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 counter-hegemonic sci-fi and horror producers, their fandoms, and their scholars.

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.