Ubij me nežno - Kill me softly

In the organizer's words:

YU 1979
Director: Boštjan Hladnik
99 min
OmenglU

An old lady enjoys life to the full in her lavish villa on the Yugoslavian Adriatic. She goes for joyrides in her Porsche and dance sessions with young men, in addition to her work as a translator of trashy novels. When a visit from her niece and her niece's husband and toyboy disrupts this routine, the drama really begins. In a carousel of love, hate and absurdities, which all in all is more like a fever dream, the main characters find themselves in an erotic amusement park. The gentle awakening at the end of the film holds a final plot twist that may shed some light on the darkness.

"Ubij me nežno - Kill me softly" by Boštjan Hladnik is a Yugoslavian camp comedy from 1979 that manages to draw the audience into its own world through its associative montage. This is characterized by many extremes, which are reflected in the opulent set design, but above all by the exaggeration of humour, violence and sexuality. The latter is characterized by the focus on homosexual love in particular, a rarity in Yugoslavian films of the late 1970s.

The film evening is being organized in cooperation with students from the Slavic Institute at the University of Cologne, who selected the films as part of their excursion to the Eastern European film festival "goEast" in Wiesbaden and the accompanying seminar "(Post-)Yugoslavian Film and Literary Language". Among the films at the festival, "Ubij me nežno - Kill me softly" stood out particularly because of its grotesque humor, but also because of its progressive portrayal of queer desire at the time. The film evening will be followed by a discussion with film scholar and curator Doz. Dr. Jasmina Šepetavc from the University of Ljubljana. The introduction and the discussion with Jasmina will be held in English.

Tickets
Regular 8 €
Reduced € 6 (only at the Box Office, reservation by phone possible)

Price information:

6 € reduced