By MICHAEL GINGOLD
It’s part of a music and short film project with some strong horror talent attached.
David Gregory’s “Under the Black Sky,” the video clip seen below, is part of ONE-WAY TICKET TO THE OTHER SIDE, a collection of short films inspired by the debut album by Belgian musical duo Pornographie Exclusive (Severine Cayron and Jerome Vandewattyne). The album is set to drop February 7, 2025 from independent Brussels-based label Antibody; according to the project’s PR, its 75-minute cinematic counterpart “is a cinematic, musical, and surreal journey that follows two stoic outlaws as they wander through a world suspended between end and beginning, dream and reality. Their road trip leads them through strange places and encounters with lost souls, immersing them in both absurd and philosophical reflections. Shot in a guerrilla filmmaking style with a warm, grainy look, each poetic tableau of their adventure weaves together the different segments of this unique anthology in the form of a unique film concert directed by international filmmakers.”
Those auteurs include Gregory, head of Severin Films, whose many documentary credits include LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S “ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU,” BLOOD AND FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON and ENTER THE CLONES OF BRUCE. “I indulged my love for old crumbling cinemas, which I shoot wherever I travel,” he tells us, “and took advantage of our bringing [cult genre actress] Geretta Geretta out to LA to be interviewed about RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR and 2020: TEXAS GLADIATORS [for Severin’s discs].” Also part of the lineup are Buddy Giovinazzo (COMBAT SHOCK, LIFE IS HOT IN CRACKTOWN), Douglas Buck (FAMILY PORTRAITS: A TRILOGY OF AMERICA, THE THEATRE BIZARRE), Jen Gatien (MEN OF WAR), Edgar Pêra, Martina Schöne-Radunski, Truman Kewley, Patrycja Planik, Guillaume Campanacci, Katsuki Kuroyanagi and Jérôme Vandewattyne. The producing team includes Torsten Neumann and actress Deborah Kara Unger (Cronenberg’s CRASH, SILENT HILL).
ONE-WAY TICKET TO THE OTHER SIDE had its world premiere in September at the Oldenburg International Film Festival, and the film and album will have their Belgian premiere February 9 as part of the closing night of Brussels’ Courts Mais Trash Festival. This will be followed by a screening at Phenomena, the Barcelona, Spain cinema owned by filmmaker Nacho Cerdá (AFTERMATH, THE ABANDONED), and screenings are currently being discussed for Lisbon, New York, Los Angeles, Cannes, Warsaw and Tokyo.
