by Jon Partridge
It’s that time of year. Film geek Christmas is nearly upon us. Fantastic Fest 2015, the 11th iteration of this most revered tradition happens here in Austin, TX from September 24th to October 1st. Team Cinapse has been slowly building our alcohol tolerance over the past few weeks and had our shots against Fantastic Flu and will once again be providing unparalleled coverage of the Festival for all you poor souls who can’t attend. The announcements are complete so read on for the full list of announced titles. Check back in a few days when we’ll be running the team’s “most anticipated” lists.
It’s gonna be amazing!
PRESS RELEASE
Fantastic Fest announces its final wave of highly anticipated features and epic events for the annual celebration of all things genre. With signature smackdown Fantastic Debates and Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail, this year’s Fantastic Fest promises more thrills than ever before as it rages through Austin from September 24 — October 1st.
Joining Fantastic Fest for the first time, Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson will be in attendance to share their wildly inventive world of stop motion animation ANOMALISA, Cannes Grand Prix winner SON OF SAUL is screening in glorious 35mm, the stunning adult fairytale from GOMORRAH director Matteo Garrone TALE OF TALES will unfurl, Jerusalem Film Festival’s top prize winner TIKKUN, and we welcome the World Premiere of the action-thriller CAMINO with Zoe Bell and Fantastic Fest veteran / mayor Nacho Vigalondo as a religious psychopath — a prospect that should fill any Fantastic Fest-er with anticipatory glee.
Presented by Starz’s ASH VS EVIL DEAD, the FF tradition FANTASTIC DEBATES returns, featuring four rock-’em-sock-’em matches between visiting filmmakers, actors, and journalists. Each debate begins with two rounds of verbal conflict before the stage is transformed into a battleground for full-tilt boxing! Past debaters have included Keanu Reeves, Elijah Wood, Michelle Rodriguez, Uwe Boll, Ti West, and dozens of others ferocious fighters from across the globe!
Other hotly-anticipated events see Jonah Ray and Kumail Nanjiani make their triumphant return to Fantastic Fest for another night of stand up as they host a live version of Comedy Central’s The Meltdown with Jonah and Kumail. A double helping of Doug Benson serves up a very special Movie Interruption featuring the animal apocalypse extravaganza ROAR and a live recording of his Doug Loves Movies podcast while legendary turntablist, artist and music producer Kid Koala finally joins the Fantastic fray. After nearly two decades of crafting some of the most singularly eclectic turntable creations of all time, Kid Koala will perform live at the Fantastic Fest party as the composer of this year’s genre-bending official selection ZOOM.
“I love the diversity and breadth of programming that the team delivered this year,” said Tim League, Fantastic Fest and Alamo Drafthouse Founder. “In particular I’d like to highlight ANOMALISA, TIKKUN and SON OF SAUL. These utterly-unique, auteur-driven, genre-defying masterpieces are exactly the type of groundbreaking cinema I want to share with the discerning Fantastic Fest audience.”
With FF’s ever-present keen eye on international cinema, Asia is well represented with a diverse array of titles including Hou Hsiao-hsien’s breathtaking Taiwanese martial arts ballet THE ASSASSIN, Japanese wonder-animator Mamoru Hosoda’s THE BOY AND THE BEAST, and two seminal repertory titles from Hong Kong’s legendary Shaw Brothers Studio. Getting the royal treatment are two wuxia masterpieces, Cheng Pei Pei’s COME DRINK WITH ME and Gordon Liu’s EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER. The Shaw Brothers Studio screenings are presented by El Rey Network and both titles are being screened in 35mm with COME DRINK WITH ME coming directly from the Shaw Brothers’ archive in China.
Fantastic Fest welcomes back celebrated genre writer Kier-La Janisse to close out the festival’s rep slate with a rare 35mm screening of satanic shocker EVILSPEAK. In support of her new book Satanic Panic: Pop Cultural Paranoia in the 1980’s, Janisse will present some of the most notorious news segments of hellish hysteria prior to the screening.
