Australia’s Stranger With My Face Film Fest Announces Lineup
Debi Moore
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Horror fans the world over have more opportunities than ever to attend film festivals dedicated to the genre, and if you live in or near Hobart, the capital of the Australian island state of Tasmania, you have April’s Stranger With My Face to look forward to. Today we’re pleased to share the Fest’s lineup with you.
The 4th edition of Stranger With My Face International Film Festival will take place in Hobart from 14-17 April, with a lineup of eight feature films, a shorts program, a symposium, workshops, panels, and social events. Stranger With My Face focuses on diverse perspectives in genre filmmaking and primarily screens horror films directed by women.
Evolution / Midnight Show
The 2016 program includes the Australian premiere of Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Evolution and the international premiere of Midnight Show, by up-and-coming Indonesian director Ginanti Rona Tembang Asri. Asri, who will be a guest at Stranger With My Face, previously worked as an assistant director and 2nd unit director on films including Killers, The Raid, and The Raid 2.
French director Hadzihalilovic, whose previous full-length feature film is the acclaimed Innocence (2004), has cited influences from Narciso Ibañez Serrador’s Who Can Kill a Child? to Lovecraft to Philip K. Dick in inventing the strange and compelling world of Evolution. She will take part in a Skype Q&A after the SWMF screening.
Festival Director Briony Kidd says, “These two films sum up what Stranger With My Face is about. Evolution is a poetic and provocative meditation on themes around motherhood and the body. It comes to us from a highly regarded arthouse filmmaker at the top of her game. Midnight Show, meanwhile, is a hardcore horror film made by a first-time director who’s having a big impact at the Indonesian box office. They represent filmmakers at different stages and with very different approaches, and yet both are working within a genre framework to explore humanity’s deepest fears.”
The other feature films screening are:
Frankenstein
The Australian premiere of Bernard Rose’s stunning modern take on Mary Shelley’s classic tale Frankenstein, starring Xavier Samuel, Tony Todd, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Danny Huston
The Love Witch
The Australian premiere of Anna Biller’s stylish retro thriller The Love Witch, which is particularly notable for its lush 35mm cinematography despite a modest budget
The Forsaken
The Australian premiere of Yolanda Torres’s The Forsaken, an intense contained location thriller from Spain about a group of criminals trapped together in a house
The Invitation
Karyn Kusama’s chilling look at group dynamics and gaslighting, winner of Best Film at Sitges in 2015
Crushed
Australian filmmakar Megan Riakos’s debut feature film, a thriller set in picturesque wine country
Girl Asleep
A dark, yet charming coming-of-age story directed by Rosemary Myers and adapted from an acclaimed play produced by South Australia’s Windmill Theatre Company
Also screening is a roster of outstanding short films from around the world:
· Nasty, directed by Prano Bailey-Bond (UK)
· Blame, directed by Kellee Terrell (USA)
· Thorn, directed by Soichi Umezawa and produced by Mai Nakanashi (Japan)
· Can You See Them? directed by Polly Staniford and Mike Staniford (Australia)
· The Betrayal directed by Susan Young (UK)
· ReStart directed by Olga Osorio (Spain)
· The Goblin Baby directed by Shoshana Rosenbuam (USA)
· Measure directed by Shelagh Rowan-Legg (Canada/UK)
· Abbaddon directed by Samantha Ferguson (Australia)
· Vintage Blood directed by Abigail Blackmore (UK)
· Innsmouth directed by Izzy Lee (USA)
· The Things You Take directed by Shaun Wilson (Australia, winner of SWMF’S 48-Hour Tasploitation Challenge in January 2016)
The full program, including the Mary Shelley Symposium and industry events, can be found at StrangerWithMyFace.com. Festival passes as well as individual tickets to events are available to purchase online.
All screenings take place in the Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart.
Stranger With My Face International Film Festival is supported by the Tasmanian Government through Screen Tasmania. For more info visit Stranger With My Face on Facebook and Twitter.
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