Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will receive the prestigious Golden Eye Award at this year’s Zurich Film Festival (ZFF). Gyllenhaal will be in Zurich to present Stronger as a Gala Premiere on Tuesday October 3.
ZFF Co-Directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri state “Jake Gyllenhaal has consistently proven himself to be one of the most exciting and versatile actors working today. We are thrilled to present him with the Golden Eye Award and present Stronger as part of the festival.”
Stronger is the inspiring true story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become the symbol of hope following the infamous 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff, a 27-year-old, working-class Boston man who was at the marathon to try and win back his ex-girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Waiting for her at the finish line when the blast occurs, he loses both his legs in the attack.
After regaining consciousness in the hospital, Jeff is able to help law enforcement identify one of the bombers, but his own battle has just begun. He tackles months of physical and emotional rehabilitation with the unwavering support of Erin and his family. It is Jeff’s deeply personal account of the heroic journey that tests a family’s bond, defines a community’s pride and inspires his inner courage to overcome devastating adversity.
Filled with raw emotion, humanity and humor, Stronger is the inspirational real-life story of the man who became the living embodiment of “Boston Strong.” The film also stars Academy Award® nominee Miranda Richardson and is directed by David Gordon Green.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkoM5r9LR14-
Jake Gyllenhaal to Receive Golden Eye Award + Premiere STRONGER at Zurich Film Festival
Actor Jake Gyllenhaal will receive the prestigious Golden Eye Award at this year’s Zurich Film Festival (ZFF). Gyllenhaal will be in Zurich to present Stronger as a Gala Premiere on Tuesday October 3.
ZFF Co-Directors Nadja Schildknecht and Karl Spoerri state “Jake Gyllenhaal has consistently proven himself to be one of the most exciting and versatile actors working today. We are thrilled to present him with the Golden Eye Award and present Stronger as part of the festival.”
Stronger is the inspiring true story of Jeff Bauman, an ordinary man who captured the hearts of his city and the world to become the symbol of hope following the infamous 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Jeff, a 27-year-old, working-class Boston man who was at the marathon to try and win back his ex-girlfriend Erin (Tatiana Maslany). Waiting for her at the finish line when the blast occurs, he loses both his legs in the attack.
After regaining consciousness in the hospital, Jeff is able to help law enforcement identify one of the bombers, but his own battle has just begun. He tackles months of physical and emotional rehabilitation with the unwavering support of Erin and his family. It is Jeff’s deeply personal account of the heroic journey that tests a family’s bond, defines a community’s pride and inspires his inner courage to overcome devastating adversity.
Filled with raw emotion, humanity and humor, Stronger is the inspirational real-life story of the man who became the living embodiment of “Boston Strong.” The film also stars Academy Award® nominee Miranda Richardson and is directed by David Gordon Green.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkoM5r9LR14
-
THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE Wins FIPRESCI Grand Prix 2017 for Best Film of the Year
The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) directed by Aki Kaurismäki has been named best film of 2017 by the members of the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI.
The other two finalists are Barry Jenkins’ Oscar®-winning Moonlight and Ildikó Enyedi’s winner of the Golden Bear in Berlin, Teströl és lélekröl / On Body and Soul.
Aki Kaurismäki will receive the FIPRESCI Grand Prix at the Opening Gala of the San Sebastian International Film Festival.
The Other Side of Hope is set in Helsinki, where Khaled, a young Syrian immigrant, arrives as a stowaway on a coal ship from Poland. Meanwhile, a nondescript salesman going by the name of Wikström decides to end his marriage, change his occupation and open a restaurant with only a very few customers. When their paths cross, Wikström offers Khaled a roof, food and a job. But the boy dreams of finding his sister, who also fled Syria.
Director Aki Kaurismäki (Orimattila, Finland, 1957) is considered to be one of the most important European directors of today’s cinema. Key titles in his filmography, such as Ariel (1988), Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö / The Match Factory Girl (1990), Kauas pilvet karkaavat / Drifting Clouds (1996), Mies vailla menneisyyttä / The Man Without a Past (2002, Grand Prix at Cannes), and Le Havre (2011, FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes) are now modern classics. Kaurismäki won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the last Berlin Festival with Toivon tuolla puolen / The Other Side of Hope.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtiFG6utst8
-
Award Winning ON BODY AND SOUL is Hungary’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
On Body and Soul (Testről és lélekről) directed by Ildiko Enyedi has been selected by the Hungarian Oscar Selection Committee to represent the country in the best foreign-language film category at the 2018 Oscars.
The film premiered at the 2017 Berlinale earlier this year, where the int’l jury headed by Paul Verhoeven awarded it the prestigious Golden Bear. On Body and Soul won the FIPRESCI Prize, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, the Berliner Morgenpost’s Reader Jury Prize in Berlin as well, and the Sydney Film Festival competition in June. Ildikó Enyedi became the first woman director to win in the 10-year history of the Sydney Film Festival competition for “courageous, audacious and cutting-edge” cinema.
Endre (Géza Morcsányi) and Maria (Alexandra Borbély) work at a slaughterhouse. He is the financial director, she the new quality inspector. By day, their urban workplace houses scenes of animals being slaughtered — and Enyedi does not shy away from the carnage. By night, they dream of the same pastoral scene in which deer rub against each other in the snow. Endre is mild-mannered, while the OCD-afflicted Maria is nervous and introverted. In everyday life, these two can’t quite connect, then a company psychiatrist realizes that they see identical images during sleep. Should these subconsciously kindred coworkers commingle in their waking hours? Or are they better off resigning themselves to being lovers only in dreams?
On Body and Soul will have its North American premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6mv_rN6bU
-
Zurich Film Festival to Spotlight New Hungarian Cinema
The Zurich Film Festival will spotlight Hungary’s cinema, featuring 18 films made by a thriving new generation of Hungarian filmmakers.
Hungarian cinema has a long history of creating great masters. During the 1970s, a period of cultural thaw in the then socialist state, Hungary was regarded as one of the most important film producing countries in the world. Miklós Jancsó, Márta Mészáros and István Szabó astonished both Soviet and western audiences alike with their extraordinary political candour and their spectacular, cutting-edge film language.
Despite the efforts of some of its leading exponents, namely Bela Tarr and János Szász, the collapse of the Soviet Union signalled a downturn in the popularity of auteur film, and the country’s homegrown productions, which looked to the American model for inspiration, fell on blind eyes.
During a time in an ever more authoritarian country when democratic institutions, such as schools and universities, are closing and press freedom is becoming increasingly less free, a pleasing image is developing: filmmakers are clearly defying the situation – Hungarian cinema is back – and it’s thematically diverse, artistically radical, bursting with international esprit and enjoying remarkable success at the domestic box-office.
