Imagine Fantastic Film Festival 2024 has begun. We’ll keep you updated on yesterday’s news and today’s highlights through this daily blog. Want tips in your inbox? Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of our homepage.
Yesterday’s news (Friday 25 October)
Career Talk Phil Tippett
LAB1 may have been too small for Phil Tippett’s Career Talk yesterday. Visitors lined up all the way to the bar as nervous fans waited in the lobby for left-over seats. In his talk with film specialist Dan Hassler-Forest, the bearded wizard behind the Walkers in The Empire Strikes Back and the raptors in Jurassic Park proved to be a true craftsman with a wonderfully deadpan storytelling style. He fell for stop motion as a child because of Ray Harryhausen’s ‘jaw dropping magic’, even though he didn’t have a clue how it was made. His contribution to the first Star Wars film? George Lucas just ordered ‘a bunch of space aliens’. And his big secret to success came from director Milos Forman: ‘If you want to shit right, you have to eat right.’ In other words: preparation is key. Tippett commented on clips from his films and to top it all off, the audience was offered an exclusive treat: a first-ever look at his new project Sentinel, which had only been shown to investors at Cannes before. Sentinel promises to be a steampunk version of the First World War, complete with Arachnidesque creatures. Jaw dropping magic, indeed.
More highlights
We had two great Q&As yesterday. Direcotr Tallulah H. Schwab and lead Crispin Glover came by after the evening screening of Mr. K. It turned out they had very different takes on the story: Schwab thought the hotel was not a separate character in the film, whereas Glover felt it was. ‘Are you sure you worked on the same film?’ festival director Chris Oosterom joked. Director Miguel Llanso’s Q&A after Infinite Summer turned pretty philosophical, going from DNA and CRISPR to whether world peace would be possible through genetic modification. We also showed the first horror film from our Djinn theme programme yesterday: Three, introduced by Mezrab storyteller Sarah Montazeri, who told the audience a tale of a man who’s stuck in the desert and summons a Djinn for help.
Today’s tips (25 October)
Afrotopia: Crumbs & Felwine Sarr | 13:40 in LAB111 | In 2015, Infinite Summer director Miguel Llanso made his low budget debut Crumbs, in which a man goes on a bizarre odyssey through a post apocalyptic Ethiopia. With Crumbs for inspiration, writers Felwine Sarr and Vamba Sheriff will discuss alternative future perspectives from the African continent that could benefit the rest of the world. Sarr is known for his book Afrotopia, which envisions an Africa where tradition and progress intertwine.
Dystopia in Denial: The Future According to 1984 |16:45 in LAB111 | From Utopia to Dystopia. Video essayist Peet Gelderblom is back at Imagine with his creation, Dystopia in Denial: The Future According to 1984. According to Gelderblom, Hollywood did everything it could to cloud Orwells vision of 1984 with escapism, whereas today, we’re all doomsdaying. Gelderblom will be present at the screening for a solid discussion afterwards.
Saraya incl Q&A | 21:40 in LAB111 | A contemporary revenge film with a socially relevant edge: Turkish actioner Sayara doesn’t only contain intense violence á la Oldboy but also criticism of the cruelty of patriarchy. Ten years after his crazy body horror short Baskin, which he then turned into an even more insane feature, director Can Everol is back at the festival and will be doing a Q&A after the film.
Halloween Party | 23:30 in WG Café |Dress your best for Imagine’s yearly Halloween Party in the WG Café (om de hoek van LAB111). We’re serving Bloody Eyeball Bingo by Steve the Stiff and silent disco with Mr. and Mevr Koot. Be sure to get as weird and wonderful as you like, but beware the hangover: the festival awakens at 10.45 the next morning.
