Lund 2019: KNIVES AND SKIN Will Open Swedish Genre Fest, THE MORTUARY COLLECTION to Close

 

Lund Fantastic Film Festival 2019 Celebrates 25th Anniversary Edition (September 27 - October 5)

 

Celebrating its 25th anniversary and setting its sights on the future, the Lund Fantastic Film Festival is ready to get weird with the wildest and most eclectic genre offerings from all over the world.

 

Over the course of nine days, Lund Fantastic hosts a sharply curated mix of Swedish, Scandinavian and international premieres alongside iconic or idiosyncratic 25-year-old features that are curious or classic enough to revisit on a big screen. Also part of the mix are secret screenings on opening and closing night as well as tantalizing short film packages - with new and retrospective gems. As Lund Fantastic turns 25, the festival reaffirms its two-fold focus by continuing to promote the genre filmmakers of tomorrow while also celebrating time-honored classics.

 

 

Having a Swedish premiere and opening night honors is Knives and Skin, a coming-of-age drama that takes a deep look at the coping mechanisms of friends, family, and neighbors in the harrowing wake of Carolyn Harper’s disappearance. Jennifer Reeder’s hyper-stylized, dark and refreshing teen noir full of feminism, magic, and horror is a breath of fresh air that celebrates young talent on September 27.

 

After Knives and Skin, an ‘out of this world’-secret screening with free admittance takes the screen.

 

 

Closing night (October 5) belongs to the international premiere of The Mortuary Collection - the most delightful and shrewdly assembled genre anthology since Trick 'r Treat (2009). Ryan Spindell’s feature length debut takes us to a funeral parlor where a grim mortician tells stories of karmic comeuppance to his aspiring assistant. Fresh, topical and classical all at once, it’s a work full of infectious genre fun. 

 

The Mortuary Collection will be appropriately followed by something that’s both old and new.

 

More than half of the Lund Fantastic 2019 program consists of competition films. 

 

This year’s Siren competition finds a total of twelve nominees vying for the title of best feature film and a cash prize of 1000 EUR. Of those twelve, six European coproductions are also in the running for the Méliès d’Argent, a trophy that recognizes the best European fantastic film. 

 

 

THE SIREN COMPETITION OF LUND FANTASTIC 2019: 

 

Boyz in the Wood (Ninian Doff - UK) - Swedish premiere - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

Set deep in the Scottish Highlands, Boyz In The Wood is an anarchic cocktail of generational politics, hip-hop loving farmers, bumbling police officers, and hallucinogenic rabbit shites.

 

 

Extra Ordinary (Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman - Belgium / Ireland)

 

A darkly comic riff on the occult, Extra Ordinary partners a paranormally gifted driving instructor and a haunted widower in a quest to save his daughter from the black magic rituals of a failed musician. Extra Ordinary is the feelgood crowd-pleaser of 2019, full of levity and levitation, brilliant sight gags, and more quirky exorcisms than you can count!

 

 

Here Comes Hell (Jack McHenry - UK) - Swedish premiere - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

A 1930’s dinner party goes wrong and unleashes all manner of demonic mayhem in Here Comes Hell, a black-and-white horror comedy that plays like a love letter to bygone genre gems before pulling the rug out from under you with cheeky surprises.

 

 

His Master’s Voice (György Pálfi - Hungary) - Swedish premiere - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

An intimate story centered on the search for meaning in our private sphere, His Master’s Voice also ponders man’s place in the universe among other forms of existence. The result is a headtrip of a film in which characters hold the book of life against the cosmos that generated everything as they attempt to crack its secret code.

 

 

Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror (Xavier Burgin - USA) - Swedish premiere

 

An eye-opening documentary centered on depictions of African-American lives in horror films. From racial typecasting to monsters that metaphorically portray a fear of blackness, Horror Noire exposes the worst offenders, values voices that subverted the received and celebrates the trailblazers who told their own tales.

 

 

Monument (Jagoda Szelc - Poland) - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

An apprenticeship from hell that immerses the audience in a ritualistic journey rife with symbolism. Monument is a psychological freakout that takes you out of your comfort zone and transfers the feeling of trespassing onto something inexplicable and forbidden.

 

 

S He (Shengwei Zhou - China) - Scandinavian premiere

 

A mother’s quest to protect and feed her newborn daughter in an androcentric, dystopian shoe-verse in which female shoes are endlessly exploited. S He is a fearless stop-motion fantasy and abstract body horror nightmare with rich gender politics.

 

 

Swallow (Carlo Mirabella-Davis - USA/ France) - Scandinavian premiere

 

Hunter, a newly pregnant housewife living in a world full of restrictions and emotional abuse, starts to ingest dangerous objects in order to regain her sense of self. Swallow is a powerful tale about a woman stepping into the light while facing her own share of darkness. 

 

 

The Last to See Them (Sara Summa - Germany / Italy) - Scandinavian premiere

 

Using a true-crime backdrop to contextualize the final day in the lives of the Durati family, The Last to See Them haunts us like the specter of death. Far from a home invasion thriller, the emotion it triggers most acutely - other than sadness - is that of fearful anticipation as a sickly feeling takes hold.

