THE VICIOUS CAT REPORTS

As promised here's the official Grossmann Film and Wine Festival 2010 report. It is a humble attempt at presenting as briefly as humanly possible all of the mindblowing information that the Vicious Cat in his unending wisdom revealed to his humble servants. 

1. Film harvest, book bottlings, three times Q&A and a walk through the world of shock

The crazy cacophonous week of the Cat was visited by approximately 12 000 lost souls, especially our weekend program attracted hordes of pilgrims from the furhest corners of the galaxy, thousands of them, while the horrified mortals reported seeing almost 300 ghastly creatures at the Monster Walk. Our visitors were able to enjoy unforgettable Q&A sessions with our guests, while the Slovenian minister of culture Majda Širca, a former film journalist and critic herself, graced our magnificent closing ceremony with her benevolent presence and handed the Vicious Old Cat award to the great Jose Mojica Marins. Of course the Mayor of Ljutomer Franc Jurša was also present at the ceremony.
Out of astonishing 39 feature films and breath-taking 42 short films from 21 states, announcements by authors were held at the screenings of Embodiment of Evil and most films in the Jose Mojica Marins retrospective, Life and Death of a Porno Gang (director Mladen Djordjević, special FX artist Miroslav Lakobrija, actor Nenad Bekvalac), Rampage, Darfur, Raging Boll (all three of them by director Uwe Boll), The Human Centipede (director Tom Six), Newsmakers (director Anders Banke), A Serbian Film (special FX artist Miroslav Lakobrija), The State of the Dead (co-director Dinko Tucaković with Vasilij Polič), Censored without Censorship (director Dinko Tucaković with Slobodan Šijan), Victory under the Sun (under the watchful eye of Laibach), Divided States of America (director Sašo Podgoršek and Laibach), Dark Angels (director Sašo Podgoršek and Demolition Group), Star Wreck (director Timo Vuorensola), Kuzle (director Matjaž Mrak), Forbidden Love (actor Nenad Bekvalac), Winepires: The Ice Harvest (director Vitomir Kaučič) and Nasty Nancy (special FX artist Miroslav Lakobrija). Besides the unholy winner Until The Light Takes Us, the music documentary competition program also offered not one, but two European premieres: The Heart is a Drum Machine by Christopher Pomerenke and Blood into Wine by Ryan Page and Christopher Pomerenke. With its elegant fusion of wine, film and music the latter was especially appropriate for Grossmann's wine-shaped bag of tricks. The chilling Torture Garden showed 8 whacky films in a 12-hour marathon courtesy of the cult British DVD label Mondo Macabro while our off program showed grim thriller The Whore by Reinert Kiil, brought to Grossmann by the leading Danish publisher of cult and art films Another World Entertainment.
There were three main Q&A sessions: with Jose Mojica Marins, hosted by the Vicious Cat Jury president Dinko Tucaković; with Uwe Boll, hosted by the Slak's Vicious Cat Jury member Alin Ludu Dumbrava; with Laibach, hosted by Nenad Bekvalac who also took us into the bizarre world of shockumentaries in the 4th live edition of the cult Serbian TV show Shock Corridor. Slovenian film journalist and producer of one of the first Slovenian digital films Aleš Blatnik presented his new book Digital Film Revolution while hosting a public discussion on digital film production with guests Anders Banke, Timo Vuorensola and Diego Menendes.

2. Bloody symphonies, photographies, paintings and feast of the beasts

Among our numerous music events, Friday's Rock Hard Night, organised in friendly and furious collaboration with Rock Hard Slovenia, was the loudest and most deliciously vicious. The absolute highlight of this earwarming evening was a very special and without a doubt historical concert by the legendary Laibach, accompanied by highly appropriate horrific videos on two monumental screens and featuring the exquisite berry selection of their songs in celebration of the first 30 years of their sinister activities. The Rock Hard stage was also savagely shaken by Aperion, Dekadent, Gonoba and Before the Murder. Our music program also featured blistering performances by Hladno pivo, Demolition Group, Stekli psi, Dežurni krivci, Rok Predin, Odpisani, Obnounce, Nero Burns, Na lepem prijazni and Ludvik Bagari, Cypher Louis, Kanalizacija 3, Broken Trigger and Stream.

During the festival there were three exhibitions at the Anton Trstenjak Gallery. The visitors could feast their eyes on brilliant photographies from the last year's Zombie Walk by Edvard Pintarič, witty caricatures by Belgrade artist Jakša Vlahović and the amazing installation Monster Feast by the master artists from Šlosart who also contributed the giant lurking spider that was guarding the entrance to the Culture House Cinema.