Fantastic Fest is excited to feature the US Premiere of Yorgos Lanthimos’ THE LOBSTER as the opening night film. Lanthimos will be in attendance to share his wonderfully surreal examination of human connections. Joining THE LOBSTER is a dazzling array of the year’s most anticipated genre films from heavyweight directors including Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic THE MARTIAN, Ben Wheatley’s HIGH-RISE and Jeremy Saulnier’s GREEN ROOM.
Fantastic Fest will also host the World Premiere of LAZER TEAM, the first feature film from web series gods Rooster Teeth. LAZER TEAM director Matt Hullum and cast members Burnie Burns, Alan Ritchson, Colton Dunn, Michael Jones, and Gavin Free will be in attendance to celebrate the highly anticipated sci-fi comedy and join Fantastic Fest’s official opening night party, presented by Rooster Teeth.
Fantastic Fest filmmaking alumni are represented in three of the fest’s hottest titles: HIGH-RISE, GREEN ROOM and KLOVN FOREVER. Since his debut Down Terrace world premiered and sold at Fantastic Fest, Ben Wheatley has seen all of his subsequent films play at the festival. That streak continues with HIGH-RISE, his dizzying adaptation of J.G. Ballard’s chilling view of modern life. Jeremy Saulnier follows up his Fantastic Fest smash BLUE RUIN with GREEN ROOM, a brilliantly crafted and wickedly fun horror-thriller starring Patrick Stewart as a diabolical club owner who squares off against an unsuspecting but resilient young punk band. On a lighter note, the lovingly idiotic Frank Hvam and Casper Christensen reunite for KLOVN FOREVER, the latest installment in their hilariously disturbing friendship.
Sticking true to Fantastic Fest’s penchant for chaos and explosive events, they welcome Itchy-O to Austin for the first time. A blazing, 32-member aural assault from the darkest depths of Colorado, Itchy-O is a wholly immersive, musical experience on a massive scale. Said festival director Kristen Bell, “We cannot wait for them to unleash their percussive mayhem on our audience as hysteria has a welcome home at Fantastic Fest.”
Emphasizing the “world” in World Premiere, this year’s slate is proud to debut titles from all corners of the globe. Regional hotbeds South Korea (Lee Sang-woo’s DIRTY ROMANCE), Denmark (Bo Mikklesen’s WHAT WE BECOME) and the United Kingdom (Gareth Bryn’s THE PASSING) are dutifully represented while attention is paid to the less familiar markets like Puerto Rico (Angel Manuel Soto’s LA GRANJA). And for the first time in Fantastic Fest history, we’re world premiering a film out of the United Arab Emirates, Majid Al Ansari’s electrifying cat-and-mouse thriller, ZINZANA.
Kurt “FREAKIN” Russell yo! And now that lineup in full.
ANOMALISA
United States, 2015
Regional Premiere, 90 min
Directors — Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson
Charlie Kaufman’s newest story, a revolutionary and emotional stop-motion animation, follows an unhappy customer service guru looking for an escape from the monotony of his life.
APRIL AND THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD
France, Belgium, Canada, 2015
US Premiere, 90 min
Director — Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci
In an alternate history where Napoleon’s heirs rule France, scientists and scholars have gone missing for years, leaving behind a world deprived of their technological innovations. In this land powered by coal and steam, young April searches for her missing scientist parents.
THE ASSASSIN
Taiwan, 2015
US Premiere, 104 min
Director — Hou Hsiao-hsien
After failing to dispatch a corrupt government official, an assassin is disciplined by her master with a mission to murder her cousin (and former betrothed) in order to steal her heart against sentimentality. An immaculate and arresting romantic wu-xia from Taiwan’s chief art-house auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien.
ASSASSINATION CLASSROOM Japan, 2015 US Premiere, 110 min Director — Eiichiro Hasumi
The most heart-warming, touching coming-of-age tale of 2015 just also happens to be the story of how one classroom of kids gets trained as assassins so they can kill their teacher before he destroys Earth.
BASKIN Turkey, 2015 US Premiere, 97 min Director — Can Evrenol
It’s a quiet night on the beat for a mobile unit of Turkish police until they’re called out to support a squad encountering trouble in a remote building.
