Boris Szulzinger

Boris Szulzinger Archives

Boris Szulzinger

Archives

Director, screenwriter and producer, Boris Szulzinger was a true jack-of-all-trades, but he made his mark above all in genre cinema, which remains underrepresented in our country. One of the first students at INSAS, the Brussels film school, he interned with Jean-Pierre Melville, worked as a journalist in the United States, co-directed and produced the debut animated films of illustrator Picha, and directed documentaries, commercials (Sabena, Barbie...), and several short films.

Beyond his collaborations with Picha, Boris Szulzinger directed two films in entirely different genres. Les Tueurs Fous (1972) is a blood-soaked crime thriller that follows the murderous rampage of two young drifters who, out of sheer boredom, take up a rifle and begin shooting indiscriminately at anyone who crosses their path. In 1980, Szulzinger turned to horror-comedy with Mama Dracula, in which Maria Schneider plays a clothing boutique owner who, with the help of her twin sons, preys on young virgins to maintain her beauty and youth.

Following The Big Bang, both Picha and Szulzinger took a step back from filmmaking. It would take another twenty years before Picha returned with his final film, Blanche-Neige, la suite, which picks up where the fairy tale ends. Recently, CINEMATEK has restored all four of Picha’s films, along with Boris Szulzinger’s two features, offering audiences a chance to (re)discover these unique works as part of the Offscreen Festival.