Edge of Empire
Written and directed by Josefin Arnell
Starring Florentina Holzinger, Jane Janicah Castillo, Alejandra Cijntje and many others.
Produced by ARG co-produced and comissioned by Steirischer Herbst 26.
Funded by Mondriaan Fonds, Part International Art Recidency Austria
Longevity treatments could include getting bitten by a vampire, which would make these bloodsuckers suddenly be in high demand. Such is the fate of the famous Styrian vampire Carmilla in Josefin Arnell’s revisiting of Sheridan Le Fanu’s eponymous 1872 Gothic novella. Played by Florentina Holzinger, Carmilla finds herself in present-day Austria, a place saturated with imperial nostalgia and eager tourists, where she has become a sought-after commodity.
All Carmilla longs for is to rejoin her deceased lover and, meanwhile, enter upon her inheritance. But she and two other vampires, Jane and Selene, are pursued by a horde of wellness fans, influencers, longevity gurus, and bureaucrats played by a mix of professional and nonprofessional actors, including members of the Viennese art scene. Arnell’s satirical splatter film inverts the original: The aristocratic predator becomes the quarry of today’s consumerist middle class that dreams of eternal life while living out its inexhaustible kink for self-exploitation and decadence.