One of this cinema’s most striking thematic interests is the outsider, characters who are forced to assert themselves in a world where they feel alone. They do this in a whole variety of contexts, but always with resolute commitment and often with a huge pinch of humour, which can quite easily drift into the dark and absurd.
Hungary’s filmmakers are already at the highest international level when it comes to practising their craft. The renowned Budapest University of Drama and Film, and the countless international large-scale productions made in the capital, form two of Hungary’s most important talent forges. Here, they not only shape great directors, but also form their befitting cinematographers and technicians.
After celebrating success on the film world’s greatest stages, three filmmakers have become synonymous with the latest upturn in Hungarian cinema: director Kornél Mundruczó, an equally well-known force in the theatre world, astounded at Cannes in 2014 with his spectacularly directed, highly metaphoric film WHITE GOD (Un Certain Regard Award).
László Nemes’ debut-of-the-century, the Holocaust drama SON OF SAUL (2015), not only won the Jury Prize at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but also proved an astronomical success with Hungarian audiences after clocking up an almost unheard of 270’000 cinema entries in a country where 50’000 entries is already considered a hit. And finally, Ildikó Enyedi, whose breakthrough came in the 1990s, returned after an 18-year respite with her sensual and insidious romantic drama ON BODY AND SOUL (2017) to win a Golden Bear at the Berlinale and captivate the hearts of the Hungarian public.
These three great names of Hungarian cinema are far from standing alone: Hungary has been the recipient of many awards in recent years at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s most important platform, including for Lili Horváth’s coming-of ager THE WEDNESDAY CHILD (2015) and Szabolcs Hajdu’s dark-humored family drama IT’S NOT THE TIME OF MY LIFE (2016), who, in a true Budapest spirit, shot the film in his own apartment with his own family members.
International multi award winning debuts such as Virág Zomborácz’s tragicomedy AFTERLIFE (2014), Gábor Reisz’s pioneering underground comedy FOR SOME INEXPLICABLE REASON (2014) and Attila Till’s black comedy KILLS ON WHEELS (2016) complete this new and remarkable image of a thriving filmmaking country.
This year’s most riveting Hungarian films further enhance the section’s program: Roland Vranik’s naturalization drama THE CITIZEN, György Kristof’s Cannes premiered debut OUT and the Berlin Panorama section’s audience favorite 1945 by Ferenc Török will screen alongside the award-winning documentary films JUDGMENT IN HUNGARY by Eszter Hajdú and DRIFTER by Gábor Hörcher. For the tenth time this year, the International Short Film Festival Winterthur has put together a comprehensive short film block comprising five films to round off the New World View section.
New World View: Hungary Films
AFTERLIFE, Virág Zomborácz, 2014 DRIFTER, Gábor Hörcher, 2014 FOR SOME INEXPLICABLE REASON, Gábor Reisz, 2014 IT’S NOT THE TIME OF MY LIFE, Szabolcs Hajdu, 2016 JUDGMENT IN HUNGARY, Eszter Hajdú, 2013 KILLS ON WHEELS, Attila Till, 2016 ON BODY AND SOUL, Ildikó Enyedi, 2017 OUT, György Kristof, 2017 SON OF SAUL, László Nemes, 2015 THE CITIZEN, Roland Vranik, 2016 THE WEDNESDAY CHILD, Lili Horváth, 2015 WHITE GOD, Kornél Mundruczó, 2014 1945, Ferenc Török, 2017Short films
DIALOGUE, Gábor Fabricius, 2016 SZEP ALAK, Hajni Kis, 2016 LOVE, Réka Bucsi, 2016 GARAGE INVENTORY, Alyx Ayn Arumpac, 2015 WELCOME, Balázs Dudás, 2016
-
John Sayles and Maggie Renzi to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award at Santa Fe Independent Film Festival
John Sayles and Maggie Renzi will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award and introduce the film Lone Star presented in 35mm at the 2017 Santa Fe Independent Film Festival on Friday October 20th.
John Sayles and Maggie Renzi double as husband and wife and creative team. The pair originally met while studying at Williams College and released their first film together, Return of the Secaucus Seven, a few years after graduating. The film went on to win major awards, including the LA Critics’ Award for Best Screenplay, thus launching their careers as independent filmmakers. Since then, Sayles and Renzi have worked both collaboratively and separately, becoming icons in American independent film.
“John Sayles is an auteur in the truest sense of the word and the human embodiment of independent cinema.” Jacques Paisner, Executive Director Santa Fe Independent Film Festival says.
The Awards Ceremony will be followed by Sayles’ and Renzi’s Oscar-nominated film Lone Star. Lone Star follows Sam Deeds, Sheriff of Rio Country Texas and son of Sheriff Buddy Deeds who is revered for replacing the corrupt Sheriff Charlie Wade. The young Sheriff is called to the small town of Frontera where a skeleton, the body of Charlie Wade, has been uncovered in the desert. Deeds soon finds himself caught amid the town’s long buried secrets, and suspicious that his father may not be the just man he’s made out to be. Written and directed by John Sayles, produced by Maggie Renzi, starring Chris Cooper, Kris Kristofferson, Matthew McConaughey, and Elizabeth Peña.
image via Youtube.
-
Late Japanese Film Director Suzuki Seijun is Busan International Film Festival Asian Filmmaker of the Year
The late Japanese Master film director Suzuki Seijun has been selected as the Asian Filmmaker of the Year by the 22nd Busan International Film Festival. Considered a legend in Asian genre film, with his unpredictable and experimental style, the 22nd Busan International Film Festival awards The Asian Filmmaker of the Year to Suzuki Seijun to honor his cinematic legacy and contribution to Asian film industry.
Born in 1923 in Tokyo, Japan, Suzuki Seijun debuted as filmmaker with Cheers At the Harbor: Triumph In My Hands in 1956. He directed over 40 works until 1967, displaying an idiosyncratic cinematic approach that challenged the convention of genre film. Especially, paring pop visuals with yakuza hitmen, he has inspired many prominent filmmakers such as Wong Kar Wai, Quentin Tarantino and John Woo. Preeminent Korean filmmakers such as Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon Ho have been very vocal in praise. Despite failing health, he gave memorable moments to his fans with a sense of humor and keen mind at the 10th Busan International Film Festival in 2005. He died on February 13th, 2017 at the age of 93; fans around the world now mourn his loss.
The Asian Filmmaker of the Year will be given to Okada Yutaka, the representative of Argo Pictures who was one of the assistant directors and co-scenarists of Suzuki Seijun, during the opening ceremony of Busan International Film Festival, held on October 12th.
