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Shion Sono's Strange Circus (Kimyô na sâkasu) is scheduled to be screened at the 2006 Fantasia Festival in Montréal on Thursday July 13th at 9:45 p.m.. The screening is to be hosted by Sono.
Strange Circus had its world première at the 10th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) on October 9th of last year, and its North American première at the 15th Philadelphia Film Festival (PFF) on April 2nd of this year. TLA Releasing (TLA Entertainment Group Inc.) has acquired the North American theatrical and home entertainment distribution rights for it.
The screenplay for Strange Circus was written by Sono. The movie stars Masumi Miyazaki, Issei Ishida, Rie Kuwana, Mai Takahashi, Fujiko, Tomorowo Taguchi, and Hiroshi Ôguchi.
Here's a description of Strange Circus from the Fantasia Festival website: "STRANGE CIRCUS is for everyone who thought that Sion Sono's previous film SUICIDE CLUB was just too 'normal.' This year's most challenging title, STRANGE CIRCUS is a surreal shockfest that just gets more disturbing as it progresses down its increasingly hallucinatory path, and much of the audience is likely to be reeling... even before the amputations, bondage imprisonment or secret transsexuality. Welcome back, Sion Sono! Adolescent Mitsuko is forced to watch her parents' lovemaking by her perverted father and her domineering mother, who imprison her in a cello case employed with a peephole. When Mitsuko's mother apparently dies, her father forces the girl to be the victim of his incestuous desires, which drives her to attempt suicide with a leap from a height... yet all of this is apparently just the new novel being penned by reclusive, wheelchair-bound author Taeko (Masumi Miyazaki, who also plays the mother). Or is it? Taeko is assigned a new assistant, effeminate admirer Yuji, and the two begin a sexual relationship in Taeko's ornately designed estate. But we soon must question the real identities of both Taeko and Yuji. Sono isn't necessarily any more concerned with providing easy answers here than he was in SUICIDE CLUB, but [l]ike that film, STRANGE CIRCUS is an often shocking, always bizarre cinematic ride for the adventurous."
For more information on Strange Circus, see ScreenAnarchy's fourth, third, second, and first articles on it.
Sono's other directing credits include the story "Otona ni nattara" in the omnibus movie No-Pants Girls - Movie Box-ing2 (Nô-pantsu gâruzu - Movie Box-ing2), Hazard - a.k.a. "Hazâdo" - Noriko's Dinner Table (Noriko no shokutaku), Into a Dream (Yume no naka e), and Suicide Circle (Jisatsu sâkuru) - a.k.a. "Suicide Club".
Fantasia Festival: Strange Circus
Strange Circus trailer (downloadable 14.4 MB WMV file)
No-Pants Girls - Movie Box-ing2 trailer (downloadable 7.9 MB WMV file)
No-Pants Girls - Movie Box-ing2 official subsite
Hazard trailer (in English; downloadable 2.8 MB MOV file)
Hazard official website
Eleven Arts: Hazard
Noriko's Dinner Table trailer (English subtitled; downloadable 4.4 MB MOV file)
Noriko's Dinner Table official website
Eleven Arts: Noriko's Dinner Table
Into a Dream trailer (streaming Windows Media)
Into a Dream trailer (downloadable 5.4 MB ASF file)
Into a Dream official subsite
GOMORRAHY.com: Trailer Park subsite