3. Heavenly Delights of the Wine Program

On the by now traditional symbolic wine road at the opening of the festival, the wine program offered the presentation of competing wines. Gathered film guests and visitors tasted the divine flavours of Prlekia with Furmint 2009 from the cellar of Jeruzalem Ormož and Yellow Muscat 2009 from the cellar of Ljutomerčan, both appearing under the banner of Puklavec & Friends, invigorated themselves with the Tiger Wine from the cellar of Radgonske Gorice, got excited with Zweigelt 2008 from the cellar of the Tourist-Vinecultural Farm Hlebec and merrily toasted with Yellow Muscat from the cellar of Kos Vinery. Thursday's Salon of Film and Wine took the visitors to the world of enchanting flavours of the finest Furmints from Prlekia with expert guidance from distinguished enologists Anton Vodovnik and Tadeja Vodovnik Plevnik. Already in the early afternoon the same day the Film and Wine Hiking Tour took the participants by numerous local historical landmarks, such as the Church of the Holy Trinity in Mala Nedelja and the richly ornamented Cyril and Methodius well in Kršovščak. The hikers stopped in Drakovci at the house where the daring Slovenian film pioneer Dr. Karol Grossmann was born. Next station was Tourist Farm Žinko, where our film guests and other participants of the hiking tour were shown the famous first Slovenian films at their special Grossmann memorial room. For many of our guests from abroad  this was the first encounter with this important historical legacy, made only 10 years after the invention of the new artform.

4. Subculture Fair and Monster Walk

During the weekend the Subculture Fair took place at the Main Square luring the visitors with colourful tents and magical ambient and holding DVDs, CDs, books, comics, T-shirts, patches, brutal accesories, musical and other neccesities, offered by Counter Culture, Šlosart, Demiurg, Mladina DVD, Rock Shop Low-C, leather merchant Jože Farič and Chillum.

The final day of the festival brought the merry yet furious Monster Walk, assembly of monstruously beautiful creatures and entities, freed from their human form by the painstaking yet impeccably masterful work of proffesional film FX crews Lakobrija FX and Mad Squirrel FX from Belgrade.
The walk was led by the wild (maybe too wild) Monster Truck. Its mobile stage unit was inhabited by the terribly transformed Nero Burns who electrified the crowd with their inflammable voodoo rock. Even before the Monster Truck started its engrossing engine, the gathered hordes were addressed by the Undertaker General Coffin Joe himself, accompanied by the heiress of the throne, vampire queen Lizvamp. Even before that important announcement, the doom-bringing troops of frenzied fiends were able to hear the absolute metal legend Max Cavalera over the phone through the gigantic speakers. He enthusiastically introduced his countryman and elder Coffin Joe while showing nothing but sympathy and support for Grossmann's infernal intents.

5. Little Workshop of Horrors for the third time

Little Workshop of Horrors that raises the new generations of Grossmann's daring visionaries was held for the third time. Inspired by The Little Shop of Horrors by our lifetime achievement award receiver from year 2008 Roger Corman (by the way, he received a Honorary Oscar just a year later), the applied film crews have to shoot their short genre films in two days and a night. All four guerrilla film crews managed to finish their films on schedule. Besides the winner Matevž Jerman with Ballad, this task was fulfilled with excelence by Gašper Antauer with Assface, Tina Ščavničar with Noise or How I Wanted to Feed the Animals and Jernej Cenčič with Bad Deal. Our sincere congratulations to all crews! You are the future of Slovenian film! 


6. Strange world of logistics and internet statistics

Our guests have flown more than 99 800 kilometers alltogether. We have tasted 500 bottles of excellent wine from Prlekia that took our guests by storm. 18 bands performing at this year's Grossmann had 94 members. In hotels and tourist farms we hosted 95 guests and organized more than 400 accomodations. Our drivers alone drove over 12 000 km (rides to homes or airports) while many guests came with their own cars or by planes (Anders Banke with family from Sweden, Alin Ludu Dumbrava from Romania, Jakša Vlahović and Mladen Djordjević from Belgrade, Another World Entertainmet boss Jan Schmidt with airplane from Denmark…).

During the festival week our fabulous website was visited more than 10 500 times, in the time period from the initiation of operation Grossmann 2010 in April to the last day of the festival we had over 33 900 vicious visits from most countries of the world. The most visitors were from Slovenia, followed by Croatia, Serbia and Germany, and then come the USA, Austria, Spain, Italy, Norway, France, an unknown unlisted state (perhaps outside the borders of the charted galaxy) and as the last one with more than 100 visits the UK.

Currently there are more than 30 media around the world who reported on the Cat's atrocious excellence. Apart from all important Slovenian newspapers and TV stations, Grossmann was also covered in the leading UK film magazine Screen International, Serbian national television RTS and numerous prominent media in Spain, Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, not to mention the German Rock Hard magazine.

7. Conclusion

For a week of unearthly pleasures in free screenings of marvelous films, thundering music, free tastings of top quality wines, insightful Q&A sessions, public tribunes and essential exhibitions – without the Grossmann Discount Card (which we know is unmissable) and without counting the Torture Garden (where good manners call for not leaving early), Monster Walk and even without buying tickets in presale, you had to give up 50 Euro, if you bought tickets in presale even laughable 42 Euros! All because we love ya! We are happy and content as a seasoned winemaker who after a year of hard work merrily watches his guests stumblingly leaving his cellar and can't help not to whistle a cheerful tune into his dense moustache.

On our site you can take a look at the wonderful galleries, attractive video reports, wild trailers, deafening music videos and much more! Naturally we will carefully wade through tons of incredible footage that was recovered from the field by our units and add all of the aforementioned sweet features of Grossmann to the program of our ghoulish Grossmann TV! The game is't over by far, more likely it is a beginning of a beautiful friendship! So don't stray too far from your rightful place in the horrendous but ever so amusing Grossmann machinery!