BELLADONNA OF SADNESS
Japan, 1973
Regional Premiere, 86 min
Director — Eiichi Yamamoto
A young and in love Jeanne is attacked by the local lord and makes a pact with the Devil himself in one of the most important rediscoveries of this year. Never before released in the US, this seminal psychedelic masterpiece has been painstakingly restored in 4k digital.
BONE TOMAHAWK
United States, 2015
World Premiere, 133 min
Director — S. Craig Zahler
Kurt Russell stars in this character driven and at times horrific Western about a group of men (including Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox and Richard Jenkins) who set out to rescue a local woman and a young deputy who’ve been kidnapped by a tribe of cannibalistic troglodytes.
THE BOY AND THE BEAST
Japan, 2015
US Premiere, 119 min
Director — Mamoru Hosoda
In the latest breathtaking animation by Fantastic Fest veteran Mamoru Hosoda (SUMMER WARS, THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME), nine-year-old Ren becomes the apprentice to beast warrior Kumatetsu and finds himself on the adventure of a lifetime in the beast world Jutengal.
THE BRAND NEW TESTAMENT
France/Belgium/Luxembourg, 2015
North American Premiere, 110 min
Director — Jaco Van Dormael
When Ea gets fed up with her overbearing father (who happens to be God), she decides to follow in her older brother’s footsteps by leaving the house, gathering her own apostles, and writing her own testament.
CAMINO
United States, 2015
World Premiere, 104 min
Director — Josh C. Waller
A photojournalist gets more than she bargained for when she snaps a photo of a shadowy religious figure in the jungles of Colombia, triggering a flight — and fight — for her life.
THE CLUB
Chile, 2015
US Premiere, 98 min
Director — Pablo Larraín
In a secluded Chilean village, four men lead a quiet life, trying to redeem themselves of their past sins. Their existence is threatened by the arrival of a man whose own secret may reveal all which the four have worked to forget.
COME DRINK WITH ME
Hong Kong, 1966
Repertory Screening, 95 min
Director — King Hu
One of the foundational classics on which all martial arts cinema is built, COME DRINK WITH ME stars the incomparably talented Chang Pei-Pei as an avenging warrior, Golden Swallow, on a mission to save the local governor’s son from the Jade-Faced Tiger’s gang.
COZ OV MONI 2
Ghana/Romania, 2014
North American Premiere, 63 min
Directors — King Henry Blackson & FOKN Bois
Beaten, robbed and left for dead, Wanlov and M3NSA are back and looking for revenge. But first, singing. And lunch. Prepare yourself for “the world’s second first pidgin musical”!
DAG
Norway, 2015
World Premiere, 92 min
Director — Oystein Karlsen
A misanthropic relationship counselor, his (mostly) reformed hippy girlfriend, and his sex addict best friend drive this hugely popular Norwegian TV comedy from the creators of previous fest hit FUCK UP.
DANIEL’S WORLD
Czech Republic, 2015
North American Premiere, 75 min
Director — Veronika Lisková
Veronika’s Lisková’s brave documentary from the Czech Republic takes a very open, unflinching and non-emotional view of the most despised, misunderstood and taboo trait: pedophilia.
DARLING
United States, 2015
World Premiere, 78 min
Director — Mickey Keating
A young woman slowly goes crazy after taking a job as the caretaker for an ancient New York home in the new film from writer/director Mickey Keating.
THE DEATHLESS DEVIL
Turkey, 1972
Repertory Screening, 84 min
Director — Yilmaz Atadeniz
The mysterious Dr. Satan’s nefarious plans threaten the future of everyone on the planet, and the only men who can stop him are the brilliant Copperhead and his assistant Sherlock Holmes!
DEMON
Poland/Israel, 2015
US Premiere, 94 min
Director — Marcin Wrona
A day after discovering human remains in the backyard of their new home, a man begins experiencing strange things which come to a head on his wedding night.
DER BUNKER
Germany, 2015
North American Premiere, 85 min
Director — Nikias Chryssos
A student rents a room from a family in their converted army bunker, and ends up the tutor to the child and a virtual slave to the parents.
