Join us for a dreadful evening of talks, performances, screenings and sonic expressions in which we celebrate and think through Barbara Creed’s defining of the ‘monstrous feminine’ trope in horror cinema and its socio-political ramifications. The evening is hosted by the Gross Encounters film club, Espace Dukat and students from HEAD’s Space and Communication department, and generously supported by artists and designers from collectif Kimera and HEAD-Genève.

One-Night Fright Festival programme:

• Ervehea Ziza talk will explore the notion of ‘ugliness’ and its representation in the horror genre by applying an intersectional feminist perspective.
• The Monstrous Feminine collective members (MonFem Pod) will be presenting a visual essay engaging with the seven ‘faces’ of the monstrous-feminine as analyzed by Barbara Creed and will offer perspectives that go beyond certain problematic theoretical tethers in Creed’s work.
• Julie Cail will be live on stage, creating the sound effects for a chosen iconic monstrous feminine horror sequence.
• The collectif Kimera will host the Gross Encounters festival and develop a scenography in partnership with students from the master Space & communication. 

Hosts, Speakers and Performers:
Gross Encounters is a workshop, festival and film screening club, developed by Reem Saleh and Noam Toran. This collaborative and ever-expanding initiative engages with the politics of monstrosity and alienhood hands on, by honoring subaltern and counterhegemonic sci-fi and horror producers, their fandoms, and their scholars.

Ervehea Ziza
Ervehea Ziza, born in 1989 in Kosova, is a Berlin-based author, essayist, and filmmaker. Presently, she serves as the showrunner for ‘safe:space,’ a horror-comedy narrative exploring the resilience of women affected by violence in a shelter, as they courageously confront their oppressors. She pursued her academic journey in the fields of philosophy and art history, culminating in her thesis on the aesthetics of the uncanny in the horror
genre. Her body of work traverses the intersectional realms of feminism, pop culture, and Marxist theory.
Her essays delve into ethical and sociological inquiries from a Marxist vantage point, weaving them into the fabric of cinematic traditions. Her focus on the horror genre is driven by the belief that no other genre can adequately depict the absurdity of our times. 

The Monstrous Feminine Podcast
‘Women in many ways make horror. It relies on our screams, our virginity, our blood, our bodies, our sanity, our insanity. But not often enough are these core horror tropes discussed by women. We wanted to give voice to these themes and feminist critiques, and just have a space where we could genuinely geek out about horror. Thus, in 2020, we created The Monstrous Feminine podcast. While it initially started out as a university project, we have continued to explore the monstrosities of gender in cinema/culture. Using Barbara Creed’s The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, and Pyschoanalysis, the podcast dissects and discusses films using the text’s core tropes. Hosted by Tyia, Mila, Louisa, and Zeba, The Monstrous Feminine is available on all podcasting platforms. Tune in to join our coven!’

Julie Cail
Julie Cail is a Foley artist based in France, crafting sound on film sets and for live performances.She is currently working on a documentary project, Le Chant du déchet (‘The Sound of Waste’) focused on waste, founded on a dual principle of repurposed materials: the reuse of archival footage to compose the film and the repurposing of discarded materials to craft sound-producing instruments used in creating the film's sonic substance.
Collectif Kimera gathers ten artists and designers who share a common interest in creating transdisciplinary projects through the conception and curation of exhibitions and the realisation of spatial installations. Their practices are mutually enriched and reasoned through the social issues they address. Specialising in immersive multimedia installations including projections, sound, and light, the collective's productions seamlessly blend the manual craftsmanship of materials such as wood, metal, ceramics, and glass with electronics and emerging technologies like mapping, motors and programming. The resulting installations are immersive, to further engage spectators. They create new spaces that encourage exchange between artists and audiences, tackling key issues such as LGBTQIA+ rights, feminism, ecology and dynamics of oppression.