Jul 10 2011
Fantasia Fest 2011 starts July 14th! Film line-up and schedule online now
If you are a genre fan, and if you are here at PCN you probably are, there is no bigger or better cinema event than Canada’s FanTasia Film Festival. Since 1996( halting only once in 2002 when the fest was canceled), over 70,000 festival attendees travel every summer to FanTasia to take in the latest and greatest of independent, irreverent, and imaginative cinema from all over the world. As the title suggests, the festival’s original roots were in programming little-seen asian films, showing mostly Hong Kong actioners, martial arts pics and Japanese giant monster movies in their first year.
Since then, FanTasia has grown in scale and infamy to the point where it’s one of the biggest and most exciting events on the cinematic calendar. The multi-cultural sampling of all things genre typically features work from countries and continents as diverse as Japan, Spain, South Korea, Italy, Hong Kong, Germany, Thailand, Denmark, France, Russia, India, New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, Australia, Holland, Scotland, Belgium, Sweden, Great Britain, the US and of course, Quebec and Canada.
This year, the genre onslaught is varied, diverse and tantalizing to geek eyes. Robin Hardy will debut ‘The Wicker Tree’, his darkly satirical follow-up to the horror classic ‘The Wicker Man’. The remake of the T.V. spook-fest ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ will help close the fest, while genre fave Richard Stanley, the exiled director of Dust Devil and Hardware, will make an appearance, sharing a live conference with Hardy and presenting a film he’s actually a part of, the horror anthology ‘Theatre of the Bizarre.’ Other works like Mike Cahill’s ‘Another Earth’, Jim Mickle’s ‘Stakeland’, Takashi Miike’s ‘Ninja Kids’, and Todd Rohal’s Catechism Cataclysm are amongst the tasty nuggets awaiting attendees.
Are you looking forward to the festival? Can’t attend this year, though? PCN will provide daily reviews and coverage of the films playing, so stay tuned. C0me the 14th, we’ll be up to our ears in exotic films.
Click here for the list of films and the schedule for Fantasia Fest 2011.