By MICHAEL GINGOLD
The major Brazilian festival has a typically expansive selection of frightful features in store.
This year’s Fantaspoa Fantastic Film Festival will be held at four theatrical venues–including one dedicated entirely to short films–from April 13-30 in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Opening night will be a 100th-anniversary tribute to Wallace Worsley’s Lon Chaney-starring classic THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, which will be screened with a new soundtrack by Argentinian guitar virtuoso Germán Suane. The closing-night film will be the world premiere of Konstantinos Koutsoliotas’ Lovecraftian monster musical MINORE, and the recipient of Fantaspoa 2023’s Career Achievement Award will be veteran filmmaker Mark L. Lester, who will screen his action favorites COMMANDO, CLASS OF 1984 and SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO. The fest poster seen below was created by filmmaker Elizabeth Schuch.
According to festival director João Fleck and Nicolas Tonsho, “In 2023, we saw once again a significant increase in film entries–both in number and overall quality of the projects. We received over 800 entries, which is a huge figure for a genre film festival, especially one in Latin America. We are very proud to say that over 80 percent of our program has come directly from FilmFreeway entries, pointing towards a growing industry interest in Fantaspoa.”
The first 40 feature films announced for the fest are:
- ABRUPTIO (d. Evan Marlowe. 2023, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- AMAZING ELISA (d. Sadrac González-Perellón. 2022, Spain; Latin American Premiere)
- ANA’S FAREWELL (d. Luciana Mazeto, Vinícius Lopes. 2022, Brazil; Regional Premiere)
- BAD CITY (d. Kensuke Sonomura. 2022, Japan; Latin American Premiere)
- BALLAD OF PIARGY (d. Ivo Trajkov. 2022, Slovakia, North Macedonia and Czech Republic; Latin American Premiere)
- THE BASEMENT OF SCREAM STREET (d. Sabrina Greve. 2022, Brazil; Regional Premiere)
- THE BEASTS (d. Rodrigo Sorogoyen. 2022, Spain; Regional Premiere)
- THE BLACK SPIDER (d. Markus Fischer. 2022, Switzerland; Latin American Premiere)
- BLOODY BRIDGET (pictured above; d. Richard Elfman. 2023, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- BROOKLYN 45 (d. Ted Geoghegan. 2023, United States; International Premiere)
- THE COFFEE TABLE (d. Caye Casas. 2022, Spain; Latin American Premiere)
- THE ELDERLY (d. Raúl Cerezo and Fernando González Gómez. 2022, Spain; Latin American Premiere)
- FIST OF THE CONDOR (d. Ernesto Díaz Espinoza. 2023, Chile; Latin American Premiere)
- FIXATION (d. Mercedes Bryce Morgan. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- FORBIDDEN WORLD (d. Alê Camargo and Camila Carrossine; 2022, Brazil; Regional Premiere)
- HALFWAY HOME (d. Isti Madarász. 2022, Hungary; International Premiere)
- HOME OWNERS (d. Pablo Aragüés. 2022, Spain; Latin American Premiere)
- HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (d. Mike Cheslik. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- IRATI (d. Paul Urkijo Alijo. 2022, Spain, France; