by Tony Scott features David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve as stylishly dressed night owls who farm auras across the centuries. Next, we feast on Louis Ospina’s political parable Pura Sangre (1982). In a Colombia ravaged by poverty, the fabulously wealthy Roberto Hurtado seeks an unending supply of blood transfusions. His chauffeur, Perfecto, stalks the streets in search of impressionable young men.

As night falls, we pay tribute to The Queen of the Damned with Dracula’s Daughter (1936). Here, Joke Dheer eagerly extracts sexual allegories from this Universal horror hit with a queer reading that pulls the Prince of Darkness out of his coffin. Beforehand, we’ll watch the short film You Are a Lesbian Vampire (2008), which drives a stake through the patriarchal influences of the genre. Finally, we bathe in the moonlight with Ganja & Hess (1973). Drawing on blaxploitation conventions and biting reflections on America’s postcolonial condition, this contrarian horror drama brought a fresh blood transfusion to the vampire genre. Then we’ll head off into the (eternal) night together.