PREVIEW: 2021 FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA

The 2021 Fantastic Film Festival Australia (FFFA) promises a second round of extraordinary real-life horror stories, paradigm-shifting film realities and surrealistic studies of society’s fringe-dwellers inhabiting the 21-film strong roster. The new line-up of the world’s most daring works from filmmakers with innovative and unique perspectives will screen from April 16 to May 1, exclusively to the Lido Cinemas in Hawthorn, Victoria and the Ritz Cinema, Randwick in New South Wales.

“Genre cinema has an unmatched ability to conjure up a truth that is raw and gets under our skin,” said Fantastic Film Festival Artistic Director Hudson Sowada, via press release. “Having leaped into 2021 with a sense of hope, we should look to those on the fringes to take risks and help us question reality.” 

Hot off a Sundance premiere is the Opening Night film, Prisoners of the Ghostland, the some-would-say inevitable pairing of two cinematic renegades - Japanese auteur Sion Sono, cult-thespian Nicolas Cage (pictured, right), with enigmatic starlet Sofia Boutella (The Mummy; Climax) also in the mix. This giddy ‘acid-Western’, set in a fantastical fictional city that is half Westworld/half Tokyo Disney, follows Cage’s shotgun-toting outlaw on a rescue mission through a post-apocalyptic world.

Sono is one of several Asian genre filmmakers being celebrated with a program placement in the FFFA 2021 line-up. Korean writer-director Kim Yon-hoon’s neo-noir Beasts Clawing at Straws follows a group of cash-strapped people and a bag full of money, and Get the Hell Out (pictured, top) is a manic zombie movie about braindead politics from Taiwanese auteur I-Fan Wang.

Closing the Festival is the shocking and boundary-pushing Mother Schmuckers, from directors Lenny and Harpo Guit. Set on the lawless streets of late-night Brussels, this odyssey of the absurd conveys the existential angst of two dim-witted brothers whose quest to find their mother’s beloved dog leads them into a reality like no other.

Matters of the heart are explored in three deeply unconventional love stories. In Ben Hozie’s PVT Chat, a gambler becomes obsessed with his favourite cam girl (Uncut Gems’ Julia Fox; pictured, right), blurring the line between customer and client; a reclusive and deeply repressed man hatches the perfect plan to win the heart of his new tenant in Parish Malfitano’s Aussie-noir indie, Bloodshot Heart; and, the very real condition objectophilia is explored in Zoé Wittock’s Jumbo, the fable-like story of an amusement park worker (Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Noémie Merlant) entering an erotic relationship with a merry-go-round.

Non-fiction films exploring the more fantastic elements of our world are also premiering at FFFA. The latest from the complex creativity of director Rodney Ascher (Room 237; The Nightmare) is A Glitch in the Matrix, a dissection of the 21st century’s greatest existential fear - are we living in a simulation?. And Miles Hargrove’s Miracle Fishing: Kidnapped Abroad chronicles the gruelling process of rescuing his father from a Colombian drug cartel holding him ransom for six million dollars.

A highlight of the festival will be a rare screening of Elem Klimov’s gruelling 1985 Russian war epic Come and See, presented as a 2K digital restoration. A crushing, ruthless depiction of the potential of human evil, Come and See (pictured, right) is an anti-war film reimagining the events of 1943, when the Nazis entered Belarus, as experienced through the eyes of a naïve boy. 

Special festival events including a carefully curated program of 16mm films from the 60s, 70s, and 80s in titled Analogue Orgy (Lido Cinemas only) and a staging of Dungeons & Dragons, in which fans can craft their own fantastic adventure with the help of Sydney and Melbourne’s most experienced Dungeon Masters.

FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA will run Friday, 16 April – Saturday, 1 May at the   Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn and Friday, 16 April – Friday, 30 April at the Ritz Cinema, Randwick. Ticket and session details can be found at the event’s Official Website.

PREVIEW: 2021 OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL

Fueled by the ongoing crusade for environmental respect and a passion for outdoor living, the Ocean Film Festival resurfaces in 2021 with arguably the finest collection of films in its 8 year history. Under Festival Director Jemima Robinson, the driven and focussed festival team annually compile a collection of shorts that capture the magnitude, fragility and spectacle of our planet’s waterways and the co-habitants that share in its life-giving qualities.

