Blog: Film festivals

International film festival of entertaining, fantastic and arthouse free genre films.

The Obscura Filmfest was founded by David Ghane in 2016 and has been run by him alone ever since. He is a passionate genre film fan since 1996, attends several film festivals per year since 2004, sometimes helps out there, acts as an extra in horror films and is an extreme film collector.

The Obscura Filmfest specialises in entertaining and fantastic B-movies, films that are rarely shown in cinemas. They show mostly big blockbusters or arthouse films that can be found at most other ordinary film festivals. Even comparable festivals are expanding their programmes to include more and more arthouse. Those who instead like entertaining, smaller and special independent films, but can also imagine bigger productions from far away countries, will find what they are looking for at the Obscura Filmfest: Films that are fun with rough edges, raw and uncompromising; from nasty little horror films to Asian battle epics, there is something for every fan, just no boredom.

It started with small, offbeat, trashy and depraved underground grindhouse films, meanwhile the Obscura also screens commercial, mid-sized films that are traded on the big film markets.

Highlights of the previous festival editions included the German premieres of the Argentinian fantasy sci fi cyberpunk action film "Daemonium", the Ukrainian thriller "Egregor", the Filipino zombie shocker "Day Zero", the Danish horror film "Finale", the ghost comedy "Deadtectives" and the two Backwoods films "What the Waters Left Behind" and its sequel "Scars" 5 years later.

The European premieres of the Indonesian comic superhero film "Valentine" and the Backwoods film "Drifter" were also screened.

Another highlight was the crazy Japanese splatterfest "Kodoku - Meatball Machine" which can look back on a long festival history including the biggest festivals of its kind, as well as the Universal/Blumhouse production "The Hunt".

With "Redbad" and "The Great Battle", two big battle epics were also screened at the Obscura.

The German premiere of the hard-hitting exploitation film "Trauma" in Hanover was even attended by visitors from the Ruhr area.
After its international premiere at the Obscura, the cowboy backwoods film "Lasso" was shown a few months later at the famous british Frightfest.

In 2022, the Obscura had its first two feature-length film world premieres with "All through the Hall" and "Hidden in the Woods II".

At each Obscura there were film guests who introduced their film in person and were available for a Q&A. They came from Ireland, UK, Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Spain, Greece, Hungary, USA, Argentina, Mexico and of course Germany.

More information incl. an archive on the new and old websites:
https://www.obscurafilmfest.com
https://dvdscot.wixsite.com/obscura