Ithaca Fantastik Announces Full 2017 Lineup and Art Show

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The sixth annual Ithaca Fantastik (IF) has just announced their full lineup for the 2017 edition and art show, and this year’s lineup includes such quality flicks as Let Corpses Tan, My Friend Dahmer, Pin Cushion, Kaleidoscope, November and more!

You can check out the full press release below and then let us know how excited you are about this year’s Ithaca Fantastik in the comments below.

This year’s Ithaca Fantastik will be held Nov. 3–12 in Ithaca, NY. Mark your calendars!

https://youtu.be/tMxp2BMuHFk

From press release:

Ithaca Fantastik (IF) will unleash its sixth annual film festival Nov. 3–12 in Ithaca, NY. With little more than two weeks to go IF is announcing its full features and short film lineup. With 37 films from 20 countries, the IF team promises this year’s festival will be a Fantastik ride—so buckle up!

2017 has been a prolific year for genre films and IF programmers have narrowed the field to thrill every flavor of Fantastik fan. In LET THE CORPSES TAN, Belgian duo Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani pay visual homage to Italian gangster films. Marc Meyers’s award-winning MY FRIEND DAHMER, based on the graphic novel of the same name, follows the teenage years of the budding serial killer. Ryan Prows’s mesmerizing and gritty LA tale LOWLIFE takes viewers on a high-energy organ-harvesting misadventure. And Deborah Haywoods’s beautifully disturbing and deeply personal PIN CUSHION explores intergenerational bullying in a small but toxic English town.


Playing to a full range of IF6’s retrospective theme—Italiano Psichedeliko—with a contemporary eye, Rupert Jones’s murder-mystery, KALEIDOSCOPE, mesmerizes with lush visuals and amazing performances from Sinead Matthews and Toby Jones. Rainer Sarnet’s NOVEMBER plunges vanguard film-lovers into a surrealist maelstrom of faith, witchcraft, and love, while German tale FREDDY/EDDY ushers in a doubled and troubled soul from the mind of Tini Tüllmann.

Any pure horror lovers in the room? Giddens Ko’s MON MON MON MONSTER blows minds with its thoughtful subtext on bullying dressed with gory violence. A Taiwanese echo to Haywoods’s PIN CUSHION, this film takes no prisoners. The same can be said about Gabriela Amaral’s FRIENDLY BEAST: What starts out as a classic social drama makes a sharp turn into more graphic territory demanding self-reflection. And for undead action, Robin Aubert’s LES AFFAMÉS—an art house Zombie film full of deep social commentary—is a brilliant homage to maestro George Romero’s ghoul metaphor.

Sometimes, real life is more Fantastik than fiction. Brad Abrahams’s documentary, LOVE AND SAUCERS, tells the improbable story of David Higgins’ intimate love for an alien and the art that followed. For sheer genre joy, Australian mockumentary TOP KNOT DETECTIVE is Aaron McCann and Dominic Pearce’s madcap love letter to late-night Japanese television—from Lone Wolf and Cub and Mute Samurai to Message from Space and Space Sheriff Gavan.

IF completes this year’s smorgasbord with the crazies:  Adolfo Kolmerer and William James’s SNOWFLAKE, the prodigal son of Pulp Fiction and Synecdoche NY, with producer Eric Sonnenburg here for the sceening; Thomas Berg and Frederik Waldeland’s super-weird, laugh-out-loud VAMPYR VIDAR; and Jimmy Henderson’s JAILBREAK with its roots in HK martial arts cinema, Jean Paul Ly’s choreography, dynamic camerawork, and the incisive power of a Tony Jaa elbow strike. These films will inspire guilty pleasure and deep love with their absolute audacity and inventiveness.

IF also shines a spotlight on BLUE UNDERGROUND, Bill Lustig’s distribution company, with the 4K restoration of Gary Sherman’s DEATH LINE, a direct transfer from the camera negative—as close as you can get to a director’s true vision! Another new 4K transfer, Bob Clark’s DEAD BY NIGHT, offers a deep meditation on the effects of war …with a zombie trope. Gary Sherman and Bill Lustig will present these respective films to a yet-to-be-blown-away audience!

Along with this incredible lineup, IF is excited to present its 2017 art show: THE STRANGE COLORS OF GILLES VRANCKX featuring the work of the Belgian poster genius behind art for Amer, The Strange Colors of Your Body’s Tears, LET THE CORPSES TAN, and more. Vranckx will appear as an IF special guest at the show’s opening reception on Thursday, November 9.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

THE ENDLESS (Ithaca Premiere)

Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson, USA

THE CRESCENT (Ithaca Premiere)

Seth A. Smith, Canada

I REMEMBER YOU (Ithaca Premiere)

Óskar Thór Axelsson, Iceland

PIN CUSHION (East Coast Premiere)

Deborah Haywood, UK

VAMPYR VIDAR (East Coast Premiere)

Thomas Aske Berg & Fredrik Waldeland, Norway

FREDDY/EDDY (East Coast Premiere)

Tini Tüllmann, Germany

FRIENDLY BEAST (US Premiere)

Gabriela Amaral, Brazil

LES AFFAMÉS (East Coast Premiere)

Robin Aubert, Canada

SNOWFLAKE (East Coast Premiere) With producer Eric Sonnenburg in attendance!