THE DEVIL’S CANDY
United States, 2015
U.S. Premiere, 90 min
Director — Sean Byrne
A struggling painter, his wife and his young daughter move into their dream house in rural Austin, Texas, but soon find themselves targeted by both satanic forces and the house’s previous occupants.
DIRTY ROMANCE
South Korea, 2015
World Premiere, 94 min
Director — Lee Sang-woo
In Lee Sang-woo’s follow up to last year’s I AM TRASH, Chul-joong is too busy forcing his friend to sexually please his developmentally disabled sister to notice someone may want to actually love her for who she is.
DOGLEGS
Japan/ USA, 2015
US Premiere, 89 min
Director — Heath Cozens
A look inside one of the world’s oddest wrestling leagues, where disabled fighters take on able-bodied opponents in brutal and bloody fights for their own dignity and self-respect. From where else but Japan?
THE EIGHT DIAGRAM POLE FIGHTER
Hong Kong, 1984
Repertory Screening, 98 min
Director — Chia-Liang Liu
The great martial arts choreographer Lau Kar-Leung directs this dark tale of betrayal, vengeance and honor, starring Gordon Liu and Alexander Fu Sheng (in his final screen role) as the sole surviving sons of a powerful family massacred in an act of brutal treachery.
EVOLUTION
France, 2015
US Premiere, 81 min
Director — Lucile Hadzihalilovic
Lucile Hadzihalilovic returns to directing with a surreal tale of a young boy on a remote island who develops a mysterious illness and is subjected to sinister medical treatments.
FAREWELL UNCLE TOM
Italy, 1971
Repertory Screening, 123 min
Directors — Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
The first movie based on historical facts about the rise and revolt of slavery in America is one of the most brilliant, misunderstood and reviled of all time.
FEBRUARY
United States/Canada, 2015
US Premiere, 93 min
Director — Osgood Perkins
The lives of two high school students will be linked together when they’re forced to stay at their boarding school over the winter break and an evil presence starts to stalk them.
FOLLOW
United States, 2015
World Premiere, 74 min
Director — Owen Egerton
When he blacks out after receiving a strange Christmas gift from his girlfriend, Quinn (Noah Segan) wakes the next morning to find his whole world crumbling around him.
THE GLORIOUS WORKS OF G.F. ZWAEN
The Netherlands, 2015
World Premiere, 110 min
Director — Max Porcelijn
A struggling writer turns to his accountant for help and instead discovers a trio of corpses and a bag of money. Could this be help of a different sort, or just a whole new world of trouble?
GERMAN ANGST
Germany, 2015
US Premiere, 111 min
Directors — Jörg Buttgereit, Michal Kosakowski & Andreas Marschall
German directors Buttgereit, Kosakowski and Marschall unleash this brutal assault on the senses, a surreal three-part horror anthology touching on love and hate and everything in between.
GREEN ROOM
United States, 2015
US Premiere, 94 min
Director — Jeremy Saulnier
Green Room is a brilliantly crafted and wickedly fun horror-thriller starring Patrick Stewart as a diabolical club owner who squares off against an unsuspecting but resilient young punk band.
GRIDLOCKED
Canada, 2015
World Premiere, 110 min
Director — Allan Ungar
A tactical assault officer is saddled with a hard partying star out to rehabilitate his image -and avoid jail time -in this throwback to the odd couple buddy action flicks of the early ’90s.
HARD TO GET
South Africa, 2014
Regional Premiere, 94 min
Director — Zee Ntuli
Supremely confident ladies man TK may have bitten off more than he can chew when he sets his sights on Skiets, a township beauty with an edge who sets the pair off on a non-stop rollercoaster ride through the local underworld.
HIGH-RISE
United Kingdom, 2016
US Premiere, 118 min
Director — Ben Wheatley
Laing, a young doctor, joins a community in a luxury building in Thatcher’s England, who exile themselves from society and gradually divide into violent tribes.