The Australian leg of the global film event launches February 24, appropriately on the north-eastern seaside mecca, The Gold Coast, before rolling out across the nation. The enthralling collection of ocean-themed short films will guide its loyal patrons through a free-diving expedition in the Coral Sea, a sailing adventure north to Alaska, exploration of remote Russian Islands and a surfing odyssey in Spain, to name a few of the 2021 highlights.

This year’s program includes:

RACE TO ALASKA: An annual race from Port Townsend, Washington up the Inside Passage to Ketchikan, Alaska, Race to Alaska chronicles the competition over a five year period. Highlights include the camaraderie of the racers, the ingenuity of the vessels and the hardships all must endure if they want to be the one to take home the $10,000 first place prize at the end (pictured, above).

FROM KURILS WITH LOVE: An expedition to the remote Kuril Islands (a volcanic archipelago between Hokkaido, Japan, and Kamchatka, Russia) thrillingly documents the islands’ supreme beauty. Dr. Vladimir Burkanov is the world’s expert on the Kuril Island’s and true warrior for the planet; this film takes you on an intimate journey of visual bliss, sea lion chaos and hope for a greater conservation effort (pictured, above).

CHANGING TIDES: Lucy Graham and Mathilde Gordon had never completed a multi-day kayaking journey before undertaking a 2042km journey down the coast of Alaska and Canada, raising awareness of marine plastic pollution. This film showcases a deep love and respect for adventure, the ocean and their friendship (pictured, above).

REBIRTH: Surfing isn’t just about the barrels and the airs, it’s about the art of riding waves and the foundations of learning, perseverance and struggle to get to where we want to be. Benoit, a surfer from the Basque country, fights for his love of riding waves after losing an arm, determined to adapt both physically and mentally (pictured, above).

MATADOR: When you combine a professional skim-boarder, a bunch of swell-chasers, underwater and aerial shots and a killer soundtrack and you've got the hair-raising, pulse-pounding, "gotta-see-it-to-believe-it" film that is Matador (pictured, above).

 

ME AND THE SEA: A short study into freediving – the breathwork, the technique, the adventure, the reward. As a novice freediver, Fransizka discovers a freedom deep below sea level she’d never before experienced (pictured, above).

VOICE ABOVE WATER: Wayan Nyo is a 90 year old fisherman whose livelihood is threatened due to the amount of plastic piling up in the ocean. In a change of pace, Wayan decides to use his fishing boat and net to pull rubbish from the water in the hopes of being able to fish again (pictured, above).

For all ticketing and session information regarding the 2021 OCEAN FILM FESTIVAL, visit the event’s Official Website.

OUR FIVE FAVOURITE SHORTS FROM NOHO CINEFEST 2020

Like many of the world’s leading film festivals, the 2020 North Hollywood ‘NoHo’ Cinefest was bumped from its home at the Laemmle NoHo 7 theaters in April when COVID-19 took hold. Determined not to let their cinephile fanbase down, the festival organisers have reworked the event into a virtual edition, offering 14 features and a whopping 102 shorts for holders of an All-Access pass (the festival season's best buy at US$39.00).

With three days left of NoHo CineFest, SCREEN-SPACE are offering a ‘starter plate’ of five superb short films for lovers of seriously fine cinema (and of the features, make time for Jacob Burn’s sci-fi shocker Shifter and Dan Asma’s bighearted doco Cinematographer…)

MALOU (Dir: Adi Wojaczek; Cast - Romina Küper, Veronica Ferres, Charles Rettinghaus, Matilda Herzog; Germany, 15 mins) From the Program: The young dancer Malou is irresistibly fighting for her dream of a career on the big stage. After years of struggle and rejection, she suddenly receives her once-in-a-lifetime chance - leading up to an unexpected reveal.
I’m watching this, why? Frankly, we saw the ending coming, but that in no way lessened the wrenching emotion of Adi Wojaczek’s beautifully rendered dance drama. In 15 short minutes, the wonderful Romina Küper (pictured, right) generates enough investment in the title character’s plight, the end of the film feels very much like the beginning of a wonderful story.

THE MARK OF THE BANSHEE (Dirs: Nicol Eilers; Cast - Chloë Caro, Maddy Rathbun, Pina Sbrocca, Melissa Wiehl; U.S.A., 14 mins ) From the Program: A single mother struggles to defend her pregnant teenage daughter from the ancestral curse of a Banshee who's come back to claim her.
I’m watching this, why? The contemporising of ages-old demonic lore by placing it in the context of a modern ‘teen pregnancy’ narrative (helped immeasurably by lead performers Chloë Caro and Maddy Rathbun). Oh, and it’s bloody scary! There’s a certain Raimi-esque quality to the screeching she-demon that conjures legit chills.  