In celebration of Suzuki Seijun as the Asian Filmmaker of the Year, the 22nd Busan International Film Festival will screen his major works through Special Programs in Focus ‘Suzuki Seijun: A Drifter Across the Borders’ which showcases his cinematic world. Special Program in Focus will screen 7 major works of Suzuki Seijun including Gate Of Flesh (1964), which was controversial for the bold portrait of sex, Branded to Kill (1967), a masterpiece which brought conflict with the Nikkatsu Corporation, and major later works, Zigeunerweisen (1980) and Pistol Opera (2001). Audiences will be able to witness cinematic achievements that Suzuki Seijun has established as the innovative film maker across the Asian borders. Other additional events where the international cineastes such as film critics Yamane Sadao and Tony Rayns introducing Suzuki Seijun’s cinematic world to audience will be placed along with the screenings.
SUZUKI Seijun | Director | Japan
Suzuki Seijun was born in Tokyo in 1923. He enrolled in the film department of the Kamakura Academy in 1946 and worked as an assistant director at several studios. Debuted as filmmaker with Cheers At the Harbor: Triumph In My Hands(Minato no kanpai: Shôri o waga te ni) in 1956, he directed over 40 works until 1967 and named as a significant figure in Japanese New Wave. He also. Suzuki’s yakuza thrillers and pop-art cinematic style influenced future filmmakers including Wong Kar Wei, Quentin Tarantino and John Woo. His representative works includes Gate of Flesh (1964), Tokyo Drifter(1966), Branded to Kill (1967), Zigeunerweisen (1980). Princess Raccoon (2005) was screened at the 10th Busan International Film Festival.Special Programs in Focus ‘Suzuki Seijun: A Drifter Across the Borders’ Screenings
Pistol Opera Miyuki, the third-ranked assassin for The Assassins Guild, is asked to pull off a hit by the group’s agent, but finds herself in a sticky situation when she learns who her targets are. With the subtitle “Killing with style,” the film shows the quintessential Seijun visual style. Branded To Kill Hanada is a gun-for-hire listed as the No. 3 hit-man of the underworld. During a job worth five million, he successfully takes out two of his rivals, securing his slot as No. 2. But success as a contract killer comes at a high price. Seijun’s most highly praised masterpiece. Gate Of Flesh In an impoverished and burnt out Tokyo ghetto of post-World War II Japan, Maya joins a band of prostitutes and learns the trade. Soon she falls in love with an ex-soldier who is shot nearby. Based on the same titled novel by Tamura Taijiro, the film is the first film of the “prostitution trilogy.” Tokyo Drifter When his Yakuza gang is disbanded, Tetsu stays loyal to his boss but it’s not easy task for him. With a stunning choreographed action sequences and vibrant colors, Tokyo Drifter stands as one of the best-know masterpiece of Seijun along with Branded to Kill Kagero-za Set in 1920s Taisho period, Kagero-za examines the inner workings of the human psyche. After a playwright Matsuzaki, meets Shinako (a mysterious beauty) he encounters another woman looking similar to her. Based on the same novel by Izumi Ky?ka. Yumeji Yumeji is a fictional account of Yumeji Takehisa, a painter and poet from the Taisho period. He gets involved with a beautiful widow to become a rival of her dead husband’s ghost and the jealous lover who murdered him. The last film of the “Taisho trilogy.” Zigeunerweisen The first film of “Taisho trilogy”, the film is based on a novel by Uchida Hyakken’s Disk of Sarasate. Following the journey of Aochi, a professor of German, the film shows Seijun’s aesthetic signatures blurring the boundaries of fantasy and reality.
-
Supernatural Thriller THELMA is Norway’s Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Thelma directed by Joachim Trier has been selected as Norway’s entry for the foreign-language category at the 2018 Oscars.
The Norwegian Oscar committee chose Trier’s fourth feature, which will have its international premiere at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival (September 7 to 17) followed by New York Film Festival (September 15 to October 28), from a shortlist of candidates, which also included Norwegian directors Izer Aliu’s Hunting Flies (Fluefangeren) and Jorunn Myklebust Syversen’s The Tree Feller (Hoggeren).
The film which opened last month’s Norwegian International Film Festival in Haugesund and received the Norwegian Film Critics Prize, will open in the US on November 10th.
Starring Eili Harboe, Thelma portrays Thelma, a young student in Oslo. When she is drawn to another woman, she is overwhelmed by emotions she does not dare acknowledge – and frightening and inexplicable powers are forcing themselves into the open.
“Thelma confirms that Trier is a unique and style-safe film artist of a broad and international format,” explained the Norwegian Oscar committee – “based on his special and character-exploring universe, the film has become an all-embraced, ambitious and personal drama about a young woman’s awakening and detachment.
“Thelma is a film that touches the viewer on several levels, both emotionally and intellectually – it is visually striking, modern in its expression, at the same time with clear references to film classics. With this film Trier, Vogt and their regular group of assistants have delivered a story that will reach a wide audience, and which we strongly believe in as our Oscar candidate,” added chairman of the Oscar committee, managing director Sindre Guldvog, of the Norwegian Film Institute.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4lHlIMNNbY
-
Muslim Drama LAYLA M. is The Netherlands’ Entry for 2018 Oscar Race for Best Foreign Film | TRAILER
Layla M. directed by Mijke de Jong, has been selected as the official entry from The Netherlands for the Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
The film tells the controversial and searingly honest story of a young female Islamist. Layla, a Dutch-Moroccan teenager, is radicalized by her adopted country’s anti-Muslim measures. She marries a devout young jihadist and together they leave Amsterdam to join an Islamist cell in the Middle East – only to discover that her new community has its own restrictions, prejudices and dangers.
Layla M. starring Nora el Koussour (Laila), Ilias Addab (Abdel), Yasemin Cetinkaya (Oum Osama), Hassan Akkouch (Zine), Husam Khadad (Sheikh Abdullah Al Sabin), Ayisha Siddiqi (Mereyem) Bilal Wahib (Younes) Bobbie Koek (Hana) Mohammed Azaay (Father) and Esma Abouzahra (Mother), world premiered in the Platform competition of the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.
Layla M. (18) is a young Muslim born in Holland.
Their Moroccan parents had already emigrated to Amsterdam before their birth, and there lay Layla and her brother Younes liberal large.
Layla is an intelligent, funny and stubborn girl with a strong sense of justice. Through the daily confrontation with prejudices against Muslims and Islam, Layla feels increasingly less affable and incomprehensible. Her parents do not try to attract attention and do not help her. Whether on the road, in school, or in politics; the reservations about headscarf-wearing women and men with raucous beards are almost omnipresent in Layla’s world, against the background of various Islamic terror attacks.
Their faith gives Layla a hold and is only strengthened by her displeasure and her longing for affiliation. It is slowly, but surely, joining a group of radical Muslims to create a world in which Islam is tolerated and accepted; and can be lived freely.
Layla is increasingly in conflict with her environment, her family, and even her best friend, Mereyem. Her father, a parade example of an “assimilated alien,” tries to keep his children in check, but Layla refuses to live as he does: as a guest in his own country.
