SLASH is Austria's leading festival for Fantastic Film. Each year around 70 carefully selected features and shorts from genres such diverse as horror, science-fiction, fantasy and animation are screened as national premieres to an enthusiastic audience. In the past years films such as Julia Ducournau's TITANE, Natalie Erika James' RELIC, Panos Cosmatos' MANDY, Andres Muschietti's IT, David Robert Mitchell's IT FOLLOWS or Sion Sono's TOKYO TRIBE have all had their Austrian premieres at SLASH Filmfestival.

Since its foundation in 2010 the festival greatly expanded in size and importance, tripling the number of visitors as well as attracting top-notch talents from the movie industry.

Among the film professionals who've graced us with their presence are director Brandon Cronenberg, actor Michael Ironside, Drag superstar Peaches Christ, cult icons Jörg Buttgereit and Udo Kier, superstar Nicolas Cage, pope of trash John Waters, legendary director Joe Dante and Italian horror maestro Dario Argento (to name a few).

Fantastic Shorts Competition - Audience Award (short films):
As a film festival designed to be closely attuned to the soul of its audience, the winner of our international short film competition, comprised of two approximately 90 minute-long programs, will be identified by popular vote after the respective screenings. The winner will be awarded with 1.000€ worth of prize money.

Méliès d’argent (short films):
As a member of the Méliès International Festivals Federation, we will nominate a minimum of six European shorts to compete for the Méliès d’argent. The winning film will be chosen by a jury and will then be in the running for the Méliès d'or. More info can be found here https://melies.org/

Fantastic Futures (short films):
Our goal is to celebrate the brightest up-and-coming talents on the genre circuit, by highlighting works from first-time or student filmmakers. The winner will be identified by a jury.