Fantastic Fest 2011

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Saturday, 17 September 2011 05:00

Written by L E Shannon

The seventh edition of Fantastic Fest is happening September 22 - 29, 2011 at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas.  

Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and "just plain fantastic" movies from all around the world. All that plus events and contests make it one of the most unique festival-going experiences in the world.

"The Alamo Drafthouse was named the best cinema in America by Entertainment Weekly and features food and drink served to your seat without any disruption of the movie experience."

Knuckle
dir. Ian Palmer (Ireland)
This Irish bare-knuckle boxing documentary gives a rare inside look at the generations-long feud between Irish Traveller clans headed by James Quinn McDonagh and Paddy "The Lurcher" Joyce.

Knuckle corresponds to the signature Fest event: Fantastic Debates, where press, filmmakers and film professionals enter into a formal debate -- followed by two rounds of boxing.

"The great issues facing the fan community are solved once and for all, first by words, then by fisticuffs. Four debates are scheduled, culminating in the main event, a bout featuring Knuckle star and undefeated bare-knuckle brawler James Quinn McDonagh versus Fantastic Fest Co-Founder Tim League."

(Ah, Texas....)

Contests:

100 Best Kills – One of the greatest long-running traditions of Fantastic Fest is the 100 Best Kills Party, "where we sit in a theater together and turn the spotlight on the Grim Reaper of movieland as he disembowels, detonates and decapitates again and again and again. We're not watching for character development or thematic resolution or any of that garbage; just the most life-defying acts of human extermination in film history. "

Fantastic Fest Bumper Contest – Every year Fantastic Fest hosts a bumper creation where anyone can create the most outrageous video that they can come up with. The Fest uses as many entries as they can and puts them on screen at the start of each screening. The theme this year is "Altered States".

In addition to feature films, the Fest is screening over 50 short films. "Fantastic Fest loves its short films -- they provide a fertile ground for new and exciting filmmaking talent to show off their genre goods in an unrestrained format."

Movies on Fire: Hong Kong Action Classics – Subway Cinema‛s own Grady Hendrix will be on hand to introduce four classic Hong Kong movies (most not available on DVD) from Hong Kong's exploitation heyday of the late 80's and early 90's. (Titles TBA - you have to be there.)

Other films include:

World Premieres:

Calibre 9
dir. Jean-ChristianTassy (France)
A city planner becomes strangely linked to a gun possessed by the soul of a dead hooker.

Pastorela: A Christmas Play
dir. Emilio Portes Castro (Mexico)
"Fantastic Fest again hosts another untraditional Christmas movie; this time Santa Claus is out and Satan is in. When Chucho loses the beloved role of Satan in the town's Christmas play and tries to reclaim the part, all hell breaks loose and an epic battle between good and evil begins."

Penumbra
dir. Adrian Garcia Bogliano, Ramiro Garcia Bogliano (Argentina)
A beautiful young woman is trapped in her apartment with a nervous realtor and an expanding cast of unsettling characters.

The Squad
dir. Jaime Osorio (Colombia)
Haunted by memories of their last mission, a feuding special ops unit is tasked to uncover the mystery of what happened at a desolate military base.

US Premieres:

Blind
dir. Ahn Sang-hoon (Korea)
A blind woman narrowly escapes from the clutches of a serial killer in a film reminiscent of the Audrey Hepburn thriller Wait Until Dark.

The Corridor
dir. Evan Kelly (Canada)
Five friends stay in a remote cabin for the weekend and uncover a supernatural anomaly in the woods.

Extraterrestrial
dir. Nacho Vigalando (Spain)
A man wakes in a strange apartment after a long night of drinking. When his unfamiliar bedmate tries to usher him out, they both discover that spaceships are hovering over Madrid.

Headhunters
dir. Morten Tyldum (Norway)
Roger Brown is good at two things: hiring people and stealing from them. He'll risk it all when he meets a former mercenary who owns a painting worth millions.

Michael
dir. Markus Schleinzer
This directorial debut follows five months in the lives of a pedophile and the ten-year-old boy he keeps in the basement.

Sleep Tight
dir. Jaume Balagueró (Spain)
A lonely doorman must do whatever is necessary to keep the neighbors from uncovering his dark, disturbing obsession for his favorite resident.

Snowman's Land
dir. Tomasz Thomson (Germany)
A bleak comedic thriller about an over-the-hill hit man who gets sent to the remote snow-covered wilderness to handle a job that may be his last.

You're Next
dir. Adam Wingard (USA)
A family is trapped inside secluded mansion in the middle of nowhere. Outside the home is a group of animal-masked killers who want to make sure none of them leave alive.

Summerland (North American Premiere)
dir. Grímur Hákonarson (Iceland)
Oscar and Lara have an entirely normal family -- except that Oscar runs a haunted house in their basement and Lara speaks with elves.

The Innkeepers
dir. Ti West (USA)
Luke and Claire work the desk at a quaint, failing hotel. On their last night, these two amateur ghost-hunters try to capture definitive proof that their workplace is haunted.

This film kicks off a Ti West retrospective at the Alamo Drafthouse sponsored by the Austin Film Society.

Also showing are:

A Boy and His Samurai
dir. Yoshihiro Nakamura (Japan)
A samurai from the Edo Period is pitched into a modern Tokyo apartment complex by random forces. There‛s no place like home -- but what if this is it for him?

Let the Bullets Fly
dir. Jiang Wen (Hong Kong)
starring Jiang, Chow Yun-Fat
The "hilarious and bloody antics of a band of thieves traveling by train in this 1920s-set western satire", the highest grossing domestic Chinese release ever.

Melancholia
dir. Lars von Trier (Denmark)
starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt
"Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide into the Earth."

Other events include gaming, panels and parties.

For more information, go to http://fantasticfest.com/

Fantastic Fest
September 22 - 29, 2011

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
1120 S Lamar Blvd,
Austin, Texas
512-476-1320

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