MELBOURNE / SYDNEY 20 FEBRUARY – 4 MARCH 2020 WELCOME— Genre cinema has a unique ability to act as a monument; marking the social, cultural and political climate within which it exists. It has the power to conjure truth that is raw; truth that gets under our skin. As we take a step into a new decade, we can look to those on the fringes to call out our bullshit, kill our darlings and question our reality. Without spoiling some of the exciting revelations and twists the program has to offer, I can assure you that there is not only something for everyone, but also something just for you. Enjoy the festival, keep taking risks, and for all you mind-breakers, trendsetters, razor-walkers, loose wires, truth-talkers, trailblazers and envelope-pushers, I hope you find a new home at FFFA. Hudson Sowada Festival Director COVER: Saint Maud (page 25). FIND US— fantasticfilmfestival.com.au @fantasticfilmfestaus @fantasticfilmfestaus FESTIVAL TEAM— Festival Director Hudson Sowada Executive Director Lindy Tamir Catalyst Eddie Tamir Festival & Marketing Manager Erin Rosenberg Publicity Original Spin Design Kylie Holmes & Lauren Doherty Web Development Chook Trailer Hudson Sowada Materials & Conversion Roar Digital SPECIAL THANKS— Richard Sowada Amari Sleiman Ben Buckingham Emily Milledge The Lido and Ritz Cinemas teams We're grateful for the inspiration and support from Fantastic Fest, U.S. Fantastic Film Festival Australia has received a classification exemption from the Classification Board. Films screening at FFFA are Unclassified 18+. Nobody under 18 (including infants) can legally attend a session with this exemption. CONTENTS— Films (in alphabetical order).......................................................................... 6 Events ....................................................................................................................31 Session Times ....................................................................................................32 Tickets & Venues .............................................................................................. 34 Code of Conduct ............................................................................................ 34 AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE 7 REASONS TO RUN AWAY (FROM SOCIETY) (7 RAONS PER FUGIR (DE LA SOCIETAT)) DIR Esteve Soler, Gerard Quinto, David Torras | Spain | 2019 | 75 min LANGUAGE Spanish, Catalan (English subtitles) CAST Emma Suárez, Sergi López, Alain Hernández “Black, terrifying and absurd.” SESSIONS —Cineuropa Lido Cinemas “Mean but funny but mean… Tuesday 3 March, 9PM Seventy-five minutes of absurd bliss.” —Birth. Movies. Death. Ritz Cinemas Saturday 22 February, 4:30PM Reminiscent of Monty Python’s The Monday 2 March, 7PM Meaning of Life, 7 Reasons takes a caustic and nihilistic look at contemporary western FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS society. In seven short episodes, each 2019 SXSW, 2019 Fantaspoa, 2019 Karlovy about a human trait we prefer not to talk Vary International Film Festival, Neuchatel, about, this Spanish anthology film explores 2019 Raindance Film Festival the flipside of our satisfied lives. This surrealist horror comedy pulls no punches: CONTENT WARNING its bizarre stories are inventive, funny, Graphic violence, coarse language, sometimes harsh, and always ruthlessly contains themes of suicide. honest—no matter whether the equally bizarre protagonists are crotchety retirees dozing by the TV, a dogged real estate agent selling a flat with a hanged man inside, or a bride and groom who aren’t so sure about the decision they’re about to make. 6 AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE ACHOURA (ACHOURA LA NUIT DES ENFANTS) DIR Talal Selhami | Morocco, France | 2018 | 90 min LANGUAGE French (English subtitles) CAST Sofiia Manousha, Younes Bouab, Omar Lotfi “It’s a serious, somber meditation on the Werewolves, vampires, golems and ghouls death of innocence, bleaker than what converge in an entirely unique North Stephen King offers and full of powerful, African chiller. evocative imagery all the way to its final moments.” —Bloody Disgusting SESSIONS Lido Cinemas “A dark, uncompromising and beautifully Monday 2 March, 7PM executed monster movie.” —Morbidly Beautiful Ritz Cinemas Sunday 23 February, 8:45PM RITZ LANEWAY Somewhere in the Moroccan countryside, Saturday 29 February, 9PM four children scare the living daylights out of each other, just for fun. In a house that FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS is rumoured to be the dwelling of ghosts, one of them mysteriously disappears. A 2019 Cinepocalypse, Winner Special Jury quarter-century later, the three remaining Prize—2019 Sitges Fantastic Film Festival friends bump into their long-lost playmate. His reappearance coincides with a series CONTENT WARNING of child kidnappings. Could he have Graphic violence. something to do with that? Achoura is the second feature film by French-Moroccan director Talal Selhami. Dissatisfied with the lack of genre movies in the land of his forebears, he vowed to make the first Moroccan creature feature. 