FIVE FANTASTIC TRAILERS FROM FANTASIA FEST 2021

The 2021 line-up of Fantasia Festival is exactly the celebration of global genre films that a 25th anniversary event should be. Hollywood is coming to the party - James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad will screen on August 4 at the festival’s birthplace, Montreal’s historic Imperial Theater - but just as importantly, both the Canadian domestic sector and the international film community will be represented en masse.

Under the leadership triumvirate of Pierre Corbeil, Mitch Davis and Nicolas Archambault, Fantasia 25 is set to bolster a reputation built over a quarter-century as one of the world’s guiding genre gatherings. To kick-off our Fantasia Fest coverage, let’s look at five trailers that have us intrigued, engaged, excited…

ALL THE MOONS (Dir: Igor Legarreta; Spain | France, 102 mins) As war rages through 1876 Spain, an orphanage is bombed; a young girl is rescued by a woman whom she perceives to be an angel, and who heals her wounds, while telling the girl she must now avoid the daylight and promises the girl that she will see many more full moons. The two become separated, and the girl is forced to take shelter, facing an uncertain future – and one that will last far beyond that of ordinary human beings.
Screens with SHE AND THE DARKNESS on Thursday 19th and Saturday 21st.

DREAMS ON FIRE (Dir: Philippe McKie; Japan | Canada, 124 mins) Yume has only one dream – to break into the dance world in Japan. She moves to Tokyo, navigating her day-to-day routine between street dance competitions, hip-hop classes, life in her tiny flat, and the many encounters with colourful characters. All alone, she has to take a job as a hostess to help her survive. Far from her initial ambitions, this job may help her to assert herself and gain self-confidence...unless it leads her into a toxic spiral existence.
Screens with FOREVER & EVER on Sunday 8/8 and Tuesday 10/8.

DR. CALIGARI (Dir: Stephen Sayadian, aka Rinse Dream; USA | 80 mins) Bizarre, stunning, goofy and unsettling, Dr. Caligari embraces the avant-garde in its exquisite and hilarious exploitation of America’s repressed libido. In 1989, one of the most iconic and fantastical works in American exploitation cinema was barely released. Thanks to a new restoration, it will finally find its audience, and retroactively be appreciated as the underground masterpiece that it is.

Screens on Monday 16/8.

TELOS OR BUST (Dir: Brad Abrahams; USA | Canada, 6 mins) Ascended masters, new religions, inner-Earth cities, crystals and lost continents. Immerse yourself in the confluence of strange myths and beliefs of the citizens of Mount Shasta, California. From director Brad Abrahams (Love and Saucers, 2017; Conspiracy Cruise, 2019), Telos or Bust is the pilot for his upcoming docuseries Keep Folklore Alive, featuring episodes about cryptids, aliens, yokai and more.
Screens with YOU CAN’T KILL MEME on Sunday 15/8 and Tuesday 17/8

HELLO TAPIR (Dir: Kethsvin Chee; Taiwan, 89 mins)
It has the body of a pig, the trunk of an elephant, the ears of a horse and the feet of a rhinoceros. At night, it passes through sleeping villages and gobbles up people’s pesky nightmares. This huge, fantastical beast is a tapir, and eight-year-old Ah Keat’s father once told the boy he had seen one. Now, Ah Keat wants his father back, and he believes the tapir can help, so he and his friends begin a quest to find the gentle, benevolent giant.
Screens with INSIDE on Saturday 14/8.

THE SCREEN-SPACE PUBLIC DOMAIN FILM FESTIVAL VOL. 1

Maybe you cleaned out your physical media stash when you got Netflix. Or maybe those monthly subsciber fees just proved too rich, given you’re never at home. And, because you’re a decent human being, your dodgy brother-in-law’s pirated library is not an option. Now, you’re self-isolating to help save the world and you’ve got nothing too watch...

Welcome to the first edition of The Screen-Space Public Domain Film Festival. To save you the burden of searching YouTube, we have collated a first round selection of ten films up for grabs on the video sharing service that nobody owns (we think; if any are under copyright, let us know and we’ll take them down immediately). We hope our selection helps make your home-stay days a bit more bearable… 

GUNFIGHTERS MOON: (Dir: Larry Ferguson; stars Lance Henriksem , Kay Lenz; 1995) A notorious gunfighter returns to his ex-wife, who only wants him to save her sheriff husband from being killed by gunmen out to free his condemned prisoner.

