In his 1999 Outer Space, Austrian filmmaker Peter Tscherkassky dismantles the familiar language of horror through an intense collage of found footage, analogue film manipulation, and violent visual distortion. The short film follows a young woman’s desperate escape from a house haunted by a tormenting spirit. As the image fractures, flickers, and tears apart, the film medium itself becomes the source of terror, transforming a seemingly ordinary scene into a relentless sensory experience.

Widely regarded as a landmark of experimental cinema, Outer Space continues to shape the possibilities of film more than two decades after its release. The film was recently ranked 9th out of the 250 best short films of all time. This ranking by yanco and Hamburg Short Film Festival, in collaboration with Talking Shorts, nominates the most significant films in short film history. This year, Tscherkassky also received further international recognition as he was made a member of AMPAS – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the institution behind the Academy Awards (the Oscars). This is an acknowledgment of his outstanding contribution to the art of film. 

IMPAKT is pleased to present Outer Space by Peter Tscherkassky for a limited time online on the IMPAKT Channel.