IN SEARCH OF ULTRA SEX
France, 2015
North American Premiere, 60 min
Directors — Nicolas Charlet and Bruno Lavaine
A pandemic infects people everywhere with infinite lust, and the only ones who can save us are a group of astronauts in space, desperately looking for a solution.
THE INVITATION
United States, 2015
Special Screening, 97 min
Director — Karyn Kusama
A haunted man attends a dinner party at the house he once called home, and becomes gripped with paranoia that his ex-wife and her new husband are harboring an insidious agenda.
THE KEEPING ROOM
United States, 2015
Texas Premiere, 95 min
Director — Daniel Barber
In the waning days of the Civil War, three southern women (Brit Marling, Hailee Steinfeld and newcomer Muna Otaru) defend themselves from two Yankees in Daniel Barber’s second film.
KLOVN FOREVER
Denmark, 2015
International Premiere, 90 min
Director — Mikkel Nørgaard
Five years have passed since the first KLOWN, and with their friendship at risk of fracturing forever, Frank must follow Casper to America… with typically disastrous results.
L’AFFAIRE SK1
France, 2014
Texas Premiere, 120 min
Director — Frédéric Tellier
Frederic Tellier’s tight police procedural recreates the events around the decade-long search and trial of “The Beast of the Bastille,”France’s first serial killer, who was tracked down using DNA evidence.
LA GRANJA
Puerto Rico, 2015
World Premiere, 100 min
Director — Angel Manuel Soto
The lives of a midwife, a young boxer, a mute kid and a young couple collide unexpectedly in a story about the desperate pursuit of happiness on the streets of Puerto Rico.
LAZER TEAM
United States, 2015
World Premiere, 93 min
Director — Matt Hullum
When Earth is threatened by an advanced alien race, our only hope lies in four morons, the self-proclaimed “Lazer Team.”
LIZA THE FOX FAIRY
Hungary, 2015
Regional Premiere, 98 min
Director — Károly Ujj-Mészáros
Somewhere in 1970s Budapest, nurse Liza dreams of romance. But as all her suitors die in violent and extreme ways, she begins to fear the worst: maybe she is really a fox fairy, doomed to remain alone forever!
THE LOBSTER
Ireland, Greece, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, 2015
US Premiere, 119 min
Director — Yorgos Lanthimos
Somewhere in the near future, single people face a choice: Join a program to find a mate in forty-five days or be transformed into an animal.
LOVE AND PEACE
Japan, 2015
US Premiere, 117 min
Director — Sion Sono
Fantastic Fest staple Shion Sono returns once again with a deeply personal (and expectedly odd) film about a lonely businessman with dreams of punk rock stardom and his best friend, a turtle.
LOVEMILLA
Finland, 2015
North American Premiere, 97 min
Director — Teemu Nikk
LOVEMILLA is a delightful peek at life and love in Finland, filled with all the usual zombies, black holes, giant pandas and superheros you’d expect from the land that gave us Renny Harlin.
LUDO
India, 2015
US Premiere, 92 min
Directors — Q & Nikon
Time and space collide when a possessed game grabs hold of two friends eager for a sinful night of sex and drugs in Indian auteur Q’s first foray into horror.
THE MAN WHO SAVES THE WORLD
Turkey, 1982
Repertory Screening, 91 min
Director — Çetin İnanç
There has never been and will never be another film like THE MAN WHO SAVES THE WORLD, and your only chance to discover why is at this special Fantastic Fest screening!
MAN VS SNAKE
United States/Canada/Italy/Japan, 2015
World Premiere, 93 min
Directors — Andrew Seklir and Tim Kinzy
1984. One shiny quarter. 44.5 hours of continuous play. The race to be the first gamer in history to score one BILLION points. Until recently, Timothy McVey (not the terrorist) thought he had -for all these years -held the world record on Nibbler. Note: a Nibbler cabinet will be available in the lobby for the duration of Fantastic Fest for attendees to attempt to break the current world record.
MY BODY HUNGERS
United States, 1967
Repertory Screening, 80 min
Director — Joseph W. Sarno
A roadhouse hostess goes undercover to investigate the murder of her sister in a little-seen sexploiter from grindhouse rebel and master of erotica Joe Sarno.
