This year, the 18th Strasbourg European Fantastic Film Festival will be held from 26 September to 5 October. Following the unveiling of the poster, we are delighted to announce the first titles from the official selection.
In the International Fantastic Film Competition, the festival will be presenting Honey Bunch, by Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli, which was screened in a special session at this year’s Berlinale. Set in a remote and Gothic-like experimental trauma centre, this second feature by the Canadian duo is a loving tribute to the thrillers of the 1970s in both form and content. With New Group, the Japanese director Yûta Shimotsu strongly encourages us to think about individuality and group identity, in a story about high-school students who suddenly start forming human pyramids in the school playground. In Her Will Be Done (Que ma volonté soit faite), selected for the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes this year and shot in 16mm, Julia Kowalski explores the awakening of lesbian desires and the female figure of the possessed witch within a family of farmers of Polish origin, living in the French countryside. The Surrender, by the American director Julia Max, immerses us in the intimacy of grieving through an esoteric ritual performed by a mother and daughter, who ask a strange personage to try and bring back the deceased father from the dead.
In the International Crossovers Competition, devoted to genre films in the broadest sense, the Festival is pleased to present The Forbidden City by Gabriele Mainetti, who, in a both satirical and breathtaking action film, achieves the remarkable feat of making a Chinese martial arts film in the middle of Rome, as well as giving us food for thought on culture shock in contemporary Italy. With Luger, the Spanish director Bruno Martín has made an intense thriller about an old Luger P08 pistol that hides a mysterious past. The British director Gerard Johnson plunges us into the depths of the human soul with his new film, Odyssey, which follows an estate agent in an obscure part of London, where violence, drugs and crime intertwine. In The Old Woman with the Knife, the Korean Min Kyu-dong depicts, with gusto, the confrontation of a 60-year-old professional assassin with a young killer whose father she executed in the past.
In the International Animated Film Competition, the devilish Dog of God, a Latvian production by Raitis and Lauris Abele, transports us to a 17th century village plunged into chaos after the theft of a relic, in a film which deftly blends shamanism, accusations of witchcraft and the abuse of aphrodisiac plants. In the Franco-Brazilian production Heart of Darkness, Rogério Nunes takes us to a dystopian Rio where power and chaos collide. Also selected for the Directors’ Fortnight, Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s Death Does Not Exist (La Mort n’existe pas), explores the issue of political radicalism in dealing with social inequalities. In Momoko Seto’s Planets (Planètes), which closed this year’s Cannes Critics’ Week, the audience are held in suspense over the fate of four dandelion seeds that escape from nuclear explosions that have destroyed the Earth and which are propelled to another planet, where they are trying to survive.
The non-competitive Midnight Movies section will be offering its usual package of minor transgressions and outrageous deeds. With Deathstalker, Steven Kostanski revisits the classic of the same name, which will not disappoint fans of barbarians, necromancers and other heroic-fantasy film creatures. In Touch Me, Addison Heimann features an alien who, in addition to being sexy, has the unique ability to cure anxiety and depression through touch. To wind up, the indescribable Fuck My Son! by Todd Rohal, adapted from Johnny Ryan’s comic book, tells us all about a loving mother who – by any means necessary – tries to find a wife for her son.
The full programme will be announced at the press conference to be held on 2 September.