Today Montreal’s
FANTASIA FILM FESTIVAL Press Conference
took place and all the goodies were revealed! For those who don’t know, the
Festival runs from
July 7th to July 25th in my home town of hot
chicks/good beer heavy Montreal, Canada and is basically a genre fans wet dream come to
moist reality. Read below to find out what’s up this year, straight from the Official Fantasia Press
Release.
INTERNATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS:
2001 Maniacs, USA, Tim Sullivan,
Canadian Premiere Hosted by Director Tim Sullivan
Co-produced
by Cabin Fever director Eli Roth, Tim Sullivan’s gore soaked and blackly
comic updating of HG Lewis’ 60’s grindhouse classic 2000 Maniacs has been
dropping people’s jaws wherever it’s unveiled. Travelers take a wrong turn and
wind up in a strange little town comprised of Civil War ghosts from the south –
who enact a series of outrageously gruesome South Vs North assaults – in this
odd satire that trashes both red states and blue states alike. Features Robert
England doing a feature-length George W. Bush impersonation as the town’s
homicidal mayor!
Antibodies, Germany, Christian Alvart, Canadian Premiere
A dense, involving, and horrific
serial-killer tale from that evolves into a series of chilling religious
parables over the course of its running time, Antibodies ranks one of the
most unsettling selections of this year’s festival. In spite of featuring one
of the vilest screen villains ever burned into light, the real subject at hand
is the importance of closure and the thin line between madness and normalcy.
Stunningly well-directed, there are images and moments in this film that will
haunt you for a long, long time.
Breaking News, Hong Kong, Johnnie To, Montreal
Premiere
This spectacular film from the great
Johnnie To (a former guest at Fantasia) has deservedly won heaps of prizes on
the international festival circuit as well as a 2005 Hong Kong Film Critics
Society Award. Desperate to regain their credibility and newly convinced of the
power and influence of television, a group pf shamed police officers co-opt the
medium in order to convey their well-intentioned but totally fallacious message.
Waging a simultaneous war on crime and credible news reporting, the police
propaganda machine goes into overdrive. Things go apocalyptically wrong –
complete chaos erupts and Hong Kong watches it all unfold on TV! Breaking
News is a timely and scathing dose of social commentary and a must-see aria
of soulful, tour de force filmmaking.
There’s no polite way to put this.
LFDF is an ultra-twisted, two-years-in-the-making, very x-rated,
stop-motion animation musical comedy retelling of the Manson crimes (!),
featuring more assaulting bad taste than the entire John Waters canon! This
insane little ditty is the inaugural production of Rancid/Operation Ivy frontman
Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat Films. Armstrong also did voice acting – as did members
of Blink 182, AFI, The Lunachicks, Good Charlotte, X, The Transplants and The
GoGo’s, not to mention Kelly Osbourne and Asia Argento! The snarling voice of
Green Day vocalist Billie Joe Armstrong stars as Manson (now called Hanson)!
You simply will not believe what you’re seeing. Social taboos and sacred cows
are torn limb from limb, with virtually every frame being calculated to outrage.
No matter how relaxed you may consider yourself, you will be shocked. The
height of antisocial punk rock puppet perversity!
Nightwatch (Official Closing Film), Russia,
Timur Bekmambetov, Canadian premiere
The official closing film of Fantasia 2005. Adapted from the popular novel by
Sergei Lukyanenko, Night Watch is far and away the biggest domestic
box-office success in post-Soviet Russia, and was that country’s 2004 contender
for the Oscar. It boasts action, special effects and production values to match
what Hollywood has to offer, a wicked streak of Russian black humor throughout,
and moreover a cast of faces familiar across Russia, pop stars and Soviet-era
icons alike. Night Watch has also redefined the external possibilities of
Russian cinema. Picked up by Fox Searchlight, this is in fact the first part
of an impressive trilogy, the final episode of which, Twilight Watch,
will be co-produced by Fox.