 

 

Werewolf (Adrian Panek - Poland) - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

A grim World War II fairytale that focuses on eight children who survived concentration camp horrors. Sheltered in a woodland orphanage, they will have to overcome their own feral nature and former SS wolfhounds circling their makeshift home. Werewolf is a harrowing tale told with hope.

 

 

White Snake (Wong Amp and Zhao Ji - China) - Swedish premiere

 

An epic fantasy romance that explores the origins of the Chinese fable, Legend of the White Snake. This beautifully animated adventure takes viewers on a journey through love and tolerance without holding back on spectacular action sequences.  

 

 

Why Don’t You Just Die (Kirill Sokolov - Russia) - Swedish premiere - Méliès d’Argent nominee

 

A full-on hilarious, gore-infused action comedy with underlying brutal and chaotic commentary on Russian patriarchy. Why Don’t You Just Die delves into a generational battle full of depth, politics, fights and pints of blood.

 

 

OUT-OF-COMPETITION LINEUP OF LUND FANTASTIC 2019:

 

Five more titles have Swedish premieres out of competition while one will celebrate its international premiere. 

 

Bliss (Joe Begos - USA) - Swedish premiere

 

A hellish landscape full of sanguinary and filthy fun, Bliss tells the story of Dezy, a talented painter facing a troubling creative block. Desperate to get her groove back, she throws herself into a trippy hellscape of lust, drug abuse and slippery murder deep in LA’s underbelly.

 

 

Manriki (Shimizu Yasuhiko - Japan) - International premiere

 

Manriki, a young, sophisticated and mad beautician preys on women who obsess over not meeting contemporary beauty standards. He promises to help them realize their dream, but once in his hands he takes them through the most painful, at times deadly, procedure so they fit his own warped notion of beauty. 

 

 

Mope (Lucas Heyne - USA) - Swedish premiere

 

A shocking account of dreams denied, Mope is a true crime tale that tackles self-delusion in the porn industry. It’s the journey of two wannabe male pornstars whose borderline absurd struggles will have you laughing before chilling you as an uncanny portrayal of untreated mental illness.

 

 

The Odd Family (Lee Min-jae - South-Korea) - Swedish premiere

 

When corporate experimentation leads to a nationwide zombie outbreak, a rural family sees a golden opportunity to get back on their feet once they realize a zombie’s bite has a revitalizing effect on the geriatric population. The Odd Family is a romcom that will charm its way into your heart.

 

 

The Final Land (Marcel Barion - Germany) - Swedish premiere

 

A slice of old school sci-fi mystery full of practical effects, The Final Land follows two lost souls confined to a rickety spaceship in a disturbing quest for home, freedom and a new life. Meanwhile a siren signal beckons from a remote stretch of deep space.

 

 

The Incredible Shrinking Wknd (Jon Mikel Caballero - Spain) - Swedish premiere

 

During a weekend getaway with friends, carefree Alba suddenly finds herself trapped in a contracting time-loop that gets shorter by one 1 hour with each repetition. The Incredible Shrinking Wknd tackles a well-known sci-fi convention to tell an engaging coming-of-age romantic fantasy.

 

 

No film festival would be complete without an extensive short film program and Lund Fantastic has assembled five eclectic packages (discover them on: http://www.fff.se/films_a-z/)

 

THE MÉLIÈS D’ARGENT NOMINEES (SHORT FILMS) OF LUND FANTASTIC 2019 ARE:

 

Dispersion, Basile Vuillemin, Switzerland

Still Life, Iordanis Theodosiadis, Greece 

Facelift, Jan Riesenbeck, Dennis Stein-Schomburg, Germany

Avarya, Gökalp Gönen, Turkey 

Stigma, David Velduque, Spain

Bleeding Lies, Hsieh Meng Han, United Kingdom

Gunpowder, Romane Faure, Nathanael Perron, Léa Detrain, Benoît de Geyer d'Orth, Pei-Hsuan Lin, Anne-Lise Kubiak, France 

 

 

25-YEAR-OLDS ON THE BIG SCREEN

 

As a celebration of Fantastic Lund turning 25, we have dug into the history of genre film to give a little treat to our audience with two cult films that also celebrate their 25th anniversary in 2019.

 

We are happy to have teamed up with Vinegar Syndrome, specialists in restoring and distributing older cult classics, for a unique screening of the ‘gore cut’ of Stewart Raffill’s campy Tammy and the T-rex (1994), starring Denise Richards and the late Paul Walker. This post-JURASSIC jam is an unprecedented mishmash of rom-com tropes and R-rated horror thrills. When Paul is mauled by the local zoo’s toothier residents, his love affair with Denise doesn’t cease - even after his brain is transplanted into an ancient animatronic predator. 

 

But the celebration doesn’t stop there! We are happy to screen one of the most iconic films in recent film history: Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which took Cannes by storm in 1994 and changed what audiences can expect when sitting in the darkness of the cinema. Lund’s 25th-anniversary screening (October 2) will be preceded by a fabulous twist competition that would make Mia and Vincent proud. To really bring the party to life, all participants are encouraged to dress up as their favorite Tarantino character. 

 

For more information, visit our website: http://www.fff.se/