THE MARTIAN
United States, 2015
Special Screening, 120 min
Director — Ridley Scott
Get ready to be blown away by Fox’s latest action-packed 3D adventure, THE MARTIAN starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig with a special screening of the upcoming film directed by Ridley Scott. THE MARTIAN is the story of what happens during a manned mission to Mars, when Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive. Millions of miles away, NASA and a team of international scientists work tirelessly to bring “the Martian”home, while his crewmates concurrently plot a daring, if not impossible rescue mission.
MEN AND CHICKEN
Denmark, 2015
US Premiere, 100 min
Director — Anders Thomas Jensen
Mads Mikkelsen as only his longtime absurdist Danish collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen could conceive, a chronic masturbator with a hair-trigger temper, desperately searches for his true identity.
THE MIND’S EYE
United States, 2015
US Premiere, 87 min
Director — Joe Begos
On the heels of his Fantastic Fest debut ALMOST HUMAN, Joe Begos returns with a classic battle of good versus evil. A drifter with suppressed psychic powers must learn to unleash them to save the woman he loves.
THE MISSING GIRL
United States, 2015
US Premiere, 89 min
Director — A.D.Calvo
Mort, a lonely and disillusioned owner of a comic book shop, has fallen for his new employee Ellen, a smart, aspiring graphic novelist. A dark past and a missing girl, however, will complicate their story more than anyone can imagine.
OFFICE
Korea, 2015
US Premiere, 111 min
Director — HONG Won-Chan
OFFICE is the story of Kim, the salaryman who one day brutally murders his entire family with a hammer, and Lee, the put-upon intern at his workplace. It’s dark-as-night corporate satire hiding behind a slasher veneer with scares so well timed, you’ll jump out of your seat non-stop.
THE PASSING
United Kingdom, 2015
World Premiere, 87 min
Director — Gareth Bryn
After their car is driven off the road and crashed into a river, a young couple on the run is taken in by a simple man living with his secrets in his isolated home.
RABID DOGS
France, 2015
US Premiere,99 min
Director — Eric Hannezo
Four violent criminals escaping a robbery take a man, an ailing child and a young woman on a nightmarish road trip in this remake of Mario Bava’s near-lost Euro-crime nasty.
REMAKE, REMIX, RIP-OFF
Turkey/Germany, 2014
US Premiere, 96 min
Director — Cam Kaya
Welcome to Turkey. It’s home to Yesilcam, the Turkish Hollywood where, in the late ’70s, dreams were built on nothing more than a dime. Both a loving tribute to the burgeoning cinema of this young country and a trip into history, REMAKE, REMIX, RIP-OFF brings you the most outlandish story you’ve never heard, about filmmaking so dangerous that you need a safety harness just for watching.
THE RIVER
Canada/Laos, 2015
US Premiere, 88 min
Director — Jamie Dagg
John, a volunteer doctor, finds himself on the run in a strange country when he tries to stop the rape of a drunk girl at the hands of an Australian man.
RUINED HEART
Phillipines-Germany, 2015
Regional Premiere, 73 min
Director — Khavn de la Cruz
Filipino iconoclast Khavn De La Cruz teams with famed cinematographer Christopher Doyle and Japanese mega star Tadanobu Asano to create a self-described “punk noir opera.”
SATANIC PANIC Book Launch + Screening of EVILSPEAK (in 35mm!)
United States, 1981
Special Screening, 97 min
Director — Eric Weston
The hysteria known as the “Satanic Panic” made its way through every pop-culture pathway in the ’80s. Relive the era with the launch of SATANIC PANIC: POP CULTURAL PARANOIA IN THE 1980s and a rare 35mm screening of occult fave EVILSPEAK.
SCHNEIDER VS BAX
The Netherlands/Belgium, 2015
US Premiere, 96 min
Director — Alex van Warmerdam
A contract killer’s birthday plans are disrupted when he’s sent to dispatch a drunken writer in this delightfully dark comedy from Dutch auteur Alex van Warmerdam (BORGMAN).
