Big Talk: Steffen Haars & Joseph Kahn

South Korean-American director Joseph Kahn and Dutch director Steffen Haars: both are pop-cultural auteurs, who seem to work comfortably in every genre and mode of filmmaking. Moderated by storied Dutch film filmmaker Martin Koolhoven, this Big Talk dives into the varied oeuvres of two filmmakers who have pushed the envelope of mainstream genre filmmaking, dragging pop culture into stranger, darker and often grosser territories.

Grammy-winner Kahn has made a career out of directing hip-hop music videos. With his 2004 Ice Cube-starring action film Torque, he made his foray into feature filmmaking. His fourth film Ick (IFFR 2025), about an invasion of an aggressive alien goo, screens at IFFR 2025. As expected, the film promises a full-on assault on the senses. That’s a mode that Haars is closely familiar with. As one half of the writer-director duo behind the wildly popular New Kids series, he has a penchant for gross and over the top satiric genre freak-outs. IFFR 2024 featured his zany home invasion comedy-thriller Krazy House (IFFR 2024), starring Nick Frost. Haars and Frost continued their collaboration together penning Get Away (IFFR 2025) a Finland-set horror comedy that screens at IFFR 2025.

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