Popaganda: The Art & Crimes of Ron English, USA, Pedro Carvajal, Montreal
Premiere
Popaganda
is a priceless documentary on Ron
English, father of Agitpop and a genuine “illegal artist”. Blessed with a
subversive wit, English takes his art to the billboards of America, replacing
existing advertisements with his own political and pop-cultural parodies. While
English’s name might not be instantly recognizable to everyone, you’re almost
certainly familiar with his imagery. One example of many: English designed the
morbidly obese Ronald McDonald art so memorably featured in Super Size Me.
Shot, fittingly, guerilla-style over a span of nearly 10 years, Pedro Carvajal’s
documentary covers all phases of English’s eccentric, ongoing career. On the
subject of confrontational American art, be sure to take a look at the Spoken
Word / Performance Art events we have lined up this year, which includes shows
by Joe Coleman and Stephen R. Bissette
The Roost, USA, Ti West,
Canadian Premiere, hosted by director Ti West
25-year-old Ti West’s acclaimed
feature debut is a spookshow love letter to yesterday’s American exploitation
film culture, designed to play as if you tuned into it on a late night TV
broadcast, complete with charming horror host segments featuring Tom Noonan (Manhunter)!
Intervals are comic but West plays all horror elements straight. Gritty and
unusual stuff. It was a huge success at this year’s South By Southwest film
festival.
Straight Into
Darkness, USA, Jeff Burr, Canadian premiere, Hosted by Director Jeff Burr
A different kind of war film, independently made on a low budget, that
evokes Malick with the contemplative imagery of Robert Frost and the darker
ponderings of Edgar Allan Poe as a group of AWOL soldiers seek recluse in the
center of madness. Moody, atmospheric, and completely enigmatic, Straight
Into Darkness is a genre-bending work with tremendous conceptual audacity.
WITH BLOOD ON MY HANDS: PUSHER II
Denmark North American Premiere
Nine years after exploding onto the Danish film scene with his seminal
new-wave crime drama Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn has returned to that
film’s shadowy universe with this gripping existential successor.In spite of
featuring several A-list stars among its cast, With Blood… was shot quick
and dirty, in an engrossing verité style that adds enormously to the film’s
grit. Refn is a screenwriter who cares about his characters and with this film,
he has made a compellingly human entry in the annals of crime cinema, strapped
with flashes of tragicomedy and a melancholic sense of vulnerability spread wide
amongst virtually every figure that walks within its frames. Star Mads
Mikkelsen’s intense and honest performance justly won him the 2005 Danish Film
Critic’s Award.
DARK HOURS
Canada MTL Premiere
Director
Paul Fox, screenwriter Will Zmak and producer Brent Barclay will be present.
An amazing film – from Canada, no less – that might prove to be the single most
powerful horror production to emerge from any country this year. The Dark
Hours depicts the ordeal of a criminal psychiatrist and her family being
held hostage by a vicious former patient. We dare not spoil a frame more in
synopsis. Dark Hours is a harrowing portrait of psychological mutation in
the face of physical decay, anchored with strong, authentic characters. At
times, the film is almost unbearable in its intensity. Director Paul Fox is a
huge emerging talent. Not since the arrivals of John Fawcett and Vincenzo
Natali has there been such an exciting new voice in Canadian horror cinema.
EL LOBO
Spain CDN Premiere
This edgy period thriller, Spain’s 2nd top grossing film of last
year, blasts cleansing light on the true story of Mikel Lejarza, a small-time
felon who, under the code name Lobo ("wolf"), infiltrated the fierce Basque
terrorist group ETA’s highest level and caused more damage to the outfit then
the entire Spanish police force were ever capable of. Stars Eduardo Noriega (Open
Your Eyes, Devil’s Backbone…), was co-produced by journalist Melchor
Miralles, and was directed in the best Costa Gavras tradition by French
filmmaker Miguel Courtois, famous for having been publicly threatened by right
wing maniac Jean-Marie Le Pen.
