Xavier Mendik is a Professor of Cult Cinema Studies at Birmingham City University, where he also runs the annual Cine-Excess International Film Festival (www.cine-excess.co.uk). He is the author, editor and co-editor of nine volumes on cult cinema traditions, including Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema (2015), Peep Shows: Cult Film and the Cine-Erotic (2012) and The Cult Film Reader (2008). Xavier has also completed twelve documentaries on cult cinema including Tax Shelter Terrors: The Real Story of Canadian Cult Film (2017) and That’s La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead (2018).