7 AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE AREN’T YOU HAPPY? (DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN) DIR Susanne Heinrich | Germany | 2019 | 80 min LANGUAGE German (English subtitles) CAST Marie Rathscheck, Nicolai Borger, Malte Bündgen “An ironically ironic commentary on SESSIONS feminism, consumerism, art and sex.” —ScreenDaily Lido Cinemas Sunday 23 Febuary, 4:30PM “Explicitly anti-capitalist, feminist, and Tuesday 25 February, 9PM personal.” —Women and Hollywood Ritz Cinemas With a bubblegum colour palette, Tuesday 25 February, 9PM self-consciously kitsch staging and a big band jazz score, writer-director Susanne FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS Heinrich’s film is clever and witty, delving 2019 International Film Festival Rotterdam, into life, love and relationships for the 2019 Edinburgh Film Festival modern woman. A nameless young woman (Marie Rathscheck) is a writer with writing CONTENT WARNING issues. She searches for meaning to life Nudity, sex scenes. and a bed for the night, meets various men, rides a unicorn, and is encouraged to have a child as a cure for her narcissism. Always ironic and playful, Aren’t You Happy? is an oddball delight. 8 AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE AWAY DIR Gints Zilbalodis | Latvia | 2019 | 75 min LANGUAGE No dialogue “Somewhere between Hayao Miyazaki SESSIONS and Terrence Malick lies Away, a gorgeously made minimalist cartoon Lido Cinemas that’s long on beauty and breathtaking Sunday 1 March, 4:30PM scenery.” —The Hollywood Reporter Ritz Cinemas “A wondrous, wordless animated Sunday 23 February, 4:30PM work of bright simplicity and subtle sophistication.” —Cineuropa FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS 2019 Annecy International Animation Film “One of the most impressive feature Festival, 2019 Fantasia International Film debuts in recent years… [with] plenty Festival, 2019 Sitges Film Festival of heart to captivate its audience, and a large world filled with possibility.” —SlashFilm A boy winds up lost on a mysterious island, inhabited only by a few animals and a giant who insistently pursues our hero. This boy's journey across a strange landscape gives rise to a minimalist and evocative animated film, made entirely by Gints Zilbalodis. 9 OPENING NIGHT FILM VIC/NSW PREMIERE CHAINED FOR LIFE DIR Aaron Schimberg | USA | 2019 | 91 min LANGUAGE English CAST Jess Weixler, Adam Pearson, Stephen Plunkett “Extraordinary. Schimberg points toward reality and fiction, fair representation and a grass-roots cinematic revolution – exploitation cinema, become excessively movies made by people about their own porous. experiences.” —The New Yorker SESSIONS “Schimberg's film is odd, darkly funny Lido Cinemas and – when it means to be – a little Thursday 20 February, 7PM frightening.” —The New York Times Ritz Cinemas On the set of a horror film with artistic Thursday 20 February, 7PM pretensions, beautiful Hollywood actress Mabel admits to being outside her comfort FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS zone. She plays the role of a blind woman and the film she’s in, already anticipated 2019 Fantasia Film Festival, 2019 BFI by the media to be in bad taste, deals London Film Festival, 2018 Fantastic Fest explicitly with deformity. The production has even cast several disabled actors, CONTENT WARNING including Rosenthal, a nervous comedian Graphic violence, coarse language, nudity. with a major facial deformity. Mabel struggles to identify with him, but as their “Chained for Life is a wholly unique characters connect on camera, the actors experience with an earnest charm do the same behind it. while speaking an incredibly moving truth. An ode to the adventurous spirit As the film crew walks on the eggshells of of filmmaking that calls out wayward political correctness and strange rumours attitudes in a way that pushes the whole begin to circulate about the abandoned medium forward.” hospital serving as a backdrop to the —Hudson Sowada, Festival Director production, the boundaries between 10 AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER DIR Mickey Reece | USA | 2019 | 90 min LANGUAGE English CAST Ginger Gilmartin, Mary Buss, Ben Hall “Climate of the Hunter never sacrifices SESSIONS its smarts for fun (or vice versa), but with its dazzling visuals and hypnotic descent Lido Cinemas downwards into a seemingly inevitable Thursday 27 February, 7PM chaos, the film’s delights are ultimately as Tuesday 3 March, 7PM sensorial as they are intellectual.” Ritz Cinemas —Alexandra Heller-Nicholas Wednesday 26 February, 7PM Two sisters, Alma and Elizabeth, are enjoying a stay at their family cabin, FESTIVAL APPEARANCES/AWARDS eagerly anticipating the arrival