Adolfo J. Kolmerer, Germany

Opening & Closing

TRAGEDY GIRLS (Ithaca Premiere)

Tyler McIntyre, USA

A DAY (East Coast Premiere)

Sun-Ho Cho, South Korea

Cinema Pur

HAGAZUSSA: A Heathen’s Curse (Ithaca Premiere)

Lukas Feigelfeld, Germany

INFLAME (East Coast Premiere)

Ceylan Özgün Özçelik, Turkey

LET THE CORPSES TAN (East Coast Premiere)

Bruno Forzani/Hélène Cattet, Belgium

NOVEMBER (Ithaca Premiere)

Rainer Sarnet, Iceland/Estonia  

TIGERS ARE NOT AFRAID (East Coast Premiere)

Issa López, Mexico

TOP KNOT DETECTIVE (Ithaca Premiere)

Aaron McCann & Dominic Pearce, Australia/Japan

Fantastik Documentary: FOREVER LOVE!

BIGHT OF THE TWIN (Ithaca Premiere)

Hazel Hill McCarthy III, USA

LOVE AND SAUCERS (East Coast Premiere)

Brad Abrahams, USA

Midnighters

BRAVESTORM (North American Premiere)

Junya Okabe, Japan

SAMURAI RAUNI (North American Premiere)

Mika Rättö, Finland

ZOMBIOLOGY (Ithaca Premiere)

Alan Lo, Hong Kong

Festival Favorite

KALEIDOSCOPE (East Coast Premiere)

Rupert Jones, UK

JAILBREAK (East Coast Premiere)

Jimmy Henderson, Cambodia

LOWLIFE (East Coast Premiere)

Ryan Prows, USA

SEQUENCE BREAK (Ithaca Premiere) With director Graham Skipper in attendance!

Graham Skipper, USA

MY FRIEND DAHMER (Ithaca Premiere)

Marc Meyers, USA

BLUE UNDERGROUND PRESENTS with Bill Lustig in attendance!

DEATHLINE (Ithaca Premiere) With director Gary Sherman in attendance!

Gary Sherman, UK 1972

DEAD OF NIGHT 4K Restoration (North American Premiere)

Bob Clark, 1974

SHUDDER PRESENTS

Mon Mon Mon Monster (New York Premiere)

Giddens Ko, Taiwan

ITALIANO PSICHEDELIKO: Retrospective

AUTOPSY

Armando Crispino, 1975

BABA YAGA

Corrado Farina, 1973

DEADLY SWEET

Tinto Brass, 1967

LE ORME

Luigi Bazzoni, Mario Fanelli 1975

SUSPIRIA

Dario Argento, 1977

BLOW UP

Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966

DANGER: DIABOLIK

Mario Bava, 1968

SHORT FILMS

Born of Sin

William Boodell – USA

Jenny Secoma In: The Blind Spot

Jack Warner – USA

No Man’s Land: A Folktale

Ty Turley – USA/Sierra Leone

Popsy

Julien Homsy – France

Night Encounter

Ludovic de Gaillande – France

Bestia

Gigi Saul Guerrero – Canada

Sol

Carlos G. Gananian – Brazil

Oh, Dear

Raquel Fogel – USA

Evocation of a Nightmare

Wally Chung – USA

Waiting for Pascale

Guillaume Harvey – Canada

Breaker

Phillippe McKie – Japan

Bon Appétit

Erenik Beqiri – Albania

Zoey And The Wind-Up Boy

Marica Petrey – USA

I Am The Doorway

Robin Kasparik – Czech Republic

Miriam is Going to Mars

Michael Lippert – USA

Ink

Ashlea Wessel – Canada

It Began Without Warning

Jessica Curtright & Santiago C. Tapia – USA

Amy

L. Gustavo Cooper – USA

Killing Klaus Kinski

Spiros Stathoulopoulos – Colombia/Netherlands

What Comes From a Swamp

Tyler Macri – USA

Viola vs. The Vampire King

Kevin Fermini – USA

Standby

Daumon Khakpour & Travis Pulchinski – Canada

Sherry

Eliane Lima – USA

Jules D.

Norma Vila – Spain

Signal to Noise

Jarret Blinkhorn – USA

Holiday Fear

Nicholas Santos – USA

A Father’s Day

Mat Johns – UK

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