Yes, we’re getting pumped for Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival first ever virtual edition. This means more possibilities that you can shake a dog at a stick… Or something. Anyways, let’s go over some more promising offers that have come out on this second wave. Not all of these may not end up being the ones I end up watching, but definitely there’s a few that will become part of a my wishlist. You can read the second wave announcement article here for more.
There’s no way this one is not in my top list, even if I know it’s more of a fanboy project of sorts. It’s 2003 and a crew at the Japanese engineering firm Maeda Corporation decides to draft blueprints for the iconic hangar of giant cartoon robot Mazinger Z. I have the feeling I’m going to dread not seeing this one with an audience, but I’m still pumped for Tsutomu Hanabusa’s Project Dreams: How to Build Mazinger Z’s Hangar.
Get ready for a live-action musical as French music superstar Mathias Malzieu takes us into the world of A MERMAID IN PARIS (Une sirène à Paris). It’s a love story with warm heart in an extraordinary world. I’m hoping for a little over the top cinematics here and some crazy set pieces.
Director Yûji Shimomura brings us Crazy Samurai Musashi with martial artist Tak Sakaguchi recreating legendary swordsman Musashi Miyamoto’s most fabled battle in a single 77-minute action sequence. I can’t help but feel intrigued. 588 foes. I need to experience this.
It’s a dark period of Taiwanese history known as “White Terror”. It’s 1962 and a high school girl is enamored with a teacher that shows her books that are banned by the current regime. Soon enough, he disappears and the school is invaded by spirits from another realm. It’s a video game adaptation, which can go either way but I’m just thrilled by the premise.
Eric Schultz brings us a literal mindbender of a story with Minor Premise. A neuroscientist conducts experiments that lead to fragmenting his conscience in several forces at war with each other. It’s literally an “army of me” in internal conflict while a mystery buried deep on his subconscious awaits to be solved.
Director Ivo van Aart has crafted a black comedy where columnist Femke Boot (Katja Herbers) has decided she can no longer take online comments that are abusive or death threats aimed at her. She is now on the warpath to bring her online harassers down to the grave. This sounds like a guilty pleasure and I can’t say no.
Gabriel Carrer and Reese Eveneshen have combined their talents to bring us a Halloween story of invaders with only an unlikely group of strangers standing in their way in a film described as a “blissfully brutal powerhouse”. That’s Lora Burke who was such a tour-de-force back in Fantasia 2017’s Poor Agnes and also came back in Fantasia 2018’s Lifechanger. I’m definitely looking forward to see her performance here.
You can read up on more exciting feature coming along for the festival on the second wave announcements. The Fantasia International Film Festival starts its 24th edition, virtual for the first time ever, on August 20th.
That will do for now.
Never Think Impossible 