With all the changes in the details and in the big picture of the festival, one thing in particular remained the same besides our orientation: The closing night. One band, one film, one prize. That was the deal and it still is. And we won't let some virus that came along take this fun away from us. Five days of "cinema extreme" will be behind us all... and we will celebrate!

German genre cinema is one of those things. Concrete grey and in rainy dreariness, the protagonists meander through a tough plot. This or something similar is the association with German genre cinema, because there is no such thing in the public perception. When talking about local productions, one is almost tempted to count TATORT as a genre and thus betray all conventions... But...

In addition to announcements about our beloved media partners, we don't deny ourselves the pleasure of knocking out films ourselves every now and then when we're funny. Today is such a day of general fun at HARD:LINE. Because: There are only three weeks left until the festival. Fancy diving for two fine genre pearls?

Originally conceived purely as a feature-length film festival, we were forced to hold a short film competition when we became members of the Méliès International Festivals Federation (MIFF). After all, the renowned Méliès D'Argent for the best European fantastic short film was also to be presented in Regensburg. A chore became a desire and finally a burning passion! The reason for this are the countless, insane filmmakers out there! What wonderfully awful films they let off the leash!!! But best just see for yourself.

In our case, celebrating film festivals means celebrating film festivals! But not only film. But also you, the music, life in general and the Regensburg subculture, whose level of horniness has exceeded the magic 666 for ages. Instead of game over, it's really going down. That's why we're cautiously optimistic that we'll have the opportunity to play the cinema pub again this year with our classic after-show parties. But of course we don't do that ourselves, we leave it to the professionals.

In March the farmer harnesses the little oxen. Or was it oxen after all? Whatever the case, it is clear that we are just under a month away from the ninth HARD:LINE Film Festival. The first time in April. The first time in spring. You can only get cheerful, can't you? And when the Bavarian gets cheerful, he throws around agricultural songs. But when the horror fan is rejoicing, he throws out the first four titles of the festival, for example.

When we had to decide in July 2020, at external insistence, whether and when we would do our festival in 2021, we weighed it up and said: it might not be over by then. So we moved to April 2022 and have to state on today's date: It could be that the haunting is not over yet. But it will get better! For example with our Festival Passes!

For months, we in the team sifted through them daily. More than 400 films were submitted and all of them were scrutinised. But now the deadline has been reached and we are sharpening our pencils to get the programme down on paper in the next few weeks. Be curious!

What a strange year it was. After it got really bad, it actually got really good, then nobody cared and then it got even worse. The fact is that we didn't let ourselves be distracted by ups or downs. We just kept going and worked on our presence. We have become chic...