WOMXN (Dirs: Tara Lynn Rye, Magen Ashley Young; Cast - Tara Lynn Rye, Nzinga Moore, Jenalyn Culhane; U.S.A., 4 mins) From the Program: Womxn is a powerful visual poem about sexual assault. 28 women of all different backgrounds gathered to perform the same text. Not only does this piece bring awareness to the staggering frequency of sexual assault against women, it explores why so many of us remain silent. Womxn illustrates how together we can begin to heal one another with our voices.
I’m watching this, why? It is as potent a declaration of unity and strength as you are likely to see on any 2020 screen, big or small. In stark black-&-white, directly to camera, the participants lay bare the pain and sorrow of sexual violence, but also the defiance and will to recover and fight it has stirred in them. A remarkable statement. 

ANACRONTE (Dirs: Raúl Koler, Emiliano Sette; Argentina | Mexico, 15 mins) From the Program: Anacronte and the Sorcerers of Evil, without any emotion and fulfilling their destiny, put to the test humanity's happiness in a struggle that, in short, has each of us as winners and losers.
I’m watching this, why? The passage of the human soul through a vast netherworld dictated by the random impact of fate is brought to stunning life in this animated masterpiece. Riffing on how our spirit can often overcome real world pain by unshakeable faith in one’s own will to survive, co-directors Raúl Koler and Emiliano Sette have crafted a vision of the afterlife as breathtakingly captivating as Vincent Ward’s similarly-themed 1998 feature, What Dreams May Come.  

MANHUNT (Dir: Jack Martin; Cast - Casey Lynn, Derek Russo, Stasha Surdyk; U.S.A., 9 mins) From the Program: In the middle of the night, a dangerous fugitive on the run seeks shelter just as an adventurous young girl breaks out of her bedroom. Their two worlds collide.
I’m watching this, why? Superb production values and visual style, the likes of which announce Jack Martin as a young director ready for feature-length genre work. But also a terrific lead performance by Casey Lynn, whose chemistry with tough guy Derek Russo and character arc through such stages as fear, compassion and understanding mark her as an actor to watch.

NOHO CINEFEST 2020 began its current season on December 4 and runs to December 12. To purchase tickets to all online sessions go to the Official Website. 

2020 SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL: PREVIEW

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: The inaugural Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival (SSFFF) has announced a line-up which makes its mission goal very clear. The aim is to debut with a truly international event, with a program that presents Sydney genre fans with 10 features and 41 shorts from 20 countries.

Under the patronage of director Alex Proyas (Dark City; I, Robot; Knowing) and Festival Director Simon Foster, the SSFFF is set to run from November 19 to 21 at the state-of-the-art Actors Centre Australia complex in the inner-west suburb of Leichhardt. The 2020 schedule boasts the World Premiere of four Australian works, notably Mark Toia’s MONSTERS OF MAN (pictured, below). Independently shot in Cambodia and best described as ‘Predator-meets-Robocop’, the fierce action/thriller will open the festival, with fan anticipation high in the wake of its trailer going viral on YouTube.

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE 

Then, on Saturday 21st from 1.00pm, a strand called NORTHERN LIGHTS: QUEENSLAND SCIFI SHOWCASE will feature the first global screenings of Travis Bain’s mini-feature, STARSPAWN: OVERTURE, starring genre icon Vernon Wells (Mad Max 2), and Stephen Osborne’s debut feature, the UFO-themed comedy/thriller, STRANGEVILLE.

The fourth debut will be Richard de Carvalho’s Star Wars fan-fiction actioner, A BLASTER IN THE RIGHT HANDS (trailer, bottom), which will kick-off the AUSTRALIAN SHORT FILM SHOWCASE on Saturday 21st from 10.30am. This homegrown parade of 11 shorts runs the gamut from student pics (Ilana Finocchario’s EXTRA(TERRESTRIAL) and micro-budget indies (Kyle Lacey-Janettzki’s MILK) to cutting edge effects showpieces (Megan Bromberg’s STORAGE) and international festival hits (Adrian Powers’ BROLGA).

