L'Etrange Festival 2017 full line-up is here, delivers its share of unexpected

A few days after teasing the very first titles, the full line-up for this year's Etrange Festival, which will take place in Paris from from the 6th to the 17th of september is here, and the least that can be said is that it comes with a lot of suprises. Wait, no : A LOT of surprises.

For its 23rd edition, l'Etrange Festival keeps on going with some of the regular names and expected or confirmed filmmakers. But this year's big surprise is that more than a half of the line-up is basically... unknown, or at least unexpected. And that, we didn't see it coming !

A big renewal into the selection that pursue the work the Festival Team started 2 years ago, when they rearranged the main categories in order to bring some  refreshment and new faces. Needless to say that we're very excited looking forward to discover on screen what will be this year's edition jewels or guilty pleasures.

L'Etrange Festival 2017 comes with 9 World Premieres, 3 International Premieres, 7 European Premieres, and 25 French Premieres. As usual, eclecticism, diversity in genre and countries represented are on the menu.

Among this year's biggest events and guests : the world premiere of the new Sono Sion movie, a free hand to Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Carot (Delicatessen, City of the lost children)and to Jaume Balaguero (Rec, Fragile), a special program to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sitges Festival, and Alex de la Iglesia in person !

Anyway, enough said, let's take a look to the full program :

Opening ceremony

• Mayhem -Joe Lynch
• Opening short : Death, father & son - Denis Walgenwitz & Vincent Parronnaud

Closing ceremony

• Mutafukaz - Guillaume Renard

Competition

This year's competition for the "Nouveau Genre" Price seems fairly wide open since most of the competitors have never been previously part of the festival. From Norbert Keil's Replace to Giddens Ko's Mon Mon Mon Monsters, passing by Cosimo gomez's Ugly Nasty People or Flying Lotus's Kuso, pick your weapon !

• Purgatoryo - Roderick Cabrido
• Replace - Norbert Keil
• 9 Fingers- FJ Ossang
• Lowlife - Ryan Prows
• Before we vanish - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
• The wild boys - Bertrand Mandico
• Kuso - Flying Lotus
• Jupiter's Moon - Kornel Mundruczo
• The killing of a sacred deer - Yorgos Lanthimos
• Euthanizer - Teemu Nikki
• I am not a witch - Rungano Nyoni
• Good manners - Juliana Rojas & Marco Dutra
• A day - Sun-ho Cho
• Firstborn - Aik Karapetian
• Thelma - Joachim Trier
• Cold hell - Stefan Ruzowitzky
• The family - Rosie Jones
• Mayhem - Joe Lynch
• The marker - Justin Edgar
• Mon mon mon monsters - Giddens Ko
• Attacks of the adult babies - Dominic Brunt
• Housewife - Can Evrenol (ScreenAnarchy's selection)
• Bitch - Marianna Palka
• Ugly nasty people - Cosimo Gomez

New talents

The New Talent section is set to discover and reveal tomorrow's gem directors.

• The last family - Jan P. Matuszynski
• Spit’n Split - Jérôme Vandewattyne
• Friendly beast - Gabriela Amaral Almeida
• Ugly - Juri Rechinsky
• Doubleplusungood - Marco Laguna
• Game of death - Sebastien Landry & Laurence Morais-Lagace

MondoVision

• 30 years of Adonis - Scud
• Kodoku: Meatball Machine - Yoshihiro Nishimura
• The misandrists - Bruce la Bruce
• Fluido - Shu Lea Cheang
• A prayer before dawn - Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire
• Death row family - Yuki Kobayashi
• Sweet Virginia - Jamie M.Dagg
• The Laplace's demon - Giordano Giulivi
• The Vilainess - Jung Byung-gil

Documentaries

• Liberation day - Morten Traavik & Ugis Olte
• Mansfield 66/67 - P.David Ebersole & Todd Hughes
• So help me God - Yves Hinant & Jean Libon
• Anne's Skins - Claude Grunspan + The eastern phonographic establishments - Yves-Marie Mahé
• Instrument: Fugazi - Jem Cohen

Special screenings

What would be L'Etrange Festival without a Sono Sion movie ? Also to be noted : the screening of  Marquis's Henri Xhonneux previously unreleased in France, Take me I'm old enough.