KARAOKE TERROR
Japan MTL Premiere
This supremely subversive social satire, based on a novel by the notorious Ryu
Murakami (director of Tokyo Decadence, writer of Audition),
depicts a bloody, escalating street war between angry young "droogs" and
wealthy, middle-aged women! Far from what the title might imply, this is a very
smart, introspective and often whisper-quiet work. Its humour is tinged with
melancholic poetry, its cruelest and most provocative blows are delivered in a
tone of near-hypnotic tranquility. Just the same, the film is perfectly at ease
with exploding into absurdist set-pieces and ultra-violence whenever it feels
like it, making for a consistently surprising and ultimately apocalyptic viewing
experience.
SURVIVE STYLE 5 +
Japan CDN Premiere
Easily the wildest and most inventive film of Fantasia 2005. Former cult
advertisers Gen Sekiguchi & Taku Tada’s already-legendary feature debut hits
home with five highly bent stories of rampant crime, undying love, hypnotism
gone wrong and failed body disposals, all criss-crossing into one another..
Visually dazzling, daringly experimental and wittily scripted, this eccentric
comedy masterpiece plays like a blender crush between the sensibilities of Sabu,
Todd Solondz, Takashi Miike, Monty Python, Vermillion Pleasure Night and Gregg
Araki. An absolute must-see!
SHUTTER
Thailand CDN Premiere
One of the most commercially successful productions in the history of Thai
cinema. Fox-Regency have already signed up for a US remake! Without giving too
much away, Shutter concerns a photographer and his girlfirned haunted by
ghostly apparitions in photographic work, after a recent hit and run accident.
Aside from using the familiar for calculated misdirection in order to take its
themes to surprising, unexpected places, the film is notable for having
incorporated actual examples of spirit (or ghost) photography in several key
sequences. It is Thai horror in the grandest tradition.
TROUBLE
Belgium North American premiere
Writer / Director Harry Cleven will be present
Gripping existential horror with spikes of perverse, dark wit .is the order of
the day in this baroque chiller from veteran Zulawski actor-turned-director
Harry Cleven. What would you do if you were informed out of the blue that you
had a long-lost identical twin? This is the creepy situation that successful
photographer Matyas (La Pianiste’s Benoît Magimel), freshly settled into
a new family life, finds himself in. The mere revelation brings back
uncomfortable childhood memories and cracks begin to form in his seemingly
perfect home life. Upon meeting Thomas, his twin, Matyas becomes disoriented and
slightly delusional. Thomas seems like a calmer, more perfected and much more
controlled version of himself. The twin instantly wins over Matyas’ pregnant
wife Claire (Criminal Lovers’s Natasha Régnier), and their son Pierre.
Matters gradually evolve into an understated dream tone. Identities begin to
blur. A chilling series of events are set into motion. Trouble is a
fascinating, disquieting piece of work that should be of particular interest to
fans of early Polanski.
WITH BLOOD ON MY HANDS: PUSHER II
Denmark North American Premiere
Nine years after exploding onto the Danish film scene with his seminal
new-wave crime drama Pusher, Nicolas Winding Refn has returned to that
film’s shadowy universe with this gripping existential successor. In spite of
featuring several A-list stars among its cast, With Blood… was shot quick
and dirty, in an engrossing verité style that adds enormously to the film’s
grit. Refn is a screenwriter who cares about his characters and with this film,
he has made a compellingly human entry in the annals of crime cinema, strapped
with flashes of tragicomedy and a melancholic sense of vulnerability spread wide
amongst virtually every figure that walks within its frames. Star Mads
Mikkelsen’s intense and honest performance justly won him the 2005 Danish Film
Critic’s Award.
This year at
Fantasia, national representative director Im Kwon-Tack returns to his
action-flick roots with Low Life: In the early days after WWII, an
angry, fearless youth from a broken home raids a rival high school to settle a
score with his fists. Low Life follows the vibrant life and times
of a remarkable man, but it’s no hagiography, nor is it an attempt to have a man
stand in for his nation in trying times. Low Life was
invited into official competition at the 57th Cannes festival.
