Production
The film was primarily shot in Unterzögersdorf, Lower Austria, from March to November 2023.
| Solvent | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Johannes Grenzfurthner |
| Written by |
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| Produced by |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Florian Hofer |
| Edited by | Anton Paievski |
| Music by | Pieter de Graaf |
Production company | |
Running time | 94 minutes |
| Country | Austria |
| Languages |
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Solvent is an English-language Austrian supernatural mystery comedy drama horror film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and produced by art group monochrom. It stars Jon Gries, Aleksandra Cwen, Johannes Grenzfurthner, and Roland Gratzer. [1] [2]
In an Austrian farmhouse, a team of experts discovers a hidden secret while searching for Nazi documents. Among the team is Gunner S. Holbrook, an American expatriate who becomes increasingly obsessed with unraveling the mystery. As Holbrook delves deeper into the farmhouse's dark history, his sanity begins to unravel, leading him to confront an insatiable evil lurking within. [3]
Horror and sound play an essential role in the film. [4] Grenzfurthner says that Solvent forms a trilogy with Masking Threshold and Razzennest . [5] [6] [7] In an interview with VOD Club, Grenzfurthner explains that while the films in the trilogy don't share a narrative thread, they are linked by their examination of philosophical themes.
Grenzfurthner used the old farm of his maternal grandfather, Otto Zucker, as the location for the film and also incorporated old photographs of Zucker to depict the Nazi antagonist Wolfgang Zinggl. Grenzfurthner spoke at length about his desire to incorporate the reality of his family into this fictional exploration of Austria's Nazi past. [9] Zebrabutter calls this a cinematic "palimpsest." [10]
The film combines a point-of-view style with experimental techniques, incorporating elements of both mystery and splatter films.
The film was primarily shot in Unterzögersdorf, Lower Austria, from March to November 2023.
The film premiered at Slash Filmfestival in Vienna in September 2024.
Nightmares Film Festival hosted the U.S. premiere. [12] Dark Nights Film Festival in Sydney presented the Australian premiere. [13]
Bradley Gibson of Film Threat (8.5/10) says Solvent "takes us to the darkness of humanity's most wicked impulses flowing just beneath us, poisoning the water table. [...], creates and deepens a mood of growing spiritual decay. Lovecraft explored the notion that horror and madness could render physical changes, and this is delightfully pursued as well." [14] Critic Anton Patel remarks that "the film deals in serious issues – the most serious – about human nature and our capacity for both evil and good (mixed, as in a solvent). That tonal dissonance between comedy and horror only adds to the discomfort created in the viewer, who is confronted with the awfulness, whether merely petty or outright genocidal, coursing invisibly, and often absurdly, through all our veins." [15] Richard Propes (The Independent Critic) praise the performances of Gries, Cwen, and Grenzfurthner, and states: "Solvent isn't an easy film to watch and it's sure not for the timid, however, for those who prefer their cinema uncompromising and with integrity galore there may not be a more must-see film in 2024." [16]
Monochrom is an international art-technology-philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. It was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop attitude, subcultural science and political activism". Its main office is located at Museumsquartier/Vienna.
Johannes Grenzfurthner is an Austrian artist, filmmaker, writer, actor, curator, theatre director, performer and lecturer. Grenzfurthner is the founder, conceiver and artistic director of monochrom, an international art and theory group and film production company. Most of his artworks are labeled monochrom.
Chris LaMont is an American screenwriter, independent filmmaker, and film professor, who co-founded the Phoenix Film Festival in 2000. He has written and co-written several feature films, including Soul Mates,The Inheritance, The Au Pair Nightmare, The Locksmith. and the Bruce Willis-starrer Hard Kill. He has also produced and directed several independent films, My Apocalypse,Netherbeast Incorporated, and The Graves.
Toronto After Dark Film Festival is a showcase of horror, sci-fi, action and cult cinema held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The festival premieres a diverse selection of feature-length and short-films from around the world including new works from Asia, Europe and North America.
Soviet Unterzoegersdorf is a fictitious country created by the art/technology/theory group monochrom. It is the "last existing appanage republic of the USSR", located inside the Republic of Austria.
