Extraordinary real-life horror stories, mind-bending theories testing the bounds of reality as we know it, and surreal profiles of those on the fringes – Fantastic Film Festival Australia (16 April – 1 May) has announced its new program of weird and wonderful films screening only in cinemas at Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn (VIC) and Ritz Cinema, Randwick (NSW).
Home to trendsetters, truth talkers, trailblazers and loose wires, Fantastic Film Festival Australia is dedicated to showing the world's most daring works from filmmakers with innovative and unique perspectives.
"Genre cinema has an unmatched ability to conjure up a truth that is raw and gets under our skin," said Fantastic Film Festival Artistic Director Hudson Sowada. "Having leaped into 2021 with a sense of hope, we should look to those on the fringes to take risks, kill our darlings, and help us question reality. From trippy adventures, surreal deep-dives into the human psyche, and a mirror held up to society – expect a program of films like no other."
Hot off a Sundance premiere is the opening night film Prisoners of the Ghostland, from renegade Japanese auteur Sion Sono (Love Exposure) and starring Nicolas Cage. This absurd Acid-Western " set in a fantastical fictional city that is half Westworld and half Tokyo Disney " follows Cage as a shotgun-toting outlaw on a rescue mission through a post-apocalyptic world.
Closing the Festival is the shocking and boundary-pushing, Mother Schmuckers, from directors Lenny and Harpo Guit. When two dim-witted brothers lose their mother's beloved dog, they take to the streets of Brussels to locate it before their mother kicks them out of home – and along the way, find themselves on an adventure unlike any other put to the screen.
Not to be missed are three deeply unconventional love stories: when a gambler becomes obsessed with his favourite cam girl (Uncut Gems' Julia Fox), the line between customer and client blurs in PVT Chat; a thrilling new piece of Australian genre cinema, Bloodshot Heart, follows a reclusive and deeply repressed man who hatches the "perfect plan" to win the heart of his new tenant; and Jumbo, the fable-like story of an amusement park worker (Portrait of a Lady on Fire's Noémie Merlant) entering an erotic relationship with a merry-go-round.
From Plato's cave to Elon Musk's Twitter feed, A Glitch in the Matrix dissects the 21st century's greatest existential fear: are we living in a simulation? Acclaimed director Rodney Ascher (Room 237) presents a staggering synthesis of perspectives on simulation theory, drawing on a variety of sources from conspiracy theorists to scientists and philosophers to craft a conceptual, considered and sensitive trip down the rabbit-hole.
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