The radical group becomes their new family. Including Abdel, a charismatic believing Muslim, who impressed Layla with his strong speeches.
As Layla’s relationship with her family grows, she feels that your only option is to go away from home. True to her belief, Layla decides to marry Abdel.
After her wedding, Layla goes to the Middle East with Abdel.
Layla meets a world that nourishes their ideas and needs, but ultimately puts them before a seemingly impossible choice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esGsns05lI0
-
Alexander Payne’s DOWNSIZING to Close + Final Wave of Films Announced for 2017 Fantastic Fest
[caption id="attachment_24425" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
DOWNSIZING[/caption]
The 2017 Fantastic Fest announced its final wave of films, along with Alexander Payne’s miniature masterpiece DOWNSIZING as the closing night film. Rounding out a trio of Fantastic-Fest first-timers making their way to Austin is Cory Finley and his jaw dropping debut THOROUGHBRED, and fan-favorite tough guy extraordinaire Frank Grillo for the World Premiere of his nail-biting getaway drama, WHEELMAN.
In keeping with world premieres, Fantastic Fest announced a fistful of titles that will receive their big screen bows. Screen great Barbara Crampton will be in attendance with director Bradford Baruh for a ride in his chilling APPLECART, featuring over forty minutes of zero gravity footage; Russia’s SALYUT-7 is guaranteed to pop 3D eyes; HAUNTERS: THE ART OF THE SCARE walks us through the world’s most terrifying haunted houses; and TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID delivers a contemporary fairytale from within the world of the mexican cartels.
“I’m incredibly proud of the vast array of filmmaking on display in this year’s program,” said Fantastic Fest Creative Director Evrim Ersoy. “From the most highly acclaimed studio titles to the smallest independent debuts, it’s exhilarating to embrace unique creativity from the four corners of the world. Bringing filmmakers together in a program that highlights the increasing diversity of cinema is truly an honor that we can’t wait to share with our audience.”
Female filmmakers once again deliver powerful voices with three of the most dynamic films of the festival. Angel Robinson will be in attendance to share the controversially kinky true story behind the year’s biggest superhero with PROFESSOR MARSTON & THE WONDER WOMEN; Lisa Bruhlmann makes a stunning entrance with her fantastical coming-of-age debut BLUE MY MIND; and not to be outdone, first time feature-maker Coralie Fargeat turns the revenge genre upside down with her outrageous femme fatale fiesta, REVENGE.
A mainstay of Fantastic Fest has been showcasing world cinema’s finest exports and this year is no exception. Asia basks in the glory of master Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s return to the apocalyptic fold with BEFORE WE VANISH (Japan), while his countryman Sôichi Umezawa delivers the outlandish midnight spectacle of VAMPIRE CLAY (Japan). South Korea represents with the year’s toughest crime caper, THE MERCILESS, and serial killer shocker V.I.P., while NYAFF award-winner BAD GENIUS represents Thailand. And Taiwan shows school students no mercy with the hyper-violent MON MON MON MONSTERS. Not to be outdone, Europe comes out swinging with Hungarian auteur Kornél Mundruczó’s follow up to WHITE GOD, the stunning JUPITER’S MOON, French filmmakers Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani splash their hyper-stylized western LET THE CORPSES TAN across the screen and Norway’s Joachim Trier delivers one of the most quietly impressive films of the year, the assured THELMA.
The world premiere of Don Hertzfeldt’s WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE 2: THE BURDEN OF OTHER PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS highlights an animated sidebar that pushes the medium into brave new spaces. Rounding out the fantastical trio is the debut feature from Studio Ponoc, MARY AND THE WITCHES FLOWER, from ex Studio Ghibli key animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi, and JUNK HEAD, Takahide Hori’s claymation feature that took him over seven years to complete, entirely by himself.
American Genre Film Archive makes its triumphant return to Fantastic Fest with two movies that will rot your libido in the best way. BAT PUSSY, the world’s first X-rated parody, shares the spotlight the world premiere of a brand new 2K transfer of one of the most sought-after lost films in the history of exploitation cinema in a very special secret screening. Additional rep titles include the world premiere of the Takashi Miike-approved 4K restoration of ICHI THE KILLER, the digital remaster of the seminal Indian cult movie BAASHA, and Jean Rollin’s THE NUDE VAMPIRE, presented by Kier-la Janisse in celebration of her new book Lost Girls: The Phantasmagorical Cinema of Jean Rollin.
True to form, Fantastic Fest will be re-writing reality once more with a crowded cornucopia of events that invade all corners of the fest. Gross-out grub-gorging spectacle Puke and Explode rumbles once more, notorious VHS archival warriors Everything is Terrible return with an all-new show to both delight and horrify. Comedy legend Gilbert Gottfried will be performing and screening the incredible biographical doc GILBERT, and the seminal Fantastic Debates marks its 10-year anniversary of polemic pugilism in spectacular fashion.
