Sitges: Noves Visions Programme

As if looking down the news section is not enough, we are in FESTIVAL season around the world, and the Sitges Fantastic Film Festival, still the worlds largest if its kind, which runs this year from 6-16 of October, just dropped a large number of title announcements of titles from theor New Visions programme.  This focuses on innovative and transgressive approaches to fantasy filmmaking and is divided into three sections:  Fiction, Non-Fiction and Discovery and include new films from Shinya Tsukamoto, Catherine Brelliat, Shunji Iwai, Abel Ferrara, and Kim Ki-Duk.

The Documentary section is particularly strong, as both Project Nim and Resurrect Dead have been two of my personal favourites of the year.

The entire announcement is below.

FICTION
A selection that combines big names in contemporary film with young artists appearing around the festival circuit.

-The Day He Arrives (Sang-soo Hong): A game of meta-language in the Korean master's most accessible film.
- Vampire (Shunji Iwai): The director of All About Lily Chou-Chou travels to North America to explore juvenile anguish in a generic key and paying tribute to Martin of George A. Romero.
- 22 mei (Koen Mortier): The director of Ex Drummer is back to explore post 9/11 paranoia.
- 4:44: The Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara): A reflective, intimate exercise from the director of The Addiction revolving around fear of the end of the world.
- Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto): The return of the director of Tetsuo to the most reflective and transgressive horror cinema.
- Hanezu no tsuki (Naomi Kawase): Mythological meditation on the loss of transcendental values in today's society.
- La belle endormie (Catherine Breillat): A very personal and atypical version of Perrault's story.
- The Tempest (Julie Taymor): A spectacular, fantastic adaptation of one of Shakespeare's strangest works by the director of Titus and Frida.
- Le petit poucet (Marina de Van): Another feminine, atypical version of a famous children's story from the director of Don't Look Back.
- Beyond the Black Rainbow (Panos Cosmatos): A bizarre science fiction exercise with roots in the 70's genre tradition that was one of the big sensations at this year's Tribeca festival.

NON-FICTION
Confirmation of the growth of the creative documentaries that have been screened during recent editions of the Festival.

- Arirang (Kim Ki-duk): A self-reflective exercise from the director of The Isle, winner of the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes 2011.
- Magic Trip: Ken Kelsey's Search for a Kool Place (Alison Ellwood and Alex Gibney): Reconstruction of Ken Kelsey's psychedelic trip and a passionate study of LSD culture.
- Project Nim (James Marsh): The Academy Award winning director of Man on Wire delves into a fascinating experiment about animal intelligence.
- The Bengali Detective (Philip Cox): A blend of social documentary and comedy that surprisingly explores the complex society of present-day India.
- Knuckle (Ian Palmer): An incredible documentary on street boxing.
- Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles (Jon Foy): Award winner at Sundance for best documentary director and a real science fiction experiment with a dose of millenarian paranoia.

DISCOVERY
A selection of films made from independent, experimental postulates and investigating new possibilities of film language and the fantastic genre.

- Vlogger (Ricard Gras): A Catalan produced audiovisual experiment that translates the mixture of material from the Internet and generic fiction into a fictional plot. Its world premiere will be in Sitges.
- Hellacious Acres: The Case of John Glass (Pat Tremblay): The apocalypse as a theme, this time playing with textures and images and dispensing with dialogue.
- Invasion of the Alien Bikini (Young-doo Oh): A superhero movie, with large doses of pop culture and zany comedy. A surprise that goes way beyond its title.