Festivals: Imagine Reviews
Imagine 2022 Review: EXHIBIT #8 Displays Dutch Found Footage Fun
This year's Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam featured no less than two Dutch genre world premières: the dystopic science fiction drama Sputum (reviewed here) and Rotterdam-based director Ruben Broekhuis' found footage thriller Exhibit #8. What? Yes, found footage. No, don't run...
Imagine 2022 Review: SPUTUM Gobs At Class Differences
It isn't often that we see a science fiction film made in the Netherlands, especially an English-language one, but lo-and-behold: at this year's Imagine Film Festival there was a world première for just such a film: director Dan Geesin's dystopic...
Imagine 2021 Review: ABSOLUTE DENIAL Casts Doubts
Last month's Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam was an on-line only event unfortunately, but that didn't stop the festival from scoring a true world première, and one with an animated film, no less. That film is Ryan Braund's feature debut Absolute...
Imagine 2020 Review: SLEEPLESS BEAUTY Keeps You Awake
Lo and behold: despite the limitations brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Amsterdam-based Imagine Film Festival managed to get itself two theatrical world premieres for its 2020 edition. One of them was Peet Gelderblom's poetic collage film When Forever...
Imagine 2020 Review: WHEN FOREVER DIES
(Is it a drama? Is it a documentary? Is it a history lesson? It's...) When the current pandemic started showing its teeth in the Netherlands in March, it meant the end of the 2020 edition of the Imagine Film Festival...
Imagine 2019 Review: MONSTRUM Presents Silly, Gory Entertainment
Last year saw several entries added to the sub-sub-genre of Korean history-slash-horror films (and there's even a Korean historical zombie series on Netflix). Last month, the Imagine Film Festival showed one of these: Korean director Huh Jong-ho's historical action thriller...
Imagine 2019 Review: MEMORY Reminds Us Why We Love ALIEN
(That's Dan O'Bannon peeping around the corner...) Over the past decade, writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe has made a name for himself as a documentary maker, picking all sorts of interesting subjects like Paul the Psychic Octopus, or Star Wars fandom...
Imagine 2017 Review: MOLLY Wins You Over With Perseverance And Ingenuity
Dutch science fiction films are few and far between, so when the Imagine Film Festival announced the world premiere of Molly, I was intrigued to say the least. And indeed, Colinda Bongers and Thijs Meuwese have managed to create a...
Imagine 2017 Review: GUARDIANS
(As the editor-in-chief of Preview Magazine exclaimed when introducing this screening: "Criticize it all you like, but it has a bear with a minigun!") If you've seen its trailers (and why shouldn't you have), you know exactly what to expect...
Imagine 2016 Review: THEY CALL ME JEEG ROBOT Hits All Its Beats
(In short: it's like a sad Captain America versus a sad Joker, and it's great!) This year's winner of the audience award at the Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam came from an unexpected direction: Italy. While that country has a rich...
Imagine 2016 Review: I AM A HERO Is Awesome, Gory, And Fun
(Or: how you can do things right by doing nothing wrong, and adding some brains...) It's hard to think of a more tired horror sub-genre than the zombie flick. Due to the popularity of George Romero's Night of the Living...
Imagine 2016 Review: Oshii Mamoru Takes NOWHERE GIRL To His Familiar Places
(The movie which can be summed up as "Stay awake, stay awake, stay awake, WHOA!!!) One cannot help but wonder what would happen if Japanese director Oshii Mamuro would ever decide to make a straightforward action film. Whether he is...
Imagine 2015 Review: LIZA, THE FOX-FAIRY Magnificently Kills With Kindness
This weekend, Liza, the Fox-Fairy won the Silver Méliès Award at the Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam. It was hardly the first award it won either: a few weeks earlier at Fantasporto, it won awards for Best Film and Best Special...
Imagine 2014 Review: YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON 3D
(You WILL believe a man can fly, provided he jumps hard and adds enough corkscrews in mid-air...) One of the great things of film festivals is that they sometimes allow you a rare chance to experience foreign films as they...
Imagine 2014 Review: DEADLY VIRTUES: LOVE. HONOUR. OBEY Is Lean, Mean, And Surprising
(An alternative title could be "Home Invasion: Rope. Torture. Show.") One of the titles world premiering at the Imagine film Festival Amsterdam this year is Ate de Jong's Deadly Virtues: Love. Honour. Obey., his first film since the costly flop...
Imagine 2014 Review: THE CREEP BEHIND THE CAMERA Is A Cute And Clever Hybrid
(When Charles Manson met the Carpet-Bag-Monster...) Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? Is it a documentary? It's... The Creep Behind the Camera! One of the World Premieres at this year's Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam, The Creep Behind the...
IMAGINE 2013 Review: Anime Movie 009 RE: CYBORG 3D Dazzles And Baffles
(After seeing this film I am "Himmelhoch jauchzend, zum Tode betrübt"...) One of the great things about film festivals is that they allow people to see Japanese anime films in a cinema. Being able to do so is such a...
IMAGINE 2012: A LETTER TO MOMO review
(It is not "Totoro-light", although I guess it can be called "Totoro-heavy"...) Trying to see anime in the cinema can be quite hard in The Netherlands. The last decade we've seen the latest Miyazaki films released thanks to the international...
IMAGINE 2012: SCABBARD SAMURAI Review
(Matsumoto never needs thirty tries to amuse his audience...) In director Hitoshi Matsumoto's newest film "Scabbard Samurai" (original title: "Saya Samurai") a pathetic man gets thirty tries to make a child laugh, and if he fails it will be his...
IMAGINE 2012: INBRED review
(In one sentence: it's a freakshow slaughter contest between hoodies and hillbillies...) Over the years the focus of the Imagine Film Festival Amsterdam has shifted somewhat. When it started decades ago it was primarily a horror festival, with science fiction...
