The festival’s popular midnight screening section – rebranded this year as Afterhours – welcomed Dutch director Michael Middelkoop and his high-energy, genre mashup Straight Outta Space.
In a lively and spontaneous introduction, presenter Aleš Stuchlý described the film as “a proudly campy mix of sci-fi, grotesque comedy, and satire, tackling themes like gentrification and the zombie apocalypse, with community work on one side and alien invasions on the other.” The director fully agreed, saying he planned to use that exact description going forward.
After the screening, Middelkoop spoke about Dutch audiences, who do not typically seek out films that embrace their “trashy” roots or boldly mix genres – despite a long-standing acceptance of absurdity in Dutch literature. Nevertheless, Straight Outta Space was warmly received at home and performed well both in cinemas and on streaming platforms. Middelkoop emphasized his desire to connect locally specific themes with widely recognizable pop culture tropes. His influences include American classics such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Children of the Corn.
But beyond playful pastiche, the director aimed for biting satire. “We wanted to make a film about people who are almost invisible in society. The satirical element was key. The politicians in the story care about votes, not people. That’s drawn directly from my own experience. I grew up in a poor neighbourhood,” Middelkoop explained the layered nature of the narrative.
