This year’s Fantasia Festival is about to be in full swing. Even in an unprecedented time for cinema and the larger festival season, Fantasia’s 24th year will continue to go on virtually — featuring panels, workshops, and world premieres of some of the latest genre films.
Fantasia Festival runs from August 20 through September 2, 2020, and members of the Film Cred team will be reviewing some highly anticipated films in the weeks to come. Here are some of the titles our staff is most looking forward to.
All synopsises are courtesy of press materials.
Ivo van Aart’s The Columnist
Columnist and author Femke Boot (Westworld’s Katja Herbers) is endlessly taunted with abusive posts and death threats via social media. Becoming obsessed by these hateful messages from strangers, she spends every moment checking her Twitter feed… until one day, she steps back from her keyboard to take brutal, in-the-flesh action. A savage, horrific black comedy for our times by Dutch filmmaker Ivo van Aart (AMUSE), The Columnist tackles the toxicity of cyberbullying with ferocity and wit.
Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema
On its closing night, a cinema is struck by lightning and a trio of young men are thrust beyond the screen, into the dying days of Japan’s feudal era, the Boshin War, the Second Sino-Japanese War, the Battle of Okinawa, and the eve of the Hiroshima bombing. With the passing of director Nobuhiko Obayashi in April of 2020, cinema lost a titan. His final film, Labyrinth of Cinema (2019) is deeply humanist text: an endlessly delirious career coda and a voyage through Japan’s wartime and cinematic history. It stands as a timely reminder of the power of movies to inspire in the face of hopeless barbarism.
Minoru Kawasaki’s Monster Seafood Wars
When a disgraced scientist who now works at his dad’s sushi shop gets into a minor bicycle accident, he ends up creating a huge-but-delicious problem that can only be described as MONSTER SEAFOOD WARS! Before you can say “colossal calamari”, a squid, an octopus, and a crab – each as big as buildings – are wreaking massive kaiju havoc all over Tokyo! Beloved director Minoru Kawasaki (The Calamari Wrestler, Executive Koala) employs incredible oldschool techniques in this hilarious and heartfelt monster film, and brings back a disappearing genre in Japanese cinema known as “kigurumi tokusatsu”, or, as we know them, sci-fi movies featuring actors in rubber giant monster costumes!
Macoto Tezuka’s Tezuka’s Barbara
One night, a famous novelist encounters a young, seemingly homeless woman in an overpass tunnel. He brings her home, which sets him on a path of increasingly bizarre encounters. Tezuka’s Barbara is the abrasively jazzy adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s adult manga of the same name. Directed by Makoto Tezuka (Legend of the Stardust Brothers) and lensed by Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love, Hero), this film – released as part of Tezuka’s 90th anniversary celebration – mixes pinku-style erotica with an examination of the creative impulse and a dash of the occult, thus unveiling the lesser-known dark side of the ASTRO BOY creator and anime maestro.
Arthur Jones’ Feels Good, Man
A Sundance 2020 Special Jury Award Winner and standout of this year’s Berlinale, Arthur Jones’ Feels Good, Man is a playful and poignant documentary about illustrator Matt Furie’s infamous-but-once-innocent Pepe the Frog character. In Jones’ hands, the story of a frog takes us on a journey through the birth of meme culture, from the MySpace and 4chan era, to Trump’s explosive election year, where Pepe has found his present fate as a reluctant rallying symbol of the alt-right.
Bao Tran’s The Paper Tigers
Three childhood Kung Fu prodigies have grown into washed-up, middle-aged men one kick away from pulling their hamstrings. But when their master is murdered, they must juggle their dead-end jobs and dad duties to overcome old grudges and avenge his death.
Writer/director Bao Tran has made not just another martial arts movie, but a film that’s about martial arts: its philosophies and the lessons it continues to teach you into old age. Anchored by immensely likeable performances from its cast, The Paper Tigers delivers all the quality ass-kicking you want out of a good martial arts film, while also impacting much more: a story about the importance of friendship and staying true to your heart, which is what makes The Paper Tigers so special.
You can find out more about the films and events at this year’s festival on Fantasia’s website.