SENSORIA
Sweden, 2015
World Premiere, 82 min
Director — Christian Hallman
Caroline Menard is a woman in her thirties who has lost everything. As she moves into a new apartment searching for a new start, she’s unaware that something ancient is waiting for her.
THE SIMILARS
Mexico, 2015
World Premiere, 89 min
Director — Isaac Ezban
On a dark and stormy night, eight strangers are stuck in a small bus station waiting for a bus to Mexico City. When strange things start happening, they find themselves trapped in a struggle for sanity and survival.
SON OF SAUL
Hungary, 2015
Texas Premiere, 107 min
Director — László Nemes
Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the dead body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.
SOUTHBOUND
United States, 2015
U.S. Premiere, 87 min
Directors — Radio Silence, Roxanne Benjamin, Patrick Horvath and David Bruckner
Somewhere on a stretch of desert highway, five groups of travelers will find themselves confronting an ever-changing feeling of dread through five interlocking, horrific stories.
SPEED
South Korea, 2015
North American Premiere, 104 min
Director — Lee Sang-woo
Four friends navigate sex, love and life in a heart-breaking new film from Korean director Lee Sang-woo.
STAND BY FOR TAPE BACK-UP
United Kingdom, 2015
US Premiere, 65 min
Director — Ross Sutherland
Hypnotically scanning the contents of a VHS tape, this experimental essay-film eulogizes the former custodian of the analog artifact, transforming its recordings of GHOSTBUSTERS and FRESH PRINCE (among others) through rap-infused anecdotal narration, and inscribing both profound and hilarious associations to the tracking-lined images. STAND BY FOR TAPE BACK-UP will be presented as both a traditional screening as well as a live performance by creator Ross Sutherland.
TALE OF TALES
France, 2015
U.S. Premiere, 125 min
Director — Matteo Garrone
Monsters, magic and mayhem abound in the incredible stories of three royal families from nearby kingdoms in this ambitious fairy tale epic from acclaimed Italian auteur Matteo Garrone (GOMORRAH, REALITY).
TARKAN VS THE VIKINGS
Turkey, 1971
Repertory Screening, 86 min
Director — Mehmet Aslan
Based on one of the most popular comic strips in Turkey. this rip-roaring adventure sees Tarkan and his trusty wolf companion Kurt take on the despicable Viking invaders after they leave him for dead!
TIKKUN
Israel, 2015
Texas Premiere, 120 min
Director — Avishai Sivan
God’s plan for a Yeshiva student is disrupted when CPR saves his life. He is reborn into a surreal, sexual and disturbing new existence that tests his faith and his father’s mercy.
TOO LATE
United States, 2015
Regional Premiere, 107 min
Director — Dennis Hauck
A troubled private eye trawls through the belly of Los Angeles looking for a missing young woman, slowly revealing a careful web of intrigue, lies and connections.
THE TREACHEROUS
South Korea, 2015
North American Premiere, 131 min
Director — Kyu-dong MIN
Considered the worst tyrant in the long and rather oppressive history of Korea, King Yeonsan enslaved a thousand women to serve his carnal desires. This bawdy, unexpurgated and almost surely exaggerated tale of his sexual exploits is the heir apparent to the notorious 1980s era Hong Kong CAT III classics.
VICTORIA
Germany, 2015
Regional Premiere, 138 min
Director — Sebastian Schipper
Sebastian Schipper’s fourth directorial work is a single-shot tour-de-force that follows a Spanish barista through a dance club, the streets of Berlin, a coffee shop, a bank robbery and her destiny.
THE WAVE
Norway, 2015
U.S. Premiere, 105 min
Director — Roar Uthaug
A Norwegian geologist and his family fight for their lives after the Akneset mountain pass crumbles into the fjord below, creating a huge tsunami that threatens to wipe out their town.
WHAT WE BECOME
Denmark, 2015
World Premiere, 85 min
Director — Bo Mikkelsen
An idyllic suburban summer is shattered with the outbreak of an unexplained disease. With residents forced into quarantine with no explanation, the situation quickly spirals out of control.
