Meat And Tensions Simmer In Špela Čadež’s ‘Steakhouse’ (Exclusive Trailer Premiere)

Špela Čadež, Slovenia’s master of pithy psychological dramas, will premiere her new short film Steakhouse at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival next month. In the meantime, Cartoon Brew is honored to exclusively premiere the trailer.

Steakhouse centers on a couple whose simmering resentments come to a boil one evening, when the woman returns home late for dinner. Locarno’s selection committee said, “This mature and refined work is an impeccable animation, frightening and humorous at the same time, brightened up by a deliciously biting feminist touch.” Watch the trailer below:

Čadež has explored the dark side of the human psyche in her previous work, addressing subjects like loneliness in Boles and alcoholism in Nighthawk. Her films have won more than 100 awards and played at festivals including Sundance, Clermont-Ferrand, and Annecy.

For Steakhouse, the director returned to the multiplane set-up she used to make Nighthawk. “With its play of light and shadow,” she said in a statement, “the blur and the unusual vagueness of the space, the multiplane technique can be extremely effective to enter the psychological state of the main characters.”

The film will play on August 5, 6, and 7 as part of Locarno’s Pardi di domani section. It was produced by Tina Smrekar and Špela Čadež at Finta Film, and co-produced by Fabian Driehorst at Fabian&Fred (Germany), Emmanuel-Alain Raynal and Pierre Baussaron in association with Olivier Catherin at Miyu Productions (France), and RTV Slovenija.