🎬 Dark, darker, darkest: Tetsuo – The Iron Man (1989) + The World Is My Idea (2024)

Filmhuis Cavia presents a night filled with black & white surrealism and lunacy. ‘Dark, darker, darkest’ presents two films that each descend into insanity in their own way: Tetsuo – The Iron Man by Shinya Tsukamoto and The World Is My Idea by Alexander Wolfgang Smedja. With introduction by the latter filmmaker.
 

The World Is My Idea
Alexander Wolfgang Smadja | 2024 | Belgium | 20’ | EN subtitles

One stifling evening at work, Rocco, a tense waitress at the end of her tether, sees her demonic double arrive, determined to wreak havoc... starting with an overly spicy Chinese dish. Between hallucinations, existential crises, and her mother, the night turns into a nightmare. 

‘The World Is My Idea is a dark tale, bordering on the grotesque and the sincere, which questions mental health, identity, and family ties. Inspired by my own struggles with depression and addiction, the film explores the strange inner worlds we build to survive. I wanted to mix the absurd with raw emotion, to bring together anxiety and laughter. It is a feverish, fast-paced story, where excess becomes language.’ – Alexander Wolfgang Smedja

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Tetsuo – The Iron Man
Shinya Tsukamoto | 1989 | Japan | 67’ | EN subtitles

After hitting a metal fetishist with his car, a Japanese salaryman begins a horrific, involuntary transformation into a man-machine hybrid, sprouting metal from various parts of his body and becoming haunted by visions of metal-oriented sexual fantasies. He develops a strange, telepathic connection with the metal fetishist as he keeps changing shape.