Arse Elektronika is an annual conference organized by the Austrian arts and philosophy collective monochrom, focused on sex and technology. The festival presents talks, workshops, machines, presentations and films. The festival's curator is Johannes Grenzfurthner. Between 2007 and 2015, the event was held in San Francisco, but is now a traveling event in different countries.
Die Gstettensaga: The Rise of Echsenfriedl is a 2014 Austrian science fiction and fantasy film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner and starring Sophia Grabner, Lukas Tagwerker and Jeff Ricketts.
The absurdist comedy deals with the politics and hype behind media technology and nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a contemporary way to talk about the critique of the spectacle and commodity fetishism. The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and the media collective Traum & Wahnsinn, and created for the Austrian television channel ORF III. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Starpause, and many others.
Traceroute is a 2016 Austrian-American documentary film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The autobiographical documentary and road movie deals with the history, politics and impact of nerd culture. Grenzfurthner calls his film a "personal journey into the uncharted depths of nerd culture, a realm full of dangers, creatures and more or less precarious working conditions", an attempt to "chase the ghosts of nerddom's past, present and future." The film was co-produced by art group monochrom and Reisenbauer Film. It features music by Kasson Crooker, Hans Nieswandt, and many others.
The Evil Within is a 2017 American horror film written and directed by Andrew Getty and starring Sean Patrick Flanery, Dina Meyer, Frederick Koehler, and Michael Berryman. It was originally titled The Storyteller. The film's conception and development were a personal project of Getty's, who largely self-financed it at an estimated cost of $4–6 million; production took fifteen years to complete. Following Getty's death in 2015, editing for the film was completed by producer Michael Luceri.
Glossary of Broken Dreams is a 2018 Austrian/American documentary film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The essayistic feature film tries to present an overview of political concepts such as freedom, privacy, identity, resistance, etc.
Sophia Cacciola is an American filmmaker, artist, and musician.
Clickbait is a 2018 social satire horror film directed by Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein. The film is an exploration of the pressures on people to have performative identities and to seek popularity. The film satirizes not only social media, but the way in which social media is used to sell advertising for mundane products, specifically the invented radioactive toaster pastry, Toot Strudels.
Jasmin Hagendorfer is a Vienna-based contemporary artist, writer, filmmaker, curator, producer and festival organizer. She is one of the founders and creative director of the Porn Film Festival Vienna. From 2019 to 2022 she was the creative director of Transition International Queer & Minorities Film Festival. Her main artistic interest is in installation, sculpture and performance, and her work has been exhibited in Austria, Germany, Turkey, Serbia and Greece. As an artist she is concerned with social and political discourses and questions about gender identity with an emphasis on post-porn political works. Her studio is based in Stockerau near Vienna.
Juliana Neuhuber is a director, screenwriter, and artist from Austria. She is based in Vienna.
Hagazussa: A Heathen's Curse is a 2017 German-Austrian horror film written and directed by Lukas Feigelfeld in his feature directorial debut, and produced by Feigelfeld and Simon Lubinski. The film takes place in a remote mountain village in the 15th-century Alps, and follows Aleksandra Cwen as Albrun, a goat-herder shunned by her fellow townspeople who finds herself in an uneasy friendship with a local villager.
Masking Threshold is a 2021 English-language Austrian horror film directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner, and produced by art group monochrom.
The South African Horrorfest is a film festival for horror and genre films in Cape Town, South Africa. It hosts celebrities, artists, filmmakers, screenwriters, and press from the horror genre.
Luzifer is a 2021 Austrian supernatural horror drama film written and directed by Peter Brunner. Starring Susanne Jensen and Franz Rogowski, the film centers on a man who lives in a secluded alpine hut with his mother and his pet eagle, their relative peace and faith shattered as strange and increasingly sinister supernatural occurrences begin to unfold around them.
Razzennest is a 2022 Austrian supernatural, satirical horror film written and directed by Johannes Grenzfurthner. The film was produced by art group monochrom.
Hacking at Leaves is a 2024 Austrian documentary film directed and written by Johannes Grenzfurthner. It explores various themes including the United States' colonial past, Navajo tribal history, and the hacker movement, through the lens of the story of a hackerspace in Durango, Colorado, during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The film was produced by monochrom.
