Fantasia 2009

In a press conference held on Monday June 29th Fantasia announced the highlights of its programmation:

The 13th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival, North America's largest genre cinema event, will be held from July 9th to July 29th, 2009 at Concordia University's Hall Theatre in Montreal. This year the festival offers over 115 feature-length films, as well as an impressive selection of shorts, documentaries, panel discussions, outdoor screenings and more than fifty guests that will be there to introduce their movies. The programmation's details will be available online for free and the Program Book will be on sale Friday July 3rd at the cost of $5. Tickets will be available from July 7th for $8.00 or $70 for 10 tickets. There are also 8 “Fantastic Week-End” programs (including 6 to 13 films) available for $8 each.

The programming offers over 50 Asian movies (including 35 from Japan, 15 from Korea, 6 from China/Hong Kong and 3 from Thailand).

This year the festival is a little weak on the anime side as it includes only four Japanese animated features: Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers (Dir.: Tomoyuki Kyoda), Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone (Dir.: Hideaki Anno), Genius Party Beyond (a shorts anthology by 4'C Studio) and Hells (Dir.: Yoshiki Yamakawa, Madhouse Studio). There's also Cencoroll (a short shown with Genius Party Beyond).

The most interesting Japanese movies of the festival (interesting to us because they are anime & manga related) definitely are 20th Century Boys: Chapter One and 20th Century Boys: Chapter Two—The Last Hope (based on Naoki Urasawa's manga and directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi), M.W. (based on a manga by Osamu Tezuka and directed by Hitoshi Iwamoto) and Yatterman (based on Tatsunoko's 1977-79 anime TV series Time Bokan 2: Yattāman (or its 2008 remake); directed by Takashi Miike, it's the opening film of the festival hosted by producer Yoshinori Chiba).

There's also an anime & manga-related Korean movie: Antique (Dir.: Min Kyu-dong; based on the Japanese manga Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga).

The other Japanese movies includes Battle League in Kyoto (Dir.: Katsuhide Motoki, based on a fantasy novel by Manabu Makime), The Clone Returns Home (Dir.: Kanji Nakajima), Crime or Punishment?!? (Dir.: Keralino Sandorovich), Cyborg She (dir.: Kwak Jae-young), Fine, Totally Fine (Dir.: Yosuke Fujita), GS Wonderland (dir.: Ry˚ichi Honda), Hard Revenge, Milly and Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle (hosted by writer/director Takanori Tsujimoto), House (Dir.: Nobuhiko Obayashi), Instant Swamp (Dir.: Satoshi Miki), K-20: Legend of the Mask (Dir.: Shimako Sato), Lalapipo (Dir.: Masayuki Miyano), Love Exposure (Dir.: Sion Sono), Nightmare Detective 2 (Dir.: Shinya Tsukamoto), Orochi (Dir.: Norio Tsurata), Paco and the Magic Book (Dir.: Tetsuya Nakashima), Samurai Princess (Dir.: Kengo Kaji), Tokyo OnlyPic 2008 (Dir.: Riichiro Mashima), Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl (Dir.: Naoyuki Tomomatsu & Yoshihiro Nishimura) and With Rain (a short shown as part of “Celluloid Experiments”).

The festival, in association with the Cinémathèque Québécoise and Ciné-Asie, also presents “Behind the Pink Curtain,” a line-up of Japanese erotic films (pinku eiga): Blue Film Woman (1969), Gushing Prayer (1971), S&M Hunter (1986), Secret Hot Spring Resort: Star Fish at Night (1970) and Yariman (2008).

Fantasia also presents a “Classic Daikaiju Special” that will include a documentary, Bringing Godzilla Down to Size: The Art of Japanese Special Effects, a short, Gehara the Dark and Long Haired Monster, and a classic monster movie, Mothra (1961)!

As part of its “Fantasia Under the Stars” segment, the festival will also presents outdoor screenings of Tokyo Zombie (Dir.: Sakichi Sato) on 7/17 and Adrift in Tokyo (Dir.: Satoshi Miki) on 7/18 at 21:00 in the Parc de la Paix (St-Laurent boulevard between Ste-Catherine’s and René-Lévesque).

Notable is the recent French documentary by Yves Montmayeur: Yakuza Eiga: Une Histoire Secrète du Cinéma Japonais (“Yakuza Eiga: A Secret History of Japanese Cinema”).

The Japanese guests list includes Yoshinori Chia (Yatterman producer), Tomohiro Hayashi (Yatterman producer), Yoshihiro Nishimura (Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl director), and Takanori Tsujimoto (Hard Revenge, Milly writer & director).

We will add more details as they are available (updated: 7/4, 7/5, 7/8).

View a calendar of the Japanese movies' screenings.

Bon festival!