Beyond Fest Programmers Share The Hidden Gems Of The Festival
Mary Beth McAndrews
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2023 marks the 11th year of one of the best genre festivals out there: Beyond Fest. Every year, the festival team, paired with the American Cinematheque, presents a slew of world premieres and incredible repertory screenings to get attendees into the spooky spirit. This year, the festival runs until October 10 and includes 55 features and some amazing events with guests like James Cameron, Guillermo Del Toro, and Michael Mann. Beyond Fest has also paired with Neon this year to offer 27 free screenings throughout the fest.
Dread Central spoke with Beyond Fest programmers Christian Parkes, Evrim Ersoy, and Grant Moninger about this year’s lineup, the power of The Iron Giant, and more!
Dread Central: Well, hello, all three of you. Congratulations on another Beyond Fest. How do you feel?
Christian Parkes: How do we feel? I don’t know it. I’ll jump on this grenade first. Anyone can pass around. It’s incredibly exciting to be back here again every year. It is exhausting. It is exhilarating. And the biggest thing is that people here in LA and people who are traveling to LA to come to Beyond Fest, they’ve put so much faith and trust in us and given us the opportunity to come back. It’s a huge responsibility that we don’t take lightly. We worked so long and so hard on it. To be able to share everything with everyone, it’s just awesome. And opening last night was reflective of that.
DC: Well, you had Kill last night too, which I haven’t seen but I’ve heard such incredible things about it. It’s an Indian action film!
Evrim Ersoy: It’s absolutely terrific and it brought the house down last night. People were chanting, “Kill, kill, kill”, when the title card dropped and it got a standing ovation at midnight, which we did not see coming. I thought people would be into it, but it was a really spontaneous moment. The Q&A went on for 25 to 30 minutes. Tons of questions. Nickel felt really happy. His first time in Hollywood, first time in LA, I wish I could have bottled the energy in that room. It felt really, really positive.
CP: That being said, anytime Evrim takes the stage, the audience starts yelling, “Kill, kill, kill”.
EE: I did wear an amazing space suit last night and no one yelled “Kill”.
DC: Tonight is the special screening of The Abyss with James Cameron making an appearance. How did that all come about?
CP: I’ll give you a serious answer. Every year there’s a list of Holy Grails that we go out to. Cronenberg was an example of this for six or so years. We’d go out and we’d ask David, “Would you be willing to participate?” And then one time an email came back and he was like, “Yeah, I’d like to do that. This sounds interesting.” It was a very similar thing with James and there are a few people that there are constant asks.
But the key thing with this is really the American Cinematheque and the position that they hold within the filmmaker community on the grandest scale. Everyone knows who they are when the Cinematheque calls. If you look at all the people who have been through the Cinematheque over the years, Spielberg, Scorsese, and James Cameron. So when the Cinematheque calls people answer, and it was perfect timing. It was perfect for Beyond Fest. This is one of the big reasons why we’ve always worked with the Cinematheque is because of everything that they believe in and represent within the filmmaking community.
Grant Moninger: And Cameron’s always been a supporter of the Cinematheque. When we reopened the Egyptian, the first screening we did was The Abyss with James Cameron in the late 90s. So he’s a big supporter of us.
CP: His star is actually right outside the Egyptian as well.
DC: Oh, cool. I also wanted to hear from you about programming the new cut of Caligula, which I saw at Fantastic Fest, and the decision to add that to the Beyond Fest program.
GM: Hey, was there an intermission on the one you saw?
DC: No, we were there for the full three hours.
GM: We’re going to have an intermission. We’re going to be the first one they’re building in an intermission.
DC: I’m jealous. I had to pee in the middle of it, so I did have to get up in the middle of the movie.
GM: Maybe they saw that and they’re like, “You know what? Intermission time.” Christian, do you want to chime in on how this came through originally?
CP: It was a film that we followed from the second that it was announced. We were able to see it in Cannes. And I mean it’s perfect for Beyond Fest. One of the things that we love, obviously we love screening new films as we did last night with something established, a big creator, and then into something that people haven’t seen or know about like Kill. But from the very beginning, there was always a demand to have really special repertory screenings. So anything that exists within the restoration space that’s presenting films in new ways, it’s completely unique and novel. That’s obviously of interest to us.
And Malcolm [McDowell] is someone who has been closely related to Beyond Fest. This’ll be, I believe, the third time that we’ve had him through, and again, he’s been through the Cinematheque numerous times. So we had to do it with Caligula. Also, it is such a perfect film for Beyond Fest because it’s completely fucked up.
GM: It is also both a new film and a rep film, totally different.
CP: It’s a true two-for.
DC: I’ll be very interested to see what that crowd will think of a lot of that movie, especially three hours of just madness. I know this is on the other side of the spectrum here, but I grew up with The Iron Giant, one of the most devastating films I saw as a child. And it’s so cool that you’re programming this as part of Beyond Fest.
CP: This is another one of those films that we’ve long kind of talked about. And Brad [Bird[ came through last year with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. He’s an incredible filmmaker and we’ve long been trying to figure out something that is family-friendly but yet exists within the Beyond Fest space. We did the world premiere of the Are You Afraid Of The Dark reboot a couple of years ago. So that certainly skewed younger. But the idea of a Saturday matinee through the lens of Beyond Fest, what does that look like? And so like you said, The Iron Giant, it’s a traumatic film.
DC: Why was I allowed to watch that movie?
CP: Yeah, totally. But it’s also an incredible film that lives within this sci-fi fantasy world, which is a place that the festival plays in. Again, it’s another dream to have Brad come through and talk about this film because it’s an incredible film that’s really revered. It has a huge cult following. So it just feels right, but it’s also that spin of how do we make a Saturday matinee for the family, but one that works through the Beyond Fest lens.
DC: That’s so cool. And so I would also just love to hear what each of you would recommend that maybe isn’t on people’s radar.
EE: So Los Feliz 3 is free again with 27 premieres thanks to Neon and we’ve got some incredible films in there. But the one that I really want to point out to people is Omen, which premiered at Cannes. It’s by Baloji, who’s a Congolese rapper. This is his first film. He lives in Belgium and the film is Belgium’s entry for Oscars this year. I think it has one of the most distinct visual styles I’ve seen of anything this year. And it really should be seen on the big screen. It’s going to blow people away.
GM: I haven’t got to see this film yet. They’ve seen it, but I’m very excited for The Royal Hotel. I’m a huge Kitty Green fan. The Assistant just blew me away.
DC: Christian, what about you?
CP: I’m going to go with two films. One of them is All of Us Strangers. Again, thinking about how we are able to expand the scope of our programming. It’s a love story, but it’s incredibly haunting. It’s based against the backdrop of a ghost story that is absolutely devastating. If you have a heart in your body, you’ll be weeping by the end of it. And to show the other extreme of where we are, I would say the world premiere of the 4K restoration of Cemetery Man.
GM: I should also mention The Toxic Avenger. We all love Toxie, but some of that stuff may be a bit dated with the original. Macon Blair kind of leans away from that more towards a Repo Man version of it, which is very successful and super fun. And Kevin Bacon and Elijah Wood and Peter Dinklage are awesome in it. So I think people are going to be stoked.
Categorized:Interviews