FINAL WAVE OF FILM:
AGFA + SOMETHING WEIRD PRESENT: BAT PUSSY and SECRET SCREENING American Genre Film Archive makes its triumphant return to Fantastic Fest with two movies that will rot your libido in the best way. BAT PUSSY, the world’s first X-rated parody, is what happens when an anonymous smut producer gets inspired by the 1960s BATMAN TV show but only has $5. It’s also what happens when your wildest dreams and most horrifying nightmares collide in an explosion of flaccid stupefaction. Next up, after years of detective work, AGFA presents the world premiere of a brand new 2K transfer of one of the most sought-after lost films in the history of exploitation cinema. LOST GIRLS Book Launch: THE NUDE VAMPIRE presented by Kier-la Janisse THE NUDE VAMPIRE France, 1970 Repertory, 88 min Director – Jean Rollin Jean Rollin’s THE NUDE VAMPIRE (1970) follows a sinister businessman who’s keeping a young vampire girl captive and experimenting on her in the hope that he finds the key to eternal life. The film will be screened in celebration of the launch of the new book from publisher Spectacular Optical, LOST GIRLS: THE PHANTASMAGORICAL CINEMA OF JEAN ROLLIN, the first examination of Rollin’s work to be written by all women critics, scholars and film historians, and will be introduced by the book’s publisher Kier-La Janisse. 3FT BALL & SOULS Japan, 2017 International Premiere, 93 min Director – Yoshio Kato Four strangers come together to commit suicide using explosives. But they discover that every time they blow up, they’re sent back to just before they killed themselves. APPLECART USA, 2017 World Premiere, 86 min Director – Bradford Baruh An idyllic weekend vacation to a secluded cabin turns deadly when the Pollack family discovers an unconscious woman whose sinister plans will pit the family members against each other. BAASHA India, 1995 Repertory/International Premiere, 165 min Director – Suresh Krissna Superstar Rajinikanth plays a rickshaw driver with a history of violence in this genre-defining musical gangster romance epic from the director of AALAVANDHAN. BAD GENIUS Thailand, 2017 Texas Premiere, 130 min Director – Nattawut Poonpiriya A quartet of high school students are better at cheating than anything you’ve ever done in your life in this epic nail-biter about the standardized tests that level the playing field for all kids, smart and dumb, rich and poor. BEFORE WE VANISH Japan, 2017 North American Premiere, 129 min Director – Kiyoshi Kurosawa Kurosawa’s latest film is a sci-fi thriller about an invasion in which aliens must come to understand humanity through understanding human emotion — most importantly, our collective capacity for love. BLUE MY MIND Switzerland, 2017 North American Premiere, 97 min Director – Lisa Brühlmann BLUE MY MIND follows 15-year-old Mia (Luna Wedler) as she undergoes a life-changing transformation, one that leaves her examining her body and her very existence in a new light. BRIMSTONE & GLORY Mexico, USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 67 min Director – Viktor Jakovleski Tultepec is a small Mexican town that celebrates its love of fireworks with a yearly week-long festival. This festival is captured in a glorious documentary that is pure cinema. THE CURED Ireland, UK, France, 2017 US Premiere, 95 min Director – David Freyne A zombie virus has hit the world… but it has been cured. What’s next for the ex-zombies who have returned to normal? David Freyne’s debut feature throws lots of food for thought into the mouth of your mind. DARKLAND Denmark, 2017 US Premiere, 113 min Director – Fenar Ahmad An Iraqi doctor in Denmark seeks vigilante justice for his brother’s murder when the police come up short, biting off more than he can chew in a world of gangs, drugs and underground fight rings. FIRSTBORN Latvia, 2017 North American Premiere, 90 min Director – Aik Karapetian Provocative Latvian director Aik Karapetian returns to Fantastic Fest with a new thriller that explores how far a meek architect will go to protect his dignity in the eyes of his wife in the aftermath of an attack. FIVE FINGERS FOR MARSEILLES South Africa, 2017 US Premiere, 120 min Director – Michael Matthews A troubled young man returns to the town he fled as a youth and is forced to confront his past (and the town’s difficult future) in this gorgeous Xhosa language western. GEMINI USA, 2017 Special Screening, 93 min Director – Aaron Katz Our understandings of friendship, truth and celebrity are challenged when a heinous crime tests the complex relationship between a tenacious personal assistant (Lola Kirke) and her Hollywood starlet boss (Zoe Kravitz) in Aaron Katz’s latest. GILBERT USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 99 min Director – Neil Berkeley GILBERT is the story of Gilbert Gottfried as never seen before, both a behind-the-scenes documentary and a poignant look at the life of a comedian who has more layers than most people can imagine. GOOD MANNERS Brazil, France, 2017 North American Premiere, 135 min Directors – Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra When lonely nurse Clara is hired as a nanny by wealthy Ana, she hardly expects anything like the friendship she finds with the lonely, pregnant woman. However, both women have dark secrets which will engulf all that they hold dear. HAUNTERS: THE ART OF THE SCARE USA, 2017 World Premiere, 88 min Director – Jon Schnitzer Delving behind the scenes of one of America’s most beloved seasonal pastimes, HAUNTERS shows the world of the people who make the scariest houses, mazes and experiences that range from the traditional to the controversial. ICHI THE KILLER – 4K RESTORATION Japan, 2001 Repertory/World Premiere of Restoration, 129 min Director – Takashi Miike The yakuza occupy a murky universe with more twists and turns than the Shinjuku alleys they call home. The mysterious disappearance of a Tokyo mob boss triggers a hunt to find him, dead or alive. The search leads to the city’s most depraved clubs and sex dens and eventually to Ichi, the schizophrenic hitman behind the crime. Even more shocking is the discovery that the mastermind who hired Ichi is a fellow gangster out for revenge. JUNK HEAD Japan, 2017 US Premiere, 114 min Director – Takahide Hori Humanity is dying. It’s been 1200 years since our rebellious clone workforce moved underground, and the only way we can survive is by plunging into the depths to learn more about our terrifying creations. JUPITER’S MOON Hungary, Germany, 2017 North American Premiere, 123 min Director – Kornél Mundruczó The most ambitious science fiction film of the year is also perhaps the most visually stunning. Aryan is a refugee who finds himself with the power to levitate after being shot. Stern is a disgraced, corrupt doctor. The two will meet and alter the entire world. LES AFFAMES Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 100 min Director – Robin Aubert In the remote Quebec countryside, things are not well. A plague has infected the land, affecting almost all the residents of a small village. The survivors have to navigate their new existence as well as deal with the infected with an appetite for flesh. LET THE CORPSES TAN Belgium, France, 2017 US Premiere, 92 min Directors – Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani On a beautiful corner of the Mediterranean, Rhino and his men take refuge after the robbery of 250 kilograms of gold. The plan is simple: Wait and split. But some unwanted visitors are about to turn this idyllic corner into a bloodbath. LETTERKENNY Canada, 2016 US Premiere, 151 min Director – Jacob Tierney The spiritual successors to STRANGE BREW’s Bob and Doug MacKenzie, the rural residents of the fictitious town of LETTERKENNY deliver a hysterical slice of Canadiana in the comedy phenomenon chronicling the daily problems of hicks, skids, hockey players and Christians. THE LINE Slovakia, Ukraine, 2017 North American Premiere, 112 min Director – Peter Bebjak One line is literal, the border between Slovakia and Ukraine. Criminal Adam Krajnak (Tomas Mastalir) crosses it often, smuggling product and people. The other line is metaphorical, and crossing it leads to a death spiral of violence and vengeance. LOVE AND SAUCERS USA/Canada, 2017 Texas Premiere, 67 min Director – Brad Abrahams David Huggins, a 72-year-old man who claims to have lost his virginity as a young man to an extraterrestrial being, turned to art to express his interspecies romance and lifelong relationship with the otherworldly. MARY AND THE WITCH’S FLOWER Japan, 2017 North