Fantasia begins!

Audiences looking for Eastern thrills will have their hands full when it comes to choices in our opening week of programming. There will be Takashi Miike’s indescribable Japanese Western SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO, Studio 4˚c’s brilliant Japanese animated anthology film GENIUS PARTY and, in its first-ever North American screening, Yang Hea-hoon’s South Korean revenge thriller WHO’S THAT KNOCKING AT MY DOOR, which has already been compared to the best of Park Chan-Wook. Also from South Korea, you’ll find Jeon Yun-su’s delicious culinary combat comedy LE GRAND CHEF, it too having its North American premiere, and Jeong Beom-sik & Jeong Sik’s arthouse horror anthology EPITAPH, making its Canadian debut. Acclaimed Hong Kong filmmaker Johnny To (who visited Fantasia nearly a decade ago, well before his work began being showcased at Venice and Cannes) will have a trio of new works screening here – MAD DETECTIVE, TRIANGLE (co-directed with fellow HK auteurs Ringo Lam and Tsui Hark) and getting its Canadian Premiere, THE SPARROW, a wildly cinematic journey through the sleight-of-hand universe of pickpockets.

On the European/North-South American side of things, don’t miss the North American premiere of Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s award-winning Spanish assault [REC], which launched at the Venice film festival and is already widely recognized as being one of the most frightening films made in the past 25 years. The hype is true! Also from Spain, we’ve got Nacho Vigalondo’s astonishing time-travel thriller TIMECRIMES, winner of numerous awards on the international festival circuit. Last but not least, we have F. Javier Gutiérrez’s apocalyptic nail-biter BEFORE THE FALL, making its North American debut here after wowing audiences at the Berlin Film Festival.

A recent prize-winner at the Tribeca Film Festival, Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish vampire chiller LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is a poetic and provocative masterpiece of modern horror. Many consider it to be the best vampire film made in the past decade. Canada’s own JACK BROOKS MONSTER SLAYER, from director Jon Knautz, is a comedy horror creature feature that won awards at Slamdance and Sitges, and boasts a surprising slapstick performance by Robert Englund! Screening on the same bill will be another Canuck comedy/horror freakout – TREEVENGE – an outrageous piece of work from the makers of HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (the beloved fake trash film trailer that screened in front of GRINDHOUSE last year)! If you’re hungry for insightful noise and fury, look no further than Rodger Grossman’s extraordinary Germs Biopic WHAT WE DO IS SECRET, featuring a mind-blowing performance by Shane West as punk’s original revolutionist Darby Crash!

In the ANIMATED AUTEUR VISIONS spotlight, you’ll encounter (alongside the above-mentioned GENIUS PARTY) the Canadian premiere of Bill Plympton’s surrealist social satire IDIOTS AND ANGELS and the incredible experimental omnibus film PEUR(S) DU NOIR, in which some of today’s most cutting edge cartoonists and animators were given free reign to do short films related to the theme fear of the dark. We’re talking work from Blutch, Charles Burns, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Lorenzo Mattotti and Richard McGuire.

This year’s DOCUMENTARIES FROM THE EDGE section kicks off with the South by Southwest favorite SECOND SKIN, a disturbing look at World of Warcraft gamers who lose their lives to their all-consuming habit.

In an altogether different vein, we have Reynald Bertrand’s wonderful French comedy LA CRÈME. Imagine Woody Allen and Roman Polanski collaborating on an ironic comedy with fantasy leanings! Finally, don’t miss the Canadian Premiere of BLAIR WITCH PROJECT co-director Daniel Myrick’s politically-charged supernatural drama THE OBJECTIVE, which is set in Afghanistan… circa October 2001.