Fantasia 2019: Here are the award-winning films of the 23rd edition of the Fantasia Film Festival

Lee Su-jin’s film IDOL won the Cheval Noir Award for Best Feature Film at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.

The Fantasia Film Festival continues until Thursday, August 1, but the festival’s assorted juries have already chosen this year’s winning films. We still have to wait to find out which films audiences liked best, though

The information below was cut-and-pasted from an email sent out by the festival.

Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to announce the award winners of its 23rd edition. The winners were chosen through the deliberation of a jury assigned to each competition.

► CHEVAL NOIR AWARD – Feature Films

The jury, presided over by Annick Mahnert (producer and festival programmer, Fantastic Fest and Sitges Film Festival), and comprised of Shaked Berenson (producer, IFTA board member), Amy Darling (producer and festival organizer, Calgary Underground Film Festival), Miles Finberg (Director of acquisitions, Samuel Goldwyn Films) and Maurizio Guarini (composer), awarded the following prizes:

Best Film : Lee Su-jin’s IDOL

“From start to finish IDOL is an incredibly well-made film. We were struck by the great screenplay, performances and directing,” stated the jury.

Best Director : Carlo Mirabella-Davis for SWALLOW
Best Screenplay : Carlo Mirabella-Davis for SWALLOW
Best Actor : Han Seok-kyu & Sul Kyung-gu for IDOL
Best Actress : Nina Medeiros for FATHER’S SHADOW
Special Mention : Gabriela Amaral Almeida’s FATHER’S SHADOW

► NEW FLESH AWARD – Debut Films

The jury, presided over by Onur Tukel (director, screenwriter, actor, painter), and comprised of Jonathan Barkan (Editor-in-chief, Dread Central), Ariel Fisher (writer, editor, podcaster), Susan Curran (COO,

Aleksandr Kuznetsov as Matvei in the Russian film Why Don’t You Just Die! It won the NEW FLESH AWARD for Best First Feature at the 2019 Fantasia Film Festival.

A71 Entertainment) and Kyle Greenberg (Director of theatrical marketing and distribution, Gunpowder & Sky), awarded the following prizes:

Best First Feature : Kirill Sokolov’s WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE!
Special Mention : Yi Ok-seop’s MAGGIE
Special Mention : Kim Yoon-seok’s ANOTHER CHILD

► INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITION

The jury, presided over by Frederic Temps (musician, critic, founder of L’Étrange festival and festival director of Les utopiales) and comprised of Kerensa Cadenas (writer and film editor at Entertainment Weekly), Chelsea Lupkin (director, cinematographer, producer, senior programmer and writer at Short Of The Week) and Justin Timms (co-founder of Yellow Veil Pictures and co-festival director, Brooklyn Horror Film Festival and North Bend Film Festival) awarded the following prizes:

Best Short Film : Erica Scoggins’ THE BOOGEYWOMAN
Best Director : Nico Van den Brink’s THE BURDEN
Best Screenplay : Kit Zauhar’s THE TERRESTRIALS
Best Actor : Alexis Lefebvre in UNE BOMBE AU COEUR
Best Actress : Stephane Caillard in LUCIENNE EATS A CAR

Special Mention : Joshua Giuliano’s IN SOUND, WE LIVE FOREVER

THE BOOGEYWOMAN by Erica Scoggins won the Best Short Film Award at the 2019 Fantasia Film Festival.

► AXIS: SATOSHI KON AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ANIMATION

The jury, presided over by Diana Tapia Munguia (production assistant, Cinesite Studios; marketing and PR chair, Women in Animation Montreal) and comprised of Alaska B (drummer and leader, Yamantaka and Sonic Titan) and Julien Deragon (3D animator, RodeoFX) awarded the following prizes:

Best Animated Feature : Masaaki Yuasa’s RIDE YOUR WAVE
Special Mention : Fuminori Kizaki’s HUMAN LOST
Best Animated Short Film : Kim Myung-eun’s THE FIRST CLASS
Special Mention : Neil Christopher and Daniel Gies’ GIANT BEAR

► AQCC-CAMERA LUCIDA

The jury, comprised of Andrew Todd (writer, filmmaker, composer), Donato Totaro (editor-in-chief, Offscreen) and Elijah Baron (film critic and translator, 24 Images) awarded the AQCC-Camera Lucida Award to Johannes Nyholm’s KOKO-DI KOKO-DA.
Special mention to director NAO YOSHIGAI.