CALL NORTHSIDE 777 (Dir: Henry Hathaway; stars James Stewart, Lee J. Cobb, Richard Conte; 1948) In 1932, copkiller Frank Wiecek is sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad leads Chicago reporter P.J. McNeal to look into the case. When McNeal starts to believe in Wiecek’s innocence, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.

LAND OF THE MINOTAUR aka The Devil’s Men (Dir: Kostas Karagiannis; stars Donald Pleasance, Peter Cushing; 1976) A satanic cult kidnaps three young people and an Irish priest must destroy a baron's cult of man-bull worshippers in the Balkans.

THE BAT (Dir: Crane Wilbur; stars Agnes Moorhead, Vincent Price; 1959) Mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder has rented a country house which not long ago had been the scene of some murders committed by a strange and violent criminal known as "The Bat". The lonely country house soon becomes the site of many mysterious and dangerous activities.

THE GOLD RUSH (Dir: Charles Chaplain; stars Charles Chaplin, Mack Swain; 1925) A lone prospector ventures into Alaska looking for gold, mixing it up with burly characters and, using his singular charm, falling in love with the beautiful Georgia.

FOUR HORSEMEN (Dir: Ross Ashcroft; 2012) The modern day Four Horsemen continue to ride roughshod over the people who can least afford it. 23 international thinkers come together and break their silence about how the world really works and why there is still hope in re-establishing a moral and just society.

THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE (Dir: Joseph Green; stars Jason Evers, Virginia Leith; 1962) A doctor experimenting with transplant techniques keeps his girlfriend's head alive when she is decapitated in a car crash, then goes hunting for a new body.

THE MARS UNDERGROUND (Dir: Scott J. Gill; 2007) Visionary rocket scientist, Robert Zubrin, has a plan for getting humans to Mars in the next ten years and ultimately turning the Red Planet blue. But can he win over the skeptics at NASA and the wider world?

ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (Dir: Delbert Mann; stars Richard Thomas, Ernest Borgnine; 1979) Paul Baumer, an idealistic young German, enlists in the German Imperial Army, thinking war would be a great adventure. He soon discovers the opposite as the war drags on...

BODY ROCK (Dir: Marcelo Epstein; star Lorenzo Lamas, Vicki Frederick; 1984) Chilly is just a guy from the streets with a talent for break-dancing. When his wicked moves catch the eye of an industry pro, Chilly finds his dreams of fame and fortune coming true, for better or for worse.

SCREEN-SPACE claims no ownership of any of the titles being used in The Public Domain Film Festival posts. All are being sourced via YouTube. Our sincere apologies if any breach copyright entitlement; please contact us at screenspace3@gmail.com with proof of ownership and we will remove immediately.  

TRAILERS OF THE BERLINALE

BERLINALE 2020: Having punched above its weight for many years but now firmly established as one of the global festival calendar's major events, the Berlin Film Festival, otherwise known as Berlinale, celebrates its 70th birthday in 2020. Established in 1951 under the guiding principle, "A Showcase for the Free World", the Berlinale has a two-tiered focus - the Programming strands, which include the iconic 'Competition' line-up as well as such focussed sidebars as Generations, Panorama, Encounters, Perspektive Deutsches Kino and Homage; and, the Commercial arm, led by the sales frenzy that is the European Film Market (EFM).

The Berlinale and EFM have become gateway events for the very latest releases from Europe and beyond. Each year, first-look trailers arrive that announce major new works... 

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ  (Dir: Burhan Qurbani, starring Welket Bungué, Jella Haase, Albrecht Schuch, Joachim Król and Annabelle Mandeng; Germany / Netherlands; 183 mins)
From the Program: Francis has survived his escape from Africa. In Berlin he gets to know Hasenheide park, the city’s clubs and its streets. His pal Reinhold becomes an adversary. Mieze brings both happiness and tragedy. Döblin’s classic as a dark present-day odyssey.

THE ROADS NOT TAKEN (Dir: Sally Potter, starring Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Salma Hayek and Laura Linney; United Kingdom; 85 mins)
From the Program: Twenty-four hours in the life of Leo, a mentally impaired New York resident. A day that for him is characterised by hallucinatory trips into various parallel lives. At his side is his daughter Molly, who worries about him and loves him.

THE INTRUDER (El Prófugo; Dir: Natalia Meta, starring Érica Rivas, Nahuel Pérez Biscayart, Daniel Hendler, Cecilia Roth and Guillermo Arengo; Argentina / Mexico; 94 mins) 
From the Program: After a traumatic experience, Inés develops a sleep disorder and is haunted by violent nightmares. Do the characters who populate her dreams want to take possession of her body?

