Downunderberlin Film Festival closing night

What a very special closing night. Filmmaker Florian Habicht delivered a successful ending to the festival with his documentary Spookers.

Do you know those feelings - fear and anxiety that occur in your everyday life and exasperate you? Then you absolutely should not miss watching this wonderful documentary, because it tells how seemingly normal people from New Zealand turn their back on everyday life and its challenges and plung into a totally different world, far far away from everyday life and reality, and into one inside the freaky forest and haunted house.

Scary clowns, malignant zombies and screaming mummies present their weekend-residence, a vacant psychiatric hospital surrounded by forest and grassland, which becomes an amusement park for people fascinated by horror. Every Friday and Saturday, the monsters open the doors to their bastion and welcome people from all over the world.

After the first shock, one can hear a relieved murmur from the audience in Moviemento Cinema number 2. The documentary glimpses behind the scenes, and fortunately it is normal people artistically made up and dressed to play the roles of these horror creatures. The audience highly amused as to how the people turn into such monsters.

However, Florian Habicht succeeded in giving an amusing and scary touch to the documentary arising from amusing footage of petrified faces or the actors at work. However, what also prevailed was a seriousness by presenting the different personal fates of those colorful characters. The people hidden behind these masks disclose their moving and sad stories, achieving a touching and inspiring moment for the audience.

The first impression of these colorful characters, are people who plunge themselves into a world of fear and horror to scare people, which then pales, as it is soon discovered what horrible real life fates await these actors. Thus, the world of horror has more of a function that gives these actors the feeling of comfort by entertaining people.

This seriousness is a surprising turning point in the documentary, but through the well-balanced mix of seriousness and joy in dread, it only leaves a short moment of dispair for the audience to consider.

The documentatary Spookers by Florian Habicht was a real culmination point in the Down Under Berlin filmfestival, combining horror, fun and sorrow ingeniously and giving the audience an honest and deep  glimpse behind the scenes of the amusement park Spookers.

We thank Florian Habicht, downunderberlin`s organiser and Moviemento Berlin for this great closing night and are looking forward to the next downunderberlin Film Festival.