The features representing the world of speculative cinema come from Italy (Emanuela Rossi’s DARKNESS); France (Olivier Babinet’s FISH LOVE); Japan (Kousuke Hishinuma’s HIDE & SNIFF); Spain (Juan Gonzalez & Nando Martinez’s THE QUEEN OF THE LIZARDS); and, Russia (Nikita Argunov’s epic fantasy, COMA, the festival’s Closing Night film). 

Also from France is Baptiste Rouveure’s ANONYMOUS ANIMALS (pictured, right), a truly shocking reverse-world look at mankind at the mercy of animals, which will screen as the centrepiece of HORRIFIC FUTURES: SCIFI’S DARKEST VISIONS on Friday November 20 from 9.00pm. Also in this challenging, MA-rated roster is THE HOST (Poland, Dir: Pawel Song No); MIDNIGHT MOVIE: MAGNUM OPUS (Tunisia, Dir: Myriam Khammassi); TRANSFERT (France, Dir: Jonathan Degrelle) and EVENFALL (Australia, Dir: Dean Butler).

A highlight of the first Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival will be the prime Saturday evening session, which has been allocated to two remarkable films from a region rarely represented in genre events. From 6.30pm, the strand SCIENCE FICTION FROM THE MIDDLE EAST will present the psychological thriller THE FABRICATED, the astonishingly assured debut of Iranian brothers Ali and Emad Katmiri, followed by the breathtaking beauty of SCALES, female director Shahad Ameen’s sea-monster/female-empowerment vision, from the U.A.E.

Repping the global short film community will be such acclaimed works as Yuichi Kondo’s RYOKO’S QUBIT SUMMER, an LGBTIQ-themed A.I. romance from Japan that earned Outstanding Film honours at the Berlin Sci-Fi Film Fest; French directors Loris Lamunière and Charles Mercier DAR(k)WIN PROJECT, a mesmerising mock-doc revealing the plastic sea-creatures of the future; U.K. filmmaker Stephen Bookas' lockdown love story, IT'S NOT SAFE OUTSIDE (pictured, top) and, Polish student Dominika Ożarowska’s cerebral thinkpiece SPACE PROBE PASSENGER, a fictional character study of how humans would interpret poetry sent from a free-thinking, deep-space craft.

Women directors are represented by 12 films (23%) in the SSFFF 2020 line-up. In addition to those already mentioned (Shaheed Ammen’s SCALES; Tunisian director Myriam Khammassi’s MAGNUM OPUS; Emanuela Rossi’s DARKNESS, pictured, right), female visions include Canadian Chelsea Jade McEvoy’s PALLIDUS; Spaniards Silvia Conesa’s POLVOTRON 500 and Eva Daoud’s THE LIGHT THIEF; and, American Trish Harnetiaux’s head-scratcher YOU WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND.

FACEBOOK: @SydneyScienceFictionFilmFestival
TWITTER: @SydSciFiFest
INSTAGRAM: @SydSciFiFest
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8CjNbBJl6ymUJC-dsZBl4A/

All ticketing and session information can be found at the event's FilmFreeway page here. The 2020 SYDNEY SCIENCE FICTION FILM FESTIVAL will run November 19-21 at Actors Centre Australia, Leichhardt.

THE NEW BLOOD REANIMATING SYDNEY'S ORIGINAL HORROR PARTY

There is something darkly ironic surrounding the resurrection of Sydney’s iconic A Night of Horror International Film Festival (ANOH). After a dormant two years, the brand re-emerges zombie-like into a barren festival landscape, amidst a global pandemic; when it’s 12th iteration launches on September 24, it will be one of the first physical film festivals in a post-COVID Australia. Taking charge in 2020 is longtime festival associate Bryn Tilly, who brings to the Festival Director’s role, in his words, “a taste for the dark stuff, films undeniably nightmarish, yet thrilling.” SCREEN-SPACE spoke with our longtime friend about what it takes to scare au-diences in 2020…

SCREEN-SPACE: The once-strong brand has been stagnant for a couple of years. What were your objectives in relaunching A Night of Horror?

TILLY: The festival’s co-founder Dr. Dean Bertram has been living in the U.S. guiding his festival, Midwest Weird Fest from strength to strength. If A Night of Horror [was] to be resurrected, who better to helm the reboot than a clutch of the festival’s long-standing champions, which included myself and Enzo Tedeschi from Deadhouse Films? We brainstormed a plan of attack during spring of last year. It took awhile to build momentum, and we lost a couple of team members along the way, which prompted us to solidify a new vision for the festival. I feel confident we have shaped the best version we could, all things considered. 

