The 19th Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival (25 September-4 October) is gearing up to welcome audiences with a programme of around 40 films, including new international productions and preview screenings. The event, bringing together genre cinema from across the world in its various competitions and special sections, will open with Dave Green’s Coyote Vs. Acme and close with Na Hong-jin’s Hope. The festival will also host a retrospective dedicated to artificial intelligence alongside the fourth edition of its professional programme, the Eurogenre meetings (29 September-1 October).

The International Fantastic Film Competition features 13 titles, including 5 More Minutes by Javier Ruiz Caldera, which follows a couple trapped in a time loop, Corrin Evans’ Corpus, María Martínez Bayona’s debut The End of It, set in a near-future world, the deadpan thriller Girl in The Night by Slovenian filmmaker Luka Marčetić, Hot Spot by Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska, a science-fiction thriller set in a society ruled by sentient AI, Caleb J. Phillips’ Imposters, Adrian Chiarella’s Leviticus, and Mutter: The Diary of a Mother by Turkish filmmaker Alphan Eseli.

The selection also features Never After Dark by Dave Boyle, which combines a ghost story with a home-invasion thriller, No Rest for the Wicked by Danish filmmaker Kasper Kalle, a romantic horror set in the Faroe Islands, Sleep No More by Indonesian director Edwin, a dark comedy horror film about workers who become possessed by an entity, Species by Marion Le Coroller, and Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, a queer horror film centred on a filmmaker’s attempts to revive a long-running slasher franchise.

The Crossovers Competition, dedicated to hybrid genre works, brings together nine films, such as A Prayer for the Dying by Dara Van Dusen, Death Has No Master by Jorge Thielen Armand, The Good Boy by Jan Komasa, and Roma Elastica by Bertrand Mandico.

This year’s Guest of Honour is Belgian filmmaker Fabrice du Welz, who will receive an honorary award during the opening ceremony, held on 25 September at the Vox cinema. On 29 September, the director, whose work has been associated with a new wave of francophone horror since the late 1990s, will give a master class moderated by Olivier Père, Managing Director of Arte France Cinéma, followed by the screening of a restored version of The Ordeal. A selective retrospective of seven of his feature films and a carte blanche featuring two films chosen by du Welz will also be presented. His selections are Jack Cardiff’s The Last Train from Katanga and Lindsey C. Vickers’s The Appointment.

Parallel to the festival, the fourth edition of the Eurogenre professional meetings (29 September-1 October) will host nine European feature-film projects currently in development which will be pitched by their creative teams on 29 September. This programme is supported by the Culture Fund under the “Strasbourg European Capital” triennial contract. Short-film projects supported by the Strasbourg Eurometropolis Concept Grant as well as projects at the writing or production stages backed by the Grand Est Region will also be showcased on 1 October.

Here are the feature-length projects selected for the 4th Eurogenre meetings:

The Control of Skin - Morgane Ahrach (France)
Producer: Almaa Films

Paradise Morbid - David-Jan Bronsgeest (Netherlands)
Producer: Bloodrave Films

Rebirth (Un respiro) - written by Daniele Cosci (Italy)
Producer: Grey Ladder Productions

HAXA - Myriam Dupuis (France)

Trails - Mads Erichsen (Denmark)
Producer: Pingpong Film ApS

The Mediator - Ido Gotlib (Germany)

La Concession - Aurélia Raoull (France)

Poochandi: la légende du mangeur d’enfants - Vinoth Kumar Saguerre (France)

Ducasse - William Samaha (Belgium)
Producer: Narrativ Nation