American Premiere, 102 min Director – Hiromasa Yonebayashi Directing the first film out of Studio Ponoc, Hiromasa Yonebayashi (WHEN MARNIE WAS THERE) creates the dazzling and heartwarming story of an ordinary girl who becomes an extraordinary witch. THE MERCILESS South Korea, 2017 North American Premiere, 117 min Director – Byun Sung-hyun Cribbing liberally from the history of gangster films, Byun Sung-hyun’s hard-boiled Korean crime saga is filled with all manner of murder, deceit, double and triple crosses… and, oh yeah, slap-fighting. MOM AND DAD USA, 2017 US Premiere, 83 min Director – Brian Taylor Selma Blair and Nicolas Cage are seemingly ideal parents until an unknown force causes their town’s adults to murder their offspring. MON MON MON MONSTERS Taiwan, 2017 Regional Premiere, 112 min Director – Giddens Ko A bullied schoolboy is teamed up with his tormentors to do community social work. While on duty, they encounter a strange creature which they kidnap, and take bullying to a whole new level. THE PRINCE OF NOTHINGWOOD France, Germany, 2017 US Premiere, 85 min Director – Sonia Kronlund Meet Salim Shaheen: Afghani auteur, prolific actor and one-man moviemaking industry. Along with his trusted troupe of actors, he defies all the odds in the Middle East to fulfill his dreams of making movies. PROFESSOR MARSTON & THE WONDER WOMEN USA, 2017 US Premiere, 108 min Director – Angela Robinson In a superhero origin tale unlike any other, this film is the incredible true story of what inspired Harvard psychologist Dr. William Moulton Marston to create the iconic Wonder Woman character in the 1940s. RABBIT Australia, 2017 International Premiere, 99 min Director – Luke Shanahan After a full year, Maude is still stricken by visions of her sister Cleo’s kidnapping. Believing that Cleo is still alive, Maude undergoes a suspenseful journey to find her in this stunning, atmospheric feature debut from Luke Shanahan. RADIUS Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 91 min Directors – Caroline Labrèche & Steeve Léonard When a man wakes up from a car crash with no memory of what happened, his first instinct is to find help. However, as he gets closer to civilization and other people, an ugly truth will rear its head and affect all those who surround him. REVENGE France, 2017 US Premiere, 108 min Director – Coralie Fargeat Three rich male thrill-seekers discover that Jennifer isn’t the human sex doll that they assumed she was when they invited her on their isolated hunting getaway. Jennifer teaches them fundamental lessons about consent in a manner that they — and we — won’t soon forget. RIFT Iceland, 2017 Texas Premiere, 111 min Director – Erlingur Thoroddsen After a phone call from his ex wakes him late one night, Gunnar drives out to a secluded vacation cottage to save Einar from himself, but what awaits him there is mystery and confusion. SALYUT-7 Russia, 2017 World Premiere, 119 min Director – Klim Shipenko Based on a true story, SALYUT-7 is the little-known mission to dock with an unmanned space station in order to stop it from crashing into Earth, a feat never before attempted in space history. THELMA Norway, 2017 Texas Premiere, 116 min Director – Joachim Trier A conservative young woman attending college in Oslo begins to fall in love while discovering her burgeoning supernatural powers in a stunning new film from Norway. THOROUGHBRED USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 92 min Director – Cory Finley Two teenage girls in suburban Connecticut rekindle their unlikely friendship after years of growing apart. In the process, they learn that neither is what she seems to be, and that a murder might solve both of their problems. TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID Mexico, 2017 World Premiere, 83 min Director – Issa López When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events in the third feature from Mexican filmmaker Lopez. UNDER THE TREE Iceland, Denmark, Poland, Germany, 2017 US Premiere, 89 min Director – Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson On the outskirts of Reykjavik, the shadow cast by a tree triggers a feud between two neighboring families, with tragic and darkly comic consequences. V.I.P. South Korea, 2017 International Premiere, 128 min Director – Hoon-jung Park A notorious serial killer who happens to be the son of a defecting DPRK official sends South Korea’s National Intelligence, police from both states and even international brass into a mad political scramble in this thrilling neo-noir. VAMPIRE CLAY Japan, 2017 US Premiere, 80 min Director – Soichi Umezawa A class of art school hopefuls is stalked by blood-thirsty, flesh-hungry clay in this bizarre practical effects-heavy horror assault from THE ABCs OF DEATH 2 segment director and longtime special makeup effects artist Umezawa. VIDAR THE VAMPIRE Norway, 2017 Texas Premiere, 82 min Directors – Thomas Aske Berg & Fredrik Waldeland Christian farmer Vidar has a boring life, living with his mom and tending sheep. When he wishes for more excitement he wakes up undead, hangs out with vampire Jesus and discovers that sometimes the party can go on too long. WHEELMAN USA, 2017 World Premiere, 82 min Director – Jeremy Rush Frank Grillo (KINGDOM; CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR) stars as the wheelman, a getaway driver thrust into a high stakes race to survive after a bank robbery goes terribly wrong. With a car full of money and his family on the line, the clock is ticking to figure out who double-crossed him and the only person he can trust… his 14-year-old daughter. All reasons to think fast and drive faster. WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE TWO: THE BURDEN OF OTHER PEOPLE’S THOUGHTS USA, 2017 World Premiere, 22 min Director – Don Hertzfeldt The highly anticipated follow-up to Don Hertzfeldt’s Oscar-nominated WORLD OF TOMORROW finds Emily Prime swept into the brain of an incomplete backup clone of her future self, who’s on a mission to reboot her broken mind. Continuing the tradition of the first film, WORLD OF TOMORROW EPISODE TWO was written entirely around candid audio recordings of Hertzfeldt’s five-year-old niece.
-
Kino Lorber to Release FILMWORKER and HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD from Telluride 2017
[caption id="attachment_24418" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
Filmworker[/caption]
Tony Zierra’s Filmworker and Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood, two documentaries that had their North American premieres at the 2017 Telluride Film Festival, has been acquired by Kino Lorber for release in the North America in 2018.
Zierra’s homage to Kubrick’s right-hand man had its world premiere at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and will also show at the upcoming New York Film Festival, while Suchsland’s follow-up to his 2014 film From Caligari to Hitler will premiere at New York’s Film Forum next April.
Filmworker is focused on the work and life of Leon Vitali, the actor who played Lord Bullingdon in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon and subsequently abandoned his acting career to become Kubrick’s dedicated assistant. For more than two decades, Leon played a crucial role behind-the-scenes, helping Kubrick make and maintain his legendary body of work. The complex, interdependent relationship between Vitali and Kubrick was founded on devotion, sacrifice and the grueling, joyful reality of the creative process. Tony Zierra directed, shot and edited the film and Elizabeth Yoffe produced.
Rüdiger Suchsland’s Hitler’s Hollywood captures an entirely different dimension of filmmaking by focusing on the most controversial period of German film history – and examining titles produced during the Third Reich, from blatant propaganda to seemingly ‘harmless’ entertainment. About 1000 feature films were made in Germany in the years between 1933-45, but only a few were created as overtly Nazi propaganda films. Suchland’s incisive analysis shows how even the most innocent entertainment carries with it a subversive ideological – and in this case Nazi – message.
-
Watch Trailer for MUDBOUND Dee Rees Powerful Indie Drama from Sundance 2017
The trailer dropped today for Mudbound directed by Dee Rees (Pariah) which premiered earlier this year at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. The film starring Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Jonathan Banks and Garrett Hedlund will debut on Netflix and in select theaters onFriday, November 17.