SCREEN-SPACE: ANOH, like every other major Sydney event, was beaten down by COVID-19. Recall for us the emotions and the practicalities you faced as pandemic conditions took hold...  

TILLY: I began viewing the festival’s cold submissions back in October [while] keeping an eye on the international festival circuit. By January, I had a roster of short films and features from Australia and around the world sufficient for a four-day festival. But the event’s traditional home, Dendy Newtown, was no longer available, and subsequent venue options fell through. Then, that pesky pandemic reared its ugly head. We postponed, went into a limbo period, but never [considered] cancellation. Then, Anthony Kierann at Actors Centre Australia reached out to us, a beacon in the darkness. The reality was, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it simply wasn’t viable to hold the festival in the way we had originally intended. It killed me to have to re-structure the program [and] reduce the number of screenings, but we are nightmare warriors, determined to showcase in a festival environment works that capture the atmospheric essence of horror. (Pictured, above; The Other Lambs) 

SCREEN-SPACE: What are we learning about 'Bryn Tilly, Program Director' from this collection of films?

TILLY: I was very keen on pushing the boundaries with the content, spreading the nightmare tendrils a little further afield. The festival has always championed new talent; our awards herald short film and feature screenplays from emerging writers. This is my first year as Head of Programming and it’s been a huge challenge, one that allowed me to fully indulge my nightmare movie palette, while thoughtfully compiling a program that will appeal to both horrorphiles and those that aren’t necessarily horror buffs. I love monsters, the supernatural, and I love special effects; I’ve been a fan of gore gags and creature features since I was a young teen, but I’m also a huge fan of the creeping unknown, and reality-based terror. 

SCREEN-SPACE: The Devil will be in the detail. Get us excited about the 2020 line-up…

TILLY: There’s the supernatural indigenous mystery Diablo Rojo (pictured, above), from Panamanian filmmaker Sol Moreno; shocks and twists in Jeremy Karsten’s American high school hell, The Dead Ones; a disturbing portrait of a serial killer and his young son in Tom Botchii’s Artik; and, the disquieting turmoil, violation, and vengeance of The Other Lamb from Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska. We are opening the festival with Dean Yurke’s nail-biting subterranean thriller Stay Out Stay Alive, and debuting two World Premieres, both proudly Aussie - festival alumni Sam Curtain’s The Slaughterhouse Killer (pictured, below), detailing the dastardly deeds of an obese psychopath and hapless young parolee, and the confronting, heightened reality of Josh Reed’s suburban Sydney snake pit, We’re Not Here To Fuck Spiders. And the local and international shorts, once segregated into their own mini-programs, have been combined this year, showcasing a universally high caliber of horror short-form storytelling.

SCREEN-SPACE: How do you think horror filmmakers will react to the year that has been 2020? Pandemic panic, democracy in tatters, western society divided - do we need horror films anymore?

TILLY: We will never not need horror movies. Humans have an innate need to confront their fears, and the horror movie is the perfect platform to do that. In many respects, the more heightened the insanity in the outside world, the more hungry the audience becomes for escape. Audiences will seek out horror movies as a way of processing the nightmare scenario that exists outside their door, or within their home. Horror movies are often oneiric, dreamlike, surreal, even the ones that look and feel ultra-realistic. This is the most expressionistic of all film genres, allowing the viewer to absorb many elements, using them as psychological tools to better deal with the real world. Next year’s cold submissions will be riddled with themes of isolation, insanity, desolation, and disease. The apocalypse will be nigh. 

SCREEN-SPACE: It's the Closing Night party and you say to yourself, "Well, I think that was a success." What will have happened that readies you to do it again in 2021?

TILLY: I hope people hang around after the Awards Ceremony for a drink or three, to chat and rave about the films; the parallels, the contrasts, the shocks, the connections. Actors Centre is laid out in such a way that festival goers will be able to socialize and still be COVID-safe. We need to push through that pandemic psychological barrier, to come out and watch a movie with a bunch of other people. Trust in your nightmare warriors! I feel confident that this year’s A Night of Horror will bring back that community vibe. As for the future, Enzo and I share a vision of what we want the festival to evolve into; post-September, we will debrief and make new, devious, diabolical plans. Keep your eyes peeled!

A NIGHT OF HORROR INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL will run September 24-26 at the Actors Centre Australia, Leichhardt. Full session and ticketing details can be found at the event’s official website.