With summer drawing to a close, Berlin cinephiles can always take solace in the festival season – from this month right through to Berlinale next February, there’s much fun to be had on the cinematic front, and Fantasy Filmfest is one of the first standouts in the festival run. This year, expect a packed eight days of thrills and fun – not only for fantasy film aficionados. The innovative programming means that you are likely to see some of the most diverse cuts, from intense horror films, to breathtaking thriller, to idiosyncratic sci-fi tales with dramatic stories of heartbreak.
A stunning success out of Korea, where it has sold 12 million tickets so far, it would be criminal to miss Lee Sang-yong’s crime-action film The Roundup
Can’t make the whole soirée? Kogonada’s After Yang, a story about a family living with an android, is sure to be an interesting outing. Another standout is the slow-burning fantasy-via-domestic horror-drama, Peter Hengl’s Family Dinner, an Ulrich Seidel style piece based around an unexpected family visit. Also a stunning success out of Korea, where it has sold 12 million tickets so far, it would be criminal to miss Lee Sang-yong’s crime-action film The Roundup. Finally, a tip, or rather heads-up for those who are still trying to catch up with some Cannes bits: the plaudited ‘unromantic comedy’ from Norway, Kristoffer Borgli’s Sick of Myself should please anyone who is after sick-relationship-meets-nasty-body-horror.
And as usual there’s a solid horror line-up to choose from, like Megalomanic, winner of the Best Feature at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal, and apparently very stomach churning. Returning to the graphic heights of the New French Extremity days, the film looks at a serial killer family. Elsewhere a ton of interesting goings-on: a screening of The Endless in the Großplanetarium in Prenzlauer Berg on September 10 with a panel of scientists will be looking at the relationship between science and fiction in the film.
- Fantasy Filmfest Sep 7-14 Kino in der Kulturbrauerei.
