A Town Called Panic att LIFFF

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Winner of the newly installed award for best non-European movie, The Siren, was Australian movie Van Diemen's Land. Director Johathan Auf Der Heide used the cruel but true story about eight convicts who escape from a prison colony on a remote island and find themselves in a strong drama you shall not soon forget.

The Jury consisted of Jenni Ukkonen, who arranges Finnish film festival Espoo Cine, Rikke Schubart, Danish author and senior lecturer at Syddansk Universitet and Shade Rupe, author and has arranged several film festivals in the United States. Their motivation was:

"The film that most captivated us out of the eight fantastic films this week takes us on a journey into the heart of nature, a nature that looks so calm from afar, and is so dark and cold once we're trapped inside it. Stark and terrifying, the winning film is illustrated not only with crisp cinematography, it's also told with the sound of trees creaking in the wind, the sound of  hunger being sated, and the sound of men plotting each other's deaths.

Realist, natural and intense, the film's performances transcend acting---we fully believe in each characters' physical struggle and painful guilt. Their faces are strong and worn... not beautiful in a conventional Hollywood way. The film's straightforward plot allows the actors to become their characters and we can't help but believe in their doomed plight. 

The Gaelic narration is both wonderful and strange, taking us back in time and into the unfeeling inhumanity of nature. A filmic language can take us out of our seats and out of our own problems, and a language spoken can take us away to another land and time. The language of tonight's winning film took all of us into the heart of our very own darkness. We are quite pround to announce the winner of this year's Lund Fantastisk Film Festival, Jonathan Auf Der Heide's Van Diemen's Land."

Van Diemen's Land at LIFFF

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Winner of the prestigious Audience Choice Award, that is decided by the audience through a grading system after every screening, goes to Moon, directed by Duncan ZH Jones. Audience Choice Award for Short Films goes to Virtual Dating, directed by Katia Olivier.

Moon på FFF
Virtual Dating på FFF

We would like to thank all LIFFF-workers, visitors and guests for a fantastic filmfestival. Thank you all and see you in 2010!

The mini festival is hosted by Husets Bio - a legendary independent cinema in the heart of the city and on Saturday, LIFFF and Husets Bio is throwing a huge opening party with Cory McAbee introducing Stingray Sam as the centerpiece. After the screening, Jack Stevenson will project a collection of crazy rock'n roll videos that will send your soul straight to Hell.

Husets Bio is situated at Magstraede 14, a 5-minute walk from the central station. Tickets can be reserved on billet@husetsbio.dk.

The script for the movie was written by Kan himself and the director, co-producer, Jason Stutter at a local pub. It took about a moth to write it but according to Kan it felt like a much longer time. At the pub they also came up with the idea for the nurses death in the end: ”There were stools in the pub…”. They thought that it was a new and comic way to kill characters, but at the same time they didn't want to make it to bloody like a splatter movie. 

A lot of the questions asked was about the shooting scene: was it a actual hospital and was it really situated next to a graveyard? Raybon answered smiling that the cemetery wasn't a part of the story until they arrived at the scene, ”You can´t make up stuff like that!”. And the hospital was a real, old abandoned hospital, which Kan described as a “Horrible Experience!”.  Then he also had in mind that more than half of the crew got really, really sick, witch lead to several schedule changes. His advise to the audience was: “Never go to hospitals - you will die!”. After the shootings was fished the hospital was demolished. 

Someone in the audience asked if he had worked as a English teacher like his character in the film, and the answer to that was no, he had been a lawyer in his previous career. A truth that surprised and brought a lot of laughter. This is the first time Raybon work as an actor and he found that it was more difficult than he imagined, but most of the time it was fun and instructive. The idea of him doing one of the leading rolls wasn't something that he had planned for a long time, he knew that he was going to be at the shooting scene every day so he could might as well do that to.   
   
At the moment there is no future film project planned, but if they would to a sequel to Diagnosis: Death they would call it Diagnosis: Pregnancy. He couldn't reveal the actual budget for the film but told us that it was less than 1 million dollar, considerable less...