► ACTION!

The jury, comprised of Jean-Philippe Bernier (cinematographer and composer), Andy Bélanger (comic artist and illustrator) and JF Lachapelle (stuntman and stunt coordinator), awarded the ACTION! Prize to Kan Eguchi’s THE FABLE.
Special mention to Yuen Woo-Ping’s MASTER Z: IP MAN LEGACY.

► VR

The jury, presided over by Érik Canuel (director), RKSS – Yoann Whissell and François Simard (writers and directors) and Martin Girard (screenwriter) awarded the following prizes:

Best VR – Fiction: Jacob Wasserman, Nicolas Pesce and Adam Donald’s THE CARETAKER
Best VR – Documentary: Leela Gilday’s HEART OF THE SATHU
Special Mention – Best Immersive Nightmare: Souichi Umezawa’s THE REALM BELOW

Fantasia 2019 review: Why Don’t You Just Die! (Papa, sdokhni)

I don’t know what is more surprising – that this surefooted splatter fest is the first feature made by writer-director-editor Kirill Sokolov or that it was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation. This black, black comedy is artfully done, but it’s not an art-house film. And let’s just say that most of the characters are not fine upstanding citizens.

A young man stands in front of an apartment door while holding a hammer behind his back. We can tell that he intends to use it – we don’t need Chekhov to tell us that. (Chekhov wrote: “If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.”)

The hammer might have further resonance for those who have read Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky.

Why Don’t You Just Die! received financial support from the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.

The door is opened by a bald, stocky man who looks tough, aggressive, dangerous. Not friendly! The visitor introduces himself as Matvei, and says he has come there to meet his girlfriend, Olya. This is news to the bald man, who is Olya’s father, Andrei. All the same, he lets Matvei come in. One inside Matvei is ready to sue the hammer, but…oops, Andrei is not alone. Natasha, Andrei’s wife and Olya’s mother, is there, too.

Matvei (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) has come to visit Andrei, who is the father of his girlfriend. Note the Batman hoodie!

Andrei (Vitaliy Khaev) plays a police detective in the Russian film Why Don’t You Just Die! Note how that his pale green shirt matches the curtains. And the wallpaper. Not for long!

Andrei and Matvei sit down at the breakfast table and Natasha goes to the kitchen to make coffee for Matvei. Andrei reveals that he is a police detective. Probably a surprise for Matvei. The hammer falls out of his back pocket. Andrei asks, casually, if Matvei carries the hammer around all the time. No, no, he says, a friend wants to borrow it. As if.

Amazingly soon, the hammer, a television, a shotgun, handcuffs, a power drill and other items will come into play. Someone will be tossed right through a wall. There will be a shower of cash. And blood, ridiculous amounts of blood, torrents of it, rivers of it, gallons (litres?) of it. (In an interview, director Kirill Sokolov said that there isn’t THAT much blood, that other films have had more. Maybe so, but there is LOTS of blood in Why Don’t You Just Die!) However, the effect is cartoonish, not like someone is truly suffering.

Andrei’s shirt no longer matches the curtains.

Assorted flashbacks reveal what kind of person Andrei is, a medical quirk that Matvei has, and the purpose of Matvei’s visit. He is on a vigilante mission, seemingly motivated by love. That makes him the most noble person in the world of the film, next to wife and mother Natasha, who gets neither love nor respect from her husband. Appropriately enough for a vigilante, Matvei wears a Batman hoodie. And like superheroes and supervillains, Matvei and Andrei have remarkable endurance.

On the Fantasia web site, the description of Why Don’t You Just Die! contains this phrase “and all holy household hell breaks loose.” Ha! The understatement of the year!