Maverick
Korean director Ryoo Seung-Wan
is behind one of this year’s opening films, Crying Fist, which
treads turf familiar to fans of his
earlier efforts Die Bad and No Blood No Tears. Relentlessly tough
and emotionally raw and accurate, Crying Fist is built upon a brilliantly
simple device—tell the separate stories of two desperate men, and then devote
the third act to their confrontation, from which only one can emerge victorious.
Crying Fist won a jury prize in the section of Director’s Fortnight at 58th
Cannes, 2005.
Two social action films from Kang
Woo-Suk, the director who brought us the inimitable Public Enemy, are
Another Public Enemy and the powerful true story Silmido:
in 1968 the South Korean intelligence
service press-ganged 31 men, mostly convicted criminals, into a fierce training
regimen for their intended assignment—punch deep into North Korea and kill the
“Great Leader” Kim Il-sung. Unit 684, as they were called, had become a
dangerous burden to the South Korean leadership as the mission was scuttled by
political changes. They’re trapped on the isolated island Silmido...
From
the same director of Crying Fist, Ryoo’s previous film, Arahan,
is bellylaughs and fisticuffs—a
potent mix of comedy and fantasy action, taking the
concept of the philosophical kung-fu comedy and putting a distinctive Korean
spin on it.
Fighter in the Wind,
from director Yang Yun-ho, is
based on
the true-life story of Choi Baedal, also known as Masutatsu Oyama, a fierce
fighter from Korea who stunned and excited Japan by winning 270 martial-arts
fights in a campaign to be the nation’s greatest, and later established the
Kyokushin Karate school, training Sonny Chiba among others. But it’s actually
adapted more directly from a popular Korean comic strip, and just the right
liberties have been taken with Choi’s tale.
Check out the chilly Three…
Extremes, R-Point, Some (Director Jang Yun-Hyun, from the film Tell
Me Something) and Spider Forest by the renowned director Song
Il-Gon, a modern-day fairy tale for
adults, perhaps even a love story, though one with a number of shocks and an
eerie, constant atmosphere of foreboding. TV producer Kang Min comes to in a
forest, not far from a desolate cabin. There, he finds the brutally butchered
body of a middle-aged man, and in another room, his girlfriend Su-yeong, on the
verge of death and gripped by nameless dread…
A groundbreaking and important film in the
history of Asian cinema, as it marks the first theatrical animation
collaboration between Japan and Korea is Phantom Master: Dark Hero From
Ruined Empire.
There’s also the delightful romantic comedies Please Teach Me English,
Ghost House, the modern
Asian gangster film Marrying the Mafia, and
finally, get a kick out of… Spin Kick!
For the first time ever, Fantasia
will present a Korean television drama. Most of Asia and Europe have already
been introduced to Dae Jang-Geum, AKA A Jewel in the Palace.
One of the most popular dramatic series in Korean history, it gained notoriety
after its phenomenal impact in Hong Kong. Restaurant owners cried that they were
losing business because nobody went out to eat while the show was on! Based on
the true story of a 16th-century woman who became the supreme royal
physician, it stars Lee Young-Ae, who played the leading role in JSA
(Fantasia 2001) and now stars in Park Chan-Wook’s new film, Sympathy for Ms.
Vengeance. As a gift to our loyal audience, Fantasia will present
Highlights of Dae Jang-Geum, four back-to-back episodes specially packaged
by MBC (Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation). While some scenes have been cut for
the sake of narrative clarity, the story maintains its originality and charm.
In a broader view of Korean
television drama, Fantasia knows that Dae Jang-Geum was not the only
popular series in 2002. The soap opera Winter Sonata broke ratings
records in Japan and Korea. The star of that show, Bae Yong-Jun, is said to have
surpassed Brad Pitt’s celebrity status. The setting of the series, Nami Island
and the village, Chuncheon, have become major tourist attractions; every day
more than 300 people visit the area.