We'd like to thank Raybon Kan for a fantastic film experience and a open-hearted Q&A! 

Photos: Karin Nord

Castellari prefers classical ways of using special effects in his films and tries to limit the amount of modern technology. He works very thoroughly with creating a sense of realism in his films by, for example, shooting one scene in just one take. To the FFF audience he carefully pointed out that he is not making the films by himself. They are made by the whole film crew together. On site he tries to work closely together with the actors, and goes carefully through the process from script to cutting with the crew so that all parties can create their own versions of the character. Changing the script on a proposal by the actors is not a problem.

When asked about how he relates to Quentin Tarantino's interpretation of his film, with Inglorious Basterd from 2009, Castellari replies that he feels very happy and moved by Tarantino choosing his film among millions of others that likewise could be used as inspiration. Castellari also wanted to make sure that Tarantino's film is not a remake, it's a typical Taratinoesque film all by it self.

When Quentin Tarantino arranged a party celebrating the 30-year anniversary of Inglorious Bastards in Los Angeles, a big cake was made resembling the original movie poster. Castellari and Bo Svenson had the honor of cutting the first pieces. Bo went straight for his own head.

After watching the film print that FFF had gotten hold of, Castellari cried out that it was a fantastic copy. He ended the Q&A saying that, if given the possibility of changing the movie he wouldn't: ”I would do everything exactly the same again!”.

On early Monday morning, Castellari rushed through Lund, heading to the airport and onward to Rome, where he would meet with Tarantino on the Italian premiere of Inglorious Basterds. We thank Enzo G. Castellari for a fantastic weekend at FFF and are looking forward to his new project “Caribbean Basterds”!

Jake West revisits FFF and brings with him horror and humor

Jake West amuses the audience with his third visit to the festival. At half past twelve on Saturday night, in the exclusive festival tent (after a couple of low key movies), was it finally time to meet the comedy-horror-maestro and see his fourth contribution to the film festival, Doghouse (prior entries being Razor Blade Smile (1998), Whacked (2002), Evil Aliens (2005)).  Jake himself introduced the film by saying that there would be ”no more slow movies this evening!”. And he was right...

The much appreciated movie was followed by a series of questions from the audience. Each got a straight and humorous answer from the director.

The idea for Doghouse was born when the girlfriend of the script writer Dan Schaffer was ill.  Schaffer thought that his girlfriend looked like a zombie, lying there in her bead. The story was born...

West received a slightly edgy question about product placement in the film, case in point being a certain well known razor producing company shown on a giant billboard in the fiction village Moodley. “We didn't have a lot of money, but needed a billboard. This was the only way to finance it. We tried to do the best of the situation, so we wanted to choose a product that was a strong symbol for men and manhood. That way we could use the destruction of the billboard as a way of symbolizing the fall of manhood”.

This, the fall of manhood, is a theme that is found throughout the movie. West points out the different female zombies seen in the movie, each representing a primal fear for men. The bride symbolizes the fear of commitment, the hair dresser with her scissors flailing in front of her, is a symbol for the male castration anxiety.  

Doghouse, the title of the movie, is short for being “In the Doghouse”, an expression for having trouble with your respective other and being on their bad side. All of the male actors are in the doghouse – even before they are chased down by swarms of female zombies!

West is an experienced low-budget film maker, but for Doghouse he had a slightly bigger budget which meant that he didn't have to focus on the smaller things - a relief as he put it. The film music is composed by Richard Wells, whom West has worked together with two times before: Whacked (2002) and Evil Aliens (2005).

When asked about what movie he would like to do next, West answers: “I would like to do more movies with interesting monster like werewolves and ghosts”.

Jake West edited the movie to be 96 minutes long, but was forced by the production company to shorten the movie to its current 89 minutes. He also wanted the re-work the sound mix. The missing scenes give a deeper glimpse in how the picturesque village is turned from utopia to zombie breeding ground. He ended the Q&A with a promise to deliver a director's cut, if the movie sells well enough.

We hope and believe that Jake West will return to the festival in the future with yet another “to-become-classic-comedy-horror-film”!