Back in September we made mention of a genre festival in Peru called Insolito. The festival is all set to begin today on February 25th and run through to March 1st so we will take a moment to highlight some of the program. And for a third year festival they have done a good job wrangling together an impressive lineup of predominantly IberoAmerican titles. This makes Insolito a strong supporter of genre film from the area and a must-stop-at location on the region's circuit.
First we will start with a number of retrospective programs they are hosting. There will be a program devoted to the filmography of our friend Alexandre Philipe. The People vs. George Lucas, The Life and Times of Paul the Psychic Octopus, Doc of the Dead, 78/52, Memory: The Origins of Alien and his latest film Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on The Exorcist.
There will be a program devoted to the short films of Peruvian short film maker Aldo Salvini and a very large program will cover over a dozen films from Colombian director Jairo Pinilla Tellez. Insolito has also collaborated with the Bogota Horror Film Festival to present a number of short films from their lineup.
There are also a large number of IberoAmerican titles (obviously) playing at the festival, a lot of them we’ve already seen and reviewed in the last year or so. There is the dark fairy tale Matar al Dragon from Jimena Monteoliva, Luz the Flower of Evil from Juan Diego Escobar Alzate, Diablo rojo (PTY) from Sol Moreno, the single-take thriller Rendez-Vous from Pablo Olmos Arrayales, and Carl Zitelmann’s El vampiro del lago (The Lake Vampire).
Other titles that I have seen but have not formally reported on but have seen is the Argentine documentary Zombies en el canaveral (Zombies in the Cornfield) by Pablo Schembri the Venezualan zombie flick Infeccion by Flavio Pedota, a flick that has more or less banned him from ever returning to the country because of its anti-government subtexts. I saw a work print of Gabriel Grieco’s Respira a while back and it is making its way into cinemas around the region now. I also saw Ignacio Rogers' El diablo blanco (The White Devil) at the same market.
There are also a lot of new titles that we would like to get our mitts on soon. Hopefully we can report back on those titles in the days to come.