The new wave of Korean television
drama isn’t subsiding yet. New and increasingly sensational stories are being
introduced, including the soap opera Fall Story (which Hollywood has
acquired the remake rights to), the epic martial arts fantasy Damo and
Heo Jun, the touching true-life story of a traditional Korean doctor.
Popular throughout Asia, Korean television has recently been influenced by and,
in turn, influential on the film industry in terms of visual quality, production
scale and international marketing.
JAPANESE
FILMS:
Ashura,
Japan, Yojiro Takita, 2005, International
Premiere
This visually rich and captivating film is a
direct adaptation of a tremendously successful recent stage play which drew on
both the classic kabuki theatre and contemporary trends in Japanese pop culture.
The result is a magnificent, exciting and ultimately heartbreaking spectacle.
Fierce action and tragic romance, myth, magic and magnificent visual splendour—Ashura
offers it all!
Godzilla:
Final Wars, Japan, Ryuhei Kitamura, 2005, Canadian premiere
What better way to celebrate the 50th
anniversary of Godzilla than to go all the way. With 15 monsters in one single
film, Godzilla: Final Wars features all the favourites. To helm the
magnum opus, Toho hired the sensation of the moment Ryuhei Kitamura (Versus,
Aragami: The Raging God of Battle and Azumi).
Izo, Japan, Takashi Miike, 2004
From the hyper-prolific,
genre-jumping, deliberately challenging, always surprising bad boy of Japanese
pop-art cinema, Takashi Miike, comes Izo—a mind-blowing, metaphysical rumination
on the never-ending cycle of life and death and the unshakable drive to violence
in our species that just happens to be a ferocious, unpredictable barrage of
surreal, gory Japanese action that shifts in time and space as though God
himself is channel-surfing.
Karaoke
Terror, Japan, Tetsuo Shinohara, 2004
While hilarious in places and extreme in others, Karaoke Terror is a very
smart, introspective and often whisper-quiet work. the film is perfectly at ease
with exploding into absurdist set-pieces and ultra-violence whenever it feels
like it, making for a consistently surprising and ultimately apocalyptic viewing
experience. It also boasts the most shockingly nihilistic ending of anything at
this year’s fest.
Mind Game, Japan, Yuasa Masaaki, 2004
A Japanese anime film
unlike any other, Mindgame is closer to Yellow Submarine and Waking Life than to
anything with giant robots and big-eyed schoolgirls. Its wild, free-association
narrative swings vertiginously from one tangent to the next, from a noodle bar
to heaven (where God appears in infinite guises) to the belly of a whale to a
fantastic planet in the far reaches of space—and right back to modern Japan,
where the whole thing ties up gracefully with a solid point. The crew
responsible previously did the excellent shorts “Cat Soup” and “Noiseman Sound
Insect.” Colourful, shocking, beautiful, hilarious and philosophical—a
psychedelic animation masterpiece.
Taste of Tea, Japan, Katsuhito Ishii, 2004
Katsuhito Ishii (Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl, Party 7) is
responsible here for an outlandish and entirely unexpected work, a magical, mind
bending auteur film that didn’t fail to stun and surprise when it opened the
Quinzaine des Réalisateur at the prestigious Cannes festival in 2004. Somewhere
between magic realism, an inspired humanism and unhinged comedy as funny as it
is weird, The Taste of Tea is a strangely distracting film of such
haunting quality.