THE WITCH
Canada/United States, 2015
Texas Premiere, 90 min
Director — Robert Eggers
Sixty years before the Salem witch trials, a Puritan moves his family away from civilization to a homestead which shares its borders with inescapable evil.
THE X-RATED SUPERMARKET
United States, 1972
Repertory Screening, 62 min
Director — Paul Roberts
Want to save money on your weekly sex toy budget? Look no further than the supermarket shelves in some salacious tips and reactions from suburban horny housewives.
YAKUZA APOCALYPSE
Japan, 2015
Texas Premiere, 115 min
Director — Takashi Miike
After a yakuza vampire boss is struck down, his most loyal disciple takes it upon himself to avenge his mentor’s death and eliminate the assassins and their giant plush frog leader in Miike’s classic yakuza tale turned inside out.
ZINZANA
United Arab Emirates, Jordan, 2015
World Premiere, 91 min
Director — Majid Al Ansari
Talal wakes up in a cell with no memory of the night before with no I.D. and no escape. Nothing can prepare him, however, for the arrival of a brilliant psychopath and the games he wants to play.
ZOOM
Canada/ Brazil, 2015
US Premiere, 96 min
Director — Pedro Morelli
Three very different people — an aspiring comic book artist with body image issues, an action director trying to make a more meaningful film, and a model struggling with her first novel — find their stories intersect in earth-shaking ways.
More trailers can be found here. Additional information and details on purchasing badges to attend the fest can be found at FantasticFest.com!
About FANTASTIC FEST
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. In years past the festival has been home to world premieres of JOHN WICK, FRANKENWEENIE, MACHETE KILLS, RED DAWN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, APOCALYPTO, ZOMBIELAND and RED while the guest roster has included such talent as Tim Burton, Andy and Lana Wachowski, Robert Rodriguez, Rian Johnson, Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Keanu Reeves, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Edward Norton, Ryan Reynolds, Karl Urban, Josh Hartnett, The RZA, Dolph Lundgren, Paul Rudd, Bill Pullman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith, Jon Favreau, George Romero, Darren Aronofsky and Mike Judge. Fantastic Fest also features world, national and regional premieres of new, up-and-coming genre films. Fantastic Fest has seen the acquisition of many titles, including BULLHEAD, KILL LIST, MONSTERS, KLOWN, THE FP, PENUMBRA, HERE COMES THE DEVIL, NO REST FOR THE WICKED, VANISHING WAVES, COMBAT GIRLS and I DECLARE WAR. Fantastic Fest is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas. Alamo Drafthouse has been named the best theater in the country by Entertainment Weekly, Wired and TIME. Variety included Fantastic Fest in a list of “10 Film Festivals We Love,” and was also named one of the “25 coolest film festivals” by Moviemaker Magazine.
Presenting Sponsors for Fantastic Fest include the Alamo Drafthouse, Texas’ own Shiner Beer (whose family of products will be featured throughout the festival) and Chiller, the only cable channel devoted to delivering round-the-clock scares.
About The Alamo Drafthouse
Tim and Karrie League founded Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in 1997 as a single-screen mom and pop repertory theater in Austin. 17 years later, the now 19-location chain has been named “the best theater in America” by Entertainment Weekly and “the best theater in the world” by Wired. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has built a reputation as a movie lover’s oasis not only by combining food and drink service with the movie-going experience, but also introducing unique programming and high-profile, star studded special events. Alamo Drafthouse Founder & CEO, Tim League, created Fantastic Fest, a world renowned film festival dubbed “The Geek Telluride” by Variety. Fantastic Fest showcases eight days of genre cinema from independents, international filmmakers and major Hollywood studios. The Alamo Drafthouse’s collectible art gallery, Mondo, offers breathtaking, original products featuring designs from world-famous artists based on licenses for popular TV and Movie properties including Star Wars, Star Trek & Universal Monsters. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is expanding its brand in new and exciting ways, including Drafthouse Films which has garnered two Academy Award nominations in its short three year existence and Birth. Movies. Death, an entertainment content platform edited by veteran journalist Devin Faraci.