• Tokyo Vampire Hotel - Sono Sion
• Chicken Kitchen (short) + To the compass rose - Vincent Hachet
• Take me, I'm old enough - Henri Xhonneux
• Peter and Sabine - August Rieger

Carte blanche to Marc Caro & Jean-Pierre Jeunet

The inseparable duet of the French cinema that brought us The City of Lost Children is back to the festival for a free hand that looks like no one else.

• Electronic Labyrinth (short) - George Lucas + THX 1138 - George Lucas
• Goto, island of love - Walerian Borowczyk
• Tale of Tales (animated short) - Youri Norstein + The corpse Bride - Tim Burton
• The adventures of Buckaroo Banzaï across the 8th dimension - W.D. Richter
• The American Way - Maurice Philippe

Carte blanche to Jaume Balaguero

The famous Spanish Director, who terrorized many of us with the first Rec, among other billiant movies, has been given free hand to make the audience feast.

• The elephant man - David Lynch
• Sacrifice - Andrei Tarkovski
• Parental Guidance - Lucile Hadzihalilovic
• The big feast - Marco Ferreri
• Street trash - James M.Muro

Sitges turns 50 !

Sitges turns 50, and to mark the event, the Festival teams up with the Ramon Llull Institute to screen some of the best pieces of Spanish Genre Cinematography. Starting with the Worldwide premiere of Xavier Gens's new feature, Cold Skin, an adaptation of the spanish novel La Pell Freda, and following with some cult classics and a short-film program.

• Cold Skin - Xaver Gens
• In a glass cage - Agusti Villaronga
• Anguish - Bigas Luna
• Herederos de la Bestia - Diego Lopez & David Pizarro
• El ataud de Cristal - Haritz Zubillaga
• Short-film program, introduced by Jaume Balagueró & Ángel Sala : Alicia - Jaume Balagueró / Dias Sin Luz - Jaume Balagueró / Amo - Alex Gargot / Zero - David Victori / Area 84 - Lonan Garcia / Genesis - Nacho Cerdà

20 years of "Mauvais Genre"

Mauvais Genre is a french radio show dedicated to the genre culture, is turning 20 ! To celebrate, all the Radio show team has been invited to share their best movie experiences.

• The infernal trio- Francis Girod
• Black Lizard - Kinji Fukasaku
• The Forbidden Documents (short series) : Shipwreck / The ghosts / The Witch / Extraterrestrial / Siberia - Jean-Teddy Filippe
• The device (short series) : The Pope's beheading ritual / The second death - Pacôme Thiellement & Thomas Bertay
• Boro in the box - Bertrand Mandico

BiTS evening patry

The french TV show dedicated to geek culture has been given the late pass for a full evening with 2 movies and many surprises.

• Perdita Durango - Álex de la Iglesia
• Forgotten silver - Peter Jackson + Surprises !

Focus on : Alex de la Iglesia

The iconic spanish director will be here for a special program that will screen his latest movie, The Bar and two of his most cult films.

• The Bar
• Perdita Durango
• The day ofthe beast

Focus on : Boris Szulzinger

If we tell you Belgium, provocative, radical, bad taste ? Boris Szulzinger is your man ! The belgian director has been invited to show and introduce his 3 unknow masterpieces of the underground cinema.

• The lonely killers
• Tarzoon, shame of the jungle
• Mama Dracula

Retour de Flamme (Backfire)

• A page of madness - Teinosuke Kinugasa

Short-film competition

• Program 1 : Experimental Politics
• Program 2 : Schizo rocks !
• Program 3 : What's sex ?
• Program 4 : Absolutely fantastic
• Program 5 : Family stories
• Program 6 : Unexpected journeys

Source : Press Release.