Set in the post-WWII South, this epic pioneer story pits two families against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad. Newly transplanted from the quiet civility of Memphis, the McAllans are underprepared and overly hopeful for Henry’s grandiose farming dreams while Laura strives to keep the faith in her husband’s losing venture. For Hap and Florence Jackson, whose families have worked the land for generations, every day is a losing venture as they struggle bravely to build some small dream of their own. The war upends both families, as their returning loved ones, Jamie and Ronsel, forge a fast, uneasy friendship that challenges them all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAZWhFI9lLQ
-
2017 Fantastic Fest Announces Short Film Lineup, CERULIA, THE BURDEN, and More
[caption id="attachment_24409" align="aligncenter" width="1200"]
CERULIA by Sofia Carrillo[/caption]
The 2017 Fantastic Fest announced the short film line up for the 13th edition of the festival, which runs September 21 to September 28, 2017 at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar in Austin, TX.
This year, to celebrate the festival’s Arabic theme, veteran festival programmer Peter Kuplowsky and Fantastic Fest creative director Evrim Ersoy have added a unique sidebar to the festival’s regular short-subject programming. YALLA! ARAB GENRE SHORTS assembles four remarkable genre productions from Arab countries, each with a distinct sensibility and style that further expands the breadth of genres traditionally showcased at the festival.
The 48 film lineup, culled from a record submission pool of nearly 1200 entries, spans 23 countries and features a trio of stop-motion mini-masterpieces including the North American premiere of the chilling CERULIA by Sofia Carrillo (who genre fans will be familiar with from her contributions to the anthology feature XX) and the US premiere of THE BURDEN, Niki Lindroth von Bahr’s award-winning musical. Other highlights include an acclaimed and mind-melting short about escaping a Red Lobster commercial (GREAT CHOICE), and a potent sci-fi skewering of government bureaucracy so incendiary it was banned in Turkey (THE LAST SCHNITZEL)!
Speaking on the program, curator Kuplowsky commented: “With the proliferation of digital distribution channels, the audience for short films is growing exponentially and the mode of filmmaking is becoming more relevant than ever before. I’m thrilled that Fantastic Fest can be the first stop for so many of these fantastic films on their road to people’s eyeballs.”
The complete lineup, divided by program, is as follows:
FANTASTIC SHORTS
ANIMAL Iran, 2017 US Premiere, 15 min Directors: Bahram & Bahman Ark A desperate man adopts the guise of a ram in a plot to penetrate a heavily guarded border crossing. THE BURDEN Sweden, 2017 US Premiere, 14 min Director: Niki Lindroth von Bahr Lonely fish, tap-dancing mice and telemarketing monkeys harmonize in their collective angst towards the apocalyptic banality of the modern age in this epic stop-motion reverie. DEAD HORSES Spain, 2016 Texas Premiere, 6 min Directors: Marc Riba & Anna Solanas A child caught in a war zone innocently grapples to understand his horrifying surroundings in this grim stop-motion parable. FUCKING BUNNIES Finland, 2017 Texas Premiere, 17 min Director: Teemu Niukkanen The comfortable routine of Raimo’s middle-class life is interrupted when a Satan-worshipping sex cult moves next door. A wickedly funny comedy of manners. JUST GO! Latvia, 2017 Texas Premiere, 11 min Director: Pavels Gumennikovs Young Just may not have legs, but that doesn’t prevent him from proverbially kicking ass in this remarkable slice of action inspired by the star’s extraordinary life story. KAIJU BUNRAKU USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 13 min Directors: Lucas Leyva & Jillian Mayer The Japanese art of bunraku puppetry dramatizes the existential crisis of a despondent denizen of a Kaiju-infested region of Japan; a rigorous theatrical tradition soaked in profound absurdism. THE LAST SCHNITZEL Denmark, 2016 US Premiere, 22 min Directors: Ismet Kurtulus & Kaan Arici The world is ending, but the president of Turkey won’t let it until he has a chicken schnitzel. Gleefully silly science-fiction satire with political bite. LET THEM DIE LIKE LOVERS USA, 2017 World Premiere, 16 min Director: Jesse Atlas Fantastic Shorts Award Winner Jesse Atlas (RECORD/PLAY) returns to the section with an arresting sci-fi character study about a body-hopping assassin. THE NIGHT I DANCE WITH DEATH France, 2017 Regional Premiere, 6 min Director: Vincent Gibaud The consequences of saying “hell yeah, I’ll try that” at a party. A marvelously animated kaleidoscope that collides liberating euphoria with crippling anxiety.SHORT FUSE Presented by Stage 13
CERULIA Mexico, 2017 North American Premiere, 13 min Director: Sofia Carrillo The brilliant animator behind the stop-motion segments of XX spins an eerie fable about a young woman’s repressed memories luring her back to her childhood home. CRESWICK Australia, 2016 Regional Premiere, 10 min Director: Natalie Erika James Creeping dread meticulously escalates to an understated but deeply unsettling coda as a father and daughter pack away the contents of their family home. EARWORM USA, 2016 Texas Premiere, 5 min Director: Tara Price When a few measures of music get stuck in a man’s head, the consequences are almost as disturbing as the source of the tune. GREAT CHOICE USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 7 min Director: Robin Comisar A woman is trapped in a Red Lobster commercial. Sublime absurdity that crescendos to nightmarish heights and remarkable emotional resonance. HIGHWAY Australia, 2016 Texas Premiere, 10 min Director: Vanessa Gazy A teenage hitchhiker traverses a lonely mountain highway and begins to pick a mysterious radio broadcast rife with ominous reports of the near future. LATCHED Canada, 2017 International Premiere, 17 min Directors: Justin Harding & Rob Brunner Spilt milk is nothing to cry over but when it inadvertently awakens a voracious woodland creature, this funny and freaky short makes the case that it might be something to scream over. SETACEOUS Australia, 2017 World Premiere, 11 min Director: Tel Benjamin An incessant car alarm attracts the curiosity of a cul-de-sac’s residents with chilling consequences. A measured slice of suburban horror that implies and terrifies. STAY USA, 2017 World Premiere, 9 min Director: David Mikalson Satan sucks, but this pitch-black comedy about catching the eye of the prince of darkness is the best. THURSDAY NIGHT Portugal, 2017 US Premiere, 8 min Director: Gonçalo Almeida Hypnotic cinematography buoyed by a ghostly soundscape envelopes remarkable canine performances in this moody, experimental nightmare. TOOTH FAIRY Uruguay, 2017 World Premiere, 6 min Directors: Jeremias Segovia & Gonzalo Torrens A greedy young boy discovers that the Tooth Fairy is a stickler for the rules in this frightening permutation of the folk figure. VOYEUR Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 4 min Directors: Claire Stradwick & Charlotte Lam The private spaces of women are unnervingly encroached upon by a masculine other in this confrontational work that shifts cinema’s scopophilic gaze back on the audience.SHORTS WITH LEGS