It was wonderful to watch Why Don’t You Just Die! with a Fantasia audience. We were laughing, hollering and sometimes cringing. What is the sound of cringing? Sometimes it is “Ewwww!” As when bones are broken, blood spurts, a hammer is aimed close to delicate body parts or when one character contemplates using his tongue to. . . do something gross yet crucial.Writer-director-editor Kirill Sokolov has a master’s degree in the Physics and Technology of Nanostructures, of all things. In an interview he said: “Filmmaking is very close to physics and maths, because every scene is like a maths problem or a test that you have to solve. You try from one angle, then from another until you succeed. Very practical, very logical process.”

Why Don’t You Just Die! uses the X-Ray Camera!

I hope that Sokolov will make many more films and that I can see them, too.

(The web site of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, which showed Why Don’t You Just Die!, says the film’s genre is Splatter, and its tags are: Violence, Satire, Thriller, Humour.)

I am not including the film’s trailer here because I think that it gives too much away.

Why Don’t You Just Die! (Papa, sdokhni)
Country: Russia
Year: 2018
Duration: 100 minutes
Language: Russian
Director: Kirill Sokolov
Producer: Sofiko Kiknavelidze
Writer: Kirill Sokolov
DOP: Dmitriy Ulyukaev
Montage: Kirill Sokolov
Composers: Vadim QP, Sergey Solovyov
Cast: Vitaliy Khaev, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, Evgeniya Kregzhde, Mikhail Gorevoy, Elena Shevchenko
Contact: Arrow Films

Fantasia 2019: Lake Michigan Monster looks like wacky, Maddinesque fun!

Lake Michigan Monster – low budget but creative as all get out!

The loopy trailer for the feature film Lake Michigan Monster is enough to make me want to see it, and several enthusiastic reviews on the Internet further seal the deal.

In the Detroit Free Press, John Monaghan writes: “The entire budget would barely pay for one of Captain America’s boots, but that doesn’t stop the Milwaukee-made horror comedy “Lake Michigan Monster” from delivering more crazy and clever visual tricks than the last 10 Marvel superhero blockbusters put together.”

On the Film Threat web site Joshua Speiser writes: “Self-winking parody is one of the hardest genres to pull off. So, my hat is off to Tews and his band of merry pranksters. The films’ ridiculously limited budget, anemic/scenery chewing acting, grainy 16mm film stock, Dollar Store special effects and weaponry, and chop-socky editing all work to the film’s advantage to create an aesthetic that would make Ed Wood proud. . . I encourage you to follow the filmmaker’s lead — grab a bottle of rum (or two), gather together some of your idiot friends, cast off your high-brow cinematic pretensions, and cue up this 78 minutes of nonsensical nautical mayhem.”

At Isthmus, Josh Heath writes: “The black-and-white aesthetic, along with hand-crafted sets, digital special effects, and kinetic camera work make this film stand out. Its bonkers comedy, constant barrage of humor, and reliance on meta-humor, in particular, may leave some viewers a little overwhelmed, however.”

No worries, Josh, the Fantasia audience can handle it!

He goes on to say “It’s not necessarily a movie you’ll want to watch casually on a Sunday afternoon. You need friends on Friday night for something this ridiculous.”

Fantasia is showing Lake Michigan Monster at 5 pm on Thursday, July 25, 2019. Close enough? Anyway, everyone says the weekend starts on Thursday, right?

To top it all off, there will be FOUR (4!!!) guests at the screening – director Ryland Tews, screenwriter and editor Mike Cheslick, actor Daniel Long and producer Louis Schultz. I’m sure that they will share some cool stories. We can ask questions – that’s always fun! Let me save everybody some time here. The film was shot for a mere $7,000 and it took two years to make.

(At an after-screening Q&A someone ALWAYS asks”how long did it take” to shoot and “how much did it cost,” instead of the things *I* would like to know, such as “How did you DO THAT?” “How did you EVER get permission to. . .?” “How on Earth did you convince X to take part?”)

Read more about the film and the Fantasia Film Festival in general on the Fantasia web site.

Sailors galore in Lake Michigan Monster.

Lake Michigan Monster (2018) Written and Directed by Ryland Brickson Cole Tews. Starring Ryland Brickson, Cole Tews, Erick West, and Beulah Peters

Thursday, July 25, 2019
5:00 pm Salle J.A. De Sève
1400 de Maisonneuve Blvd W,
Montreal, Quebec
H3G 1M8