PINOCCHIO (Dir: Matteo Garrone, starring Roberto Benigni, Federico Ielapi, Rocco Papaleo, Massimo Ceccherini and Marine Vacth; Italy / France / United Kingdom; 124 mins)
From the Program: A faithful adaptation of the well-known story of Pinocchio, to which Matteo Garrone has added a unique visionary dimension. Pinocchio’s world is simultaneously real and fantastic – this is an Italy redolent of the earth, the sea and the farmyard.

LAST AND FIRST MEN (Dir: Johann Johannson, narrated by Tilda Swinton; Iceland; 70 mins)
From the Program: The concrete brutalism of Yugoslavian war memorials, Tilda Swinton’s voice and the music of Jóhann Jóhannsson are the protagonists of this visionary total work of art by the Icelandic composer and filmmaker, who died in 2018 when he was only 48.

TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN (Dir: Sandra Wollner, starring Lena Watson, Dominik Warta, Ingrid Burkhard and Jana McKinnon; Austria / Germany; 94 mins)
From the Program: Ten-year-old Elli is an android. She loves the man she calls “Daddy” and is the vessel for his memories, which mean nothing to her, but everything to him. A formally dense and provocative invitation into the realm of virtual and psychological reality.

SA-NYANG-EUI-SI-GAN (Time to Hunt; Dir: Sung-hyun Yoon, starring Lee Je-hoon, Ahn Jae-hong, Choi Woo-shik, Park Jeong-min and Park Hae-soo; Republic of Korea; 134 mins)
From the Program: After three years in prison, Jun-seok convinces his mates to rob a casino. The heist succeeds, but then the young gangsters themselves become the hunted. An action-packed, dystopian thriller set in a post-capitalist South Korea of the near future.

BERLINALE 2020 runs February 20-March 1 at several sites in Berlin. Full ticket and session details can be found at the event's official website.

FESTIVAL DE CANNES 2018: TRAILER COMPILE

The 2018 Cannes Film Festival is in its final stages, the red carpet and barricades set to be garaged after the event wraps up on May 19. The programme strands and marketplace have offered first-look trailers for films that promise to be some of the most anticipated international releases of the next 12 months...

IN COMPETITION:

Film: BLACKkKLANSMAN (Focus Features | USA | 128 mins)
Director: Spike Lee | Stars: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Topher Grace. 

Film: NETEMO SAMETOMO (ASAKO I & II) (Bitters End Distribution | Japan | 119 mins)
Director: Ryûsuke Hamaguchi | Stars: Masahiro Higashide, Erika Karata, Sairi Itô.

Film: ZIMNA WOJNA (COLD WAR) (Kino Swiat, Poland, Amazon Studios USA | Poland | 84 mins)
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski | Stars: Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc.

Film: UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (A24 | USA | 139 mins)
Dir: David Robert Mitchell | Stars: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keogh.

UN CERTAIN REGARD:

Film: GIRL (Cinimien | The Netherlands | 100 mins)
Dir: Lukas Dhont | Stars: Valentijn Dhaenens.

Film: GUEULE D'ANGEL (ANGEL FACE) (Mars Distribution | France | 108 mins)
Director: Vanessa Filho | Stars: Marion Cotillard, Alban Lenoir, Ayline Aksoy-Etaix.

OUT OF COMPETITION:

Film: GONGJAK (THE SPY GONE NORTH) (CJ Entertainment | South Korea | 141 mins)
Director: Jong-bin Yoon | Stars: Jung-min Hwang, Sung-min Lee, Jin-Woong Cho.

LA SEMAINE DE LA CRITIQUE:

Film: FUGA (FUGUE) (Kino Swiat | Poland | 100 mins)
Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska | Stars: Gabriela Muskala, Lukasz Simlat, Malgorzata Buczkowska. 

Film: THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT ( IFC Films | Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden | 155 mins)
Director: Lars von Trier | Stars: Matt Dillon, Brono Ganz, Uma Thurman.

QUINZAINE DES REALISATEURS:

Film: CLIMAX (Wild Bunch | France | 95 mins)
Director: Gaspar Noé | Stars: Sofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub.

Film: PETRA ( Wanda Vision SA | Spain )
Director: Jaime Rosales | Stars: Bárbara Lennie, Alex Brendemühl, Joan Botey.