THE ALIENS USA, 2017 World Premiere, 4 min Director: Alex Lee A punk ruminates on the consequences of an alien invasion during some katana practice in the park. beans. USA, 2017 World Premiere, 7 min Director: Maxwell Nalevansky An acerbic narrator reflects nostalgically on the profound pleasure that was afforded to him upon once being offered a free bowl of beans. CALL OF CUTENESS Germany, 2017 Austin Premiere, 4 min Director: Brenda Lien A parade of cat meme tributes mutate into a disturbing animated critique of how these sublime objects of cuteness belie a more sinister cycle of exploitation and control. THE CURE USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 20 min Director: Mike Olenick A surreal sci-fi soap opera that collides the idiosyncratic private lives of both humans and aliens in a parade of hypnotic slow-zooms and kitschy feline totems. HOMER_A Canada, 2017 World Premiere, 10 min Directors: Milos Mitrovic & Conor Sweeney Conor Sweeney of ASTRON-6 and FF alumni Milos Mitrovic smash the characters of THE SIMPSONS with the aesthetics of TRASH HUMPERS, and the results both haunt and disturb. Ay caramba. LA TRISTESSE DURERA TOUJOURS USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Vinny De Giulio Vinny De Ghoulie returns to SHORTS WITH LEGS with what may very well be his 8 ½. This is a maddening deconstruction of his own process culled from the remnants of a feature film he mounted, but failed to to realize. As amusingly bemusing as it is devastating. MÖBIUS USA, Canada, 2017 Regional Premiere, 15 min Director: Sam Kuhn A hallucinogenic dive into the consciousness of a teenage poet in the wake of her lover’s mysterious death. Exquisitely photographed and seemingly assembled in a Lynchian dreamstate. THE TESLA WORLD LIGHT Canada, 2017 Texas Premiere, 8 min Director: Matthew Rankin Visionary inventor Nikola Tesla makes one last appeal to his benefactor in Matthew Rankin’s mesmerizing live-action/animated hybrid that paints with light itself to conjure its indelible abstract visuals. THE VETTING USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 19 min Director: Matthew Dunehoo A twitchy and hysterically garish political satire in which a US senator is vetted for a Presidential nomination by a 6,000-year-old telepath that secretly rules the Earth. THE VIEW FROM HERE Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 9 min Director: Sofia Bohdanowicz A delirious puppet-theatre libretto that depicts two lovers nostalgically yearning for the good-old-primordial-soup days of yore.YALLA! ARAB GENRE SHORTS:
DUNIA Qatar, 2017 North American Premiere, 15 min Director: Amer Jamhour Little Dunia is asked to wait in the car in an effort to shield her from her mother’s desperate decision, but when a curious cop comes a-knocking, Dunia’s innocence is suspensefully put to the test. FEAR: AUDIBLY Saudi Arabia, 2017 International Premiere, 22 min Director: Maha Al-Saati Anxious that Judgment Day is on the horizon, Amal keenly awaits to hear the Trumpet of Doom; could the incessant mewing of cats in her office be the first harbinger? An eccentric and experimental rumination on the end of days. KINDIL Algeria, Kuwait, USA, 2016 Regional Premiere, 40 min Director: Damien Ounouri The spectre of a murdered woman returns to the site of her death, claiming the lives of those responsible, as well as those who turned a blind eye. An arresting social critique in the guise of a vengeful ghost story. LAST DAYS OF THE MAN OF TOMORROW Germany, Lebanon, 2017 World Premiere, 29 min Director: Fadi Baki A remarkable mock-doc that profoundly explores Lebanon’s turbulent history through the life and times of a reclusive metal automaton that once was emblematic of the country’s hopes and dreams.PAIRED WITH FEATURES:
THE ACCOMPLICE USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 7 min Directors: Jon Hoeg & John F. Beach A man discovers his unwitting participation in a bank robbery across a series of increasingly incriminating (and hilarious) answering machine messages. CATHERINE Belgium, 2016 Special Presentation, 11 min Director: Britt Raes Delightful animation depicts the origins of a crazy cat lady, while disturbingly proving the axiom: “You always hurt the ones you love.” THE DROP-IN Canada, 2017 US Premiere, 13 min Director: Naledi Jackson A hairstylist confronted with her past fights to protect her future in this stylish, genre-hopping metaphor for the immigrant experience. THE DUNDEE PROJECT USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 19 min Director: Mark Borchardt Cult filmmaker Mark Borchardt (as seen in AMERICAN MOVIE) takes a trip to the UFO Days festival in Dundee, Wisconsin. Eccentric personalities abound as Mark poetically ruminates on why the compulsion to seek out little green men seems to converge in his home state. THE END OF DECAY USA, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Chris Todd A paraplegic scientist attempts a dangerous experiment to reclaim his mobility in this visceral bit of gruesome, wince-inducing body-horror. GIRL AT THE DOOR South Korea, 2017 Texas Premiere, 11 min Director: Song Joo-sung A young girl gleans a few choice maneuvers from gym class that enable her to turn the tables on her abusive father. MANILA DEATH SQUAD Philippines, USA, 2017 World Premiere, 13 min Director: Dean Colin Marcial An ambitious journalist challenges the leader of a violent vigilante group to a high-stakes drinking game that may score her a scoop or a bullet to the head. NEONATAL USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 15 min Director: Andrew McDonald In this tense Austin-bound thriller, an expectant mother is lured into a sinister plot by a disturbed and desperate woman. NOTHING A LITTLE SOAP AND WATER CAN’T FIX USA, 2017 Regional Premiere, 9 min Director: Jennifer Proctor An exhaustive and illuminating deconstruction of how horror films frequently feature the bathtub as both a private sanctuary for women and, damningly, as an impromptu sarcophagus. THE PASSENGER Russia, 2017 International Premiere, 11 min Director: Egor Abramenko A Russian cosmonaut grapples with post-traumatic stress following his return from orbit. But that’s not all he’s brought back. UFO DAYS USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 9 min Director: Quinn Else A fascinating fusion of documentary and fiction against the backdrop of UFO Days that juxtaposes a Ufology lecture with the rural wanderings of an enigmatic “visitor.” VIULU Finland, 2017 Texas Premiere, 12 min Director: Ramin Sohrab When a precious violin is snatched by gangsters, an ex-hitman wreaks some serious martial-vengeance in an effort to reclaim it. YOUR DATE IS HERE USA, 2017 Austin Premiere, 6 min Directors: Todd Spence & Zak White An old Mystery Date-style board game holds more evil than amusement in this expertly wound fright flick. ZARR-DOS Switzerland, 2017 North American Premiere, 7 min Director: Bart Wasem Two grotesque floating heads engage in an aerial waltz of wanton destruction in this spectacularly animated epic. You won’t have a clue, but you’ll appreciate the cosmic justice.