Michael Venus – director – Sleep

"Finding such a lovingly curated home for SLEEP here at Arrow makes me feel very fortunate, and yet would be lying if I said it wasn't a dream come true. Because it truly surpassed everything that I dared to dream of when we send our film on its complicated journey at the start of this global Covid-tsunami. While here in Germany the grey November competes with the pandemic to affect our state of mind, I am enjoying the privilege of wondering through the delightfully well curated selection of films on Arrow. I mutate into a hyperactive little kid, that has managed to get “locked in” at toyshop after closing time. I breath through the first moment of pure sensory overload and then begin to float through the Arrow universe. Forbidden doors beckon me over and I drift through them. Memories are brought back. I meet acquaintances from long ago, beloved companions, whose magical auras glistens at me through the dark just as vividly and seductively as the first time I saw them. Some had mysteriously slipped into by conscious, other, with their confident an overwhelming courage to break taboos, had an overwhelming impact on me. My selection is not a ranking. It is a piece of my personal film socialization and I feel honoured and truly thankful to be able to present it here, among such wonderful colleagues.”

1 - A Tale Of Two Sisters
Viewed from my narrow European perspective, this fantastic milestone offered me my first glance into the tradition-steeped world of K-Horror. A delicate and vibrant mindfuck, planted into the habitat of a haunted house, the experiences of its inhabitants and those who watch the film.

2 - Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
Director R.W. Fassbinder, his complicated legacy and his outrageous body of work still keep audiences in suspense far beyond the German film community. The perceptions this melodrama managed to break open so very confidently and boldly when it was first released, have lost nothing of their explosive nature even today.

3 - Berberian Sound Studio
The O.S.T. by Broadcast was the very first reference, the composers of SLEEP send to me as an inspiration. The treatment of human voices as a supernatural instrument creates an erratic film in the viewers mind, even without watching the actual film. The way the film works with the horror of this “not-seeing” is truly unique.

4 - Donnie Darko (Director's cut)
Instant Cult Classic. A film like the Radiohead CDs that used to skip back and forth randomly on my cheap discman on the slightest touch – not that that bothered me. With the invention of a new type of hero for the brooding youth of the day, candid and withdrawn at the same time, sensitive and capable of anything.

5 - Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
I had my unforgettable first encounter when I was a hormone-driven schoolboy with Elvira in her fascinating gory adventure game on the Amiga 500. Playing games with her was impossible, but you were allowed to serve her. She’s a criminally underrated campy icon of third wave feminism.

6 - Naked Lunch
One of Cronenberg’s outstanding masterpieces. Breathtaking, how he managed to capture the essence of Burroughs novel on film. The calm narrative style, in contrast to the radical fever-dream-language, smackingly, sweatingly and broodingly bristling with incomparable ideas.

7 - Nekromantik
Director Jörg Buttgereit is a living legend to me. Covid-19 sadly ruined our chance for a panel talk with him at the German cinema release of SLEEP. However, years before even watching the film, it was a household name to me, legendary as the most extreme German horror film of all time. Well, for sure it is a fascinating and subversive witness of West Berlin punk culture.

8 - Nosferatu (F. W. Murnau)
One of the most outstanding examples for the vivid and innovative horror film culture of Weimar Cinema with one of the most iconic film characters ever created. I admire all works of the director, who with each of his films, managed to discover new terrain, thereby consequently and continuously advancing cinema culture.

9 - The Flower of Evil
I was lucky enough to witness the premiere of this film at Berlinale as a student and to applaud the director for the film and the achievements of his long career. I admire how he dissects the horror of the bourgeoisie in his films and by way of contrast his familial, solidary notion of filmmaking.

10 - Ringu
The spectacular climax of the film, when Sadako crawls out of a tv, woke my fascination for Ankoku Butō (暗黒舞踏), a form of dance theater, which Sadako’s extreme body language is based on. Originated in the shadow of WWII in Japan, it can be translated as “Dance of Darkness”.