HONG KONG FILMS:
One Night in Mongkok, Hong Kong, Derek Yee,
2004, Canadian Premiere
The Mongkok
neighbourhood is one of Hong Kong’s most
fascinating corners. Now it’s the turn of Derek Yee (Lost in Time,
Double Tap, Viva Erotica) to pay homage to this edgy, nocturnal
environment, famous for being one of the most densely populated places in the
world. With Yee’s decision to have the film take place in a very concentrated
area, over a very limited span of time, Mongkok becomes, in a way, a character
in itself. The neighbourhood’s chaos bears witness to the anonymous tragedies of
its inhabitants—behind this breathless film noir, intersecting with a desperate
romance, there lies a vivid sociological assessment of those who survive as they
can on the fringes of modern Hong Kong. At the last Hong Kong Film Awards (Hong
Kong’ “Oscars”), One Nite in Mongkok took home prizes for both best
direction and best screenplay.
Breaking News,
Hong Kong, Johnnie To, 2004
This lively and energetic film has everything
you could want from a Johnnie To film, including satirical social commentary,
relentless camerawork, split-screen shenanigans, and playful camera movements of
every kind. Even at the age of 50, Johnnie To offers excitement and hope for the
future of Hong Kong action cinema. Winner, Hong Kong Film Critics Society Award
2005.
White Dragon, Hong Kong, Wilson
Yip, 2004, Canadian Premiere
A lighthearted, smirking kung-fu farce,
White Dragon is mixing the modern and the classic in a wild and
high-spirited way while running roughshod over the clichés of the
silk-and-swords genre (the famous “Wu Xia Pan”). Featuring Francis Ng, White
Dragon is directed by Wilson Yip, who previously delivered the memorable
Bullets Over Summer and Juliet In Love, also with Francis Ng.
Love Battlefield, Hong Kong, Cheang Pou-soi,
2004, Canadian Premiere
Earning a special mention at this year’s Hong
Kong Film Critics’ Society Awards, Love Battlefield lies somewhere
between drama, romance and the post-Johnnie To police movie. Love Battlefield
is a straightforward, sentimental work that mixes the aesthetic compositions of
Hong Kong cinema with the social realism of China’s. An agreeable surprise, far
from the glitzy baubles of Hong Kong’s tendencies these days.
Three Extremes,
Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Fruit Chan, 2004
Three… Extremes
is a transgressive trilogy of medium-length short films from South Korea, Japan
and Hong Kong, each an assaulting exploration of egoism, with shared imagery
revolving around destruction/rejuvenation of the flesh, and a shattered
entertainer at its core. The most disturbing entry is Fruit Chan’s Dumplings,
which proved so strong that the filmmaker released a longer, feature-length
version in his homeland. Hong Kong’s art house auteur has delivered what might
well be the most confrontational horror fable in recent memory.
Following the wild success of the last two
year’s Shaw Brothers special presentations, The Fantasia Festival is proud to
present 3 new remastered copies of some of Shaw Brothers’s golden gems.
New One Armed Swordsman,
Hong Kong, Chang Cheh 1971
Heroes of the East,
Hong Kong, Liu Chia-Liang, 1975
Shaolin Temple,
Hong Kong, Chang Cheh, 1976
Finally, Fantasia will present 1973’s Way
of the Dragon, which represents
Lee‘s
only venture as a director, with a new remastered video copy restored here in
Montreal by Vision Globale.
SPECIAL GUESTS
On July 8, the Japanese director
and screenwriter Masaaki Yuasa, whose experimental Nekojiro-so was
a big success at Fantasia 2001, will present his animated masterpiece Mind
Game.
Seung-wan Ryoo
will present another film on July 9, the Canadian premiere of Arahan,
which was completed in 2004 and has since received the Jury Prize for Best
Feature at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival.
Tim Sullivan,
the American screenwriter and director of 2001 Maniacs, will be in
attendance for the Canadian premiere on July 9.
Screenwriter and director Jeff
Burr will introduce the Canadian premiere of his American feature
Straight Into Darkness on July 11.
06 Tiros, 60 ml,
part of the short-film show International DIY, screening on July 11, will
be introduced as an international premiere by its Brazilian screenwriter and
director, André Kapel, who is also one of Brazil’s top FX artist.
Clark Balderson,
producer of Firecracker, will present this American movie, winner of the
Jury Prize, Best Actress (Karen Black) at Fantasporto 2005 festival.
The co-director of the Thaï
feature Zee Oui, Buranee Rachjaibun, will be in attendance for the
screening of the movie on July 13.
The Dark Hours,
a Canadian feature, will be introduced on July 14 by its director, Paul Fox,
its producer, Brent Barclay, as well as its screenwriter, Wil
Zmak. This film was a great success this year at the Amsterdam Fantastic
Film Festival.
Joe Coleman,
the notorious, visionary painter and performance artist, widely hailed as this
era’s Salvador Dali, will be making his first-ever Montreal appearance to
present a special two-hour midnight multimedia show entitled Retinal
Stigmatics: An Evening with Joe Coleman, on July 15.
The esteemed comic-book artist and
film journalist Stephen R. Bissette will be in town to host a pair of
lectures on the early history of horror comics, entitled Stephen R.
Bissette’s Journeys Into Fears. The first part will be on July 16, the
second part on the following day, July 17.
The North American premiere of
L’étrange portrait de la dame en jaune, part of the short-film show Small
Gauge Trauma screening on July 16, will be introduced by the
multiple-award-winning Belgian co-directors Hélène Cattet and Bruno
Forzani.
Producer Larry Fessenden, a
guest at previous Fantasia festivals for his films Habit and Wendigo,
as well as screenwriter and director Ti West, will introduce the Canadian
premiere of The Roost, screening on July 20. The feature was a huge hit
at this year’s South by Southwest Festival.
The Belgian screenwriter and
director Harry Cleven will be present on July 21 for the North American
premiere of Trouble, winner of the Grand Jury Prize of the Fantastic Film
Festival of Gerardmer.
Lloyd Kaufman,
the American director, independent producer and father of Troma will be
performing his lecture How to Make Your Own Damn Movie, followed by a
screening of Toxic Avenger in a newly restored 35mm print, on July 22.
The world premiere of Shadow:
Dead Riot will be screened on July 23, in the presence of the producer
Carl Morano and the screenwriter Michael Gingold.
For the first time in Fantasia
history, a Lifetime Achievement Award
will be awarded to an international genre-cinema craftsman. The first laureate
is Ray Harryhausen. On July 24, Mr. Harryhausen will hold forth on his
career and present a few of his rare early works, followed by a screening of
Jason and the Argonauts in a new 35mm print, and concluded by a Q&A period.
Three hours with the stop-motion master, whose special effects inspired the
likes of James Cameron, Peter Jackson, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg.
Finally, on July 25th, to conclude
the festival, the Singapore director Tzang Merwyn Tong will present the
Canadian premiere of A Wicked Tale, which won a Gold Remi Award at the
WorldFest of the Houston International Film Festival.
SPOKEN WORDS/MULTIMEDIA
SHOWS:
RETINAL STIGMATICS: AN EVENING WITH JOE COLEMAN
The visionary and notorious painter / performance artist, widely hailed as this
era’s Salvador Dali, will be making his first-ever Montreal appearance to
present a special 2 hour midnight multimedia show entitled RETINAL STIGMATICS:
AN EVENING WITH JOE COLEMAN. A rare chance to explore the shattering universe of
one of the greatest living surrealists with the artist performing live spoken
word, projecting imagery and screening rare footage!
STEPHEN R. BISSETTE’S JOURNEYS INTO FEARS
The esteemed Comic Book artist and Film Journalist will be in town to host a
pair of informative slideshows documenting the early history of horror comics
entitled STEPHEN R. BISSETTE’S JOURNEYS INTO FEAR
LLOYD KAUFMAN’S HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE
The unstoppable father of all things Troma will be performing a spoken word show
about the perils of D.I.Y filmmaking entitled HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MOVIE.
Following the seminar, Kaufman will present a rare 35mm screening of the
original TOXIC AVENGER.