Dr Grossmann MD's blog

Dear cannibals, zombies, witches, victims of demonic possession, space puddings and other wine lovers – dear friends! The 5th, jubilary and boutique edition of Grossmann Film and Wine Festival, held every year in Ljutomer, Slovenia, is behind us.

Noisy Cat award for best musical documentary went to Slovenian film Vlada, a portrait of the founding member of Belgrade's legendary New Wave band Idoli Vlada Divljan, directed by Rudi Uran.
In the short films category, Slak's Vicious Cat went to Canadian zombie curling film Deadspiel, directed by Jay Molloy.
Amongst the premiere wines competing for the prestigious Vicious Cat Wine Champion title, our guests have selected the heavenly Pinot Gris 2008 from the Jeruzalem Ormož wine cellar.
The best film from the Little Workshop of Horrors is Vid Voršič's Turbo Zombies, a zombie horror with a turbo-folk twist.
The Necro Cat award for outstanding achievements in fantastic/horror cinema was with much joy given to the cult German horror auteur Jörg Buttgereit.
The jury for our main award, the Vicious Cat, was most thrilled by the excellent British backwoods shocker Eden Lake, directed by James Watkins. The award was taken by young actress Finn Atkins.
Finnish existentialist horror Sauna by A.J. Annila got a special mention for offering a perfect solution to Slovenian-Croatian Piran bay dispute.
Our honorable lifetime achievement award Vicious Old Cat was given to the legend of Italian genre cinema Ruggero Deodato.

During five days of the festival, 8000 film, wine and music lovers attended our events. Besides numerous wine tastings featuring the wine makers from our competition program (Ljutomerčan with Traminer 2008, Jeruzalem Ormož with Pinot Gris 2008, Radgonske gorice with sparkling wine PiNQ, Hlebec with Zweigelt and MiroVino with Sipon 2008) and the Wine Salon Jeruzalem presentation, every soul could get their fill at projections of crazy and ferocious films, from Slobodan Šijan's and Kristijan Milić's rare shorts, intergalactic premiere of Korpus Krispi, incredibly well-visited screenings of features in competition (Eden Lake, Sauna, Deadgirl, Dead Snow and Zone of the Dead) and the international premiere of Joerg Buttgereit's Captain Berlin versus Hitler, through the elite selection of Mondo Macabro goodies, bizarre and rare fruits from the Torture Garden, deafening musical documentaries and razor-sharp shorts, right to the fully packed screening of the infamous Cannibal Holocaust, of course in the presence of Vicious Old Cat Ruggero Deodato himself.
Uncomparable musical pleasures were provided most rabidly by the grind/death dervishes Septic Scum, the infectiously groovy and amusing Lollobrigida and of course Orlek and Pridigarji with their zombie tunes of cheerfulness, not to mention the live performances for the dead by Nero Burns and Klemen Klemen at the first ever Slovenian zombie walk on the final day of the festival. For those interested in other artforms, there were exhibitions by Slobodan Šijan and Sendy Kumulakanta, as well as a huge bunch of new books from the restless pen of Dejan Ognjanović.
Especially lively was the Zombie Walk, with amazing 200 living corpses, created courtesy of professional Serbian Visual/Special FX crews Lakobrija FX and Mad Squirrel Fx, participating in an atmosphere of otherworldly joy, even greater by the fact that George A. Romero himself addressed the living dead. Our Little Workshop of Horrors also came up with three fierce and cheeky items.

So another unforgettable Grossmann has ended. It was again full of fun, laughs, perfectly timed punchlines and brand new jokes, as well as genuinely deep conversations about film, music, comic books, weather and other hot topics. Once again we got together with old friends, gained a merry bunch of new ones, all of that in an atmosphere of comradeship, respect and, of course, total political incorrectness.
Once again we would like to thank everyone who contributed to this incredible experience: our precious sponsors, dear guests, ever-friendly people of Ljutomer, amazing bands and musicians, bloodthirsty zombies and cheerful visitors. All of us are Grossmann – and that's why The Cat loves us!
Check out the official site for more gore!

republished on filmfestivals.com

Submitted by Editor on Wed, 08/19/2009 - 12:59.

http://www.filmfestivals.com/cgi-bin/shownews.pl?obj=ShowNews&CfgPath=ffs/filinfo&Cfg=news.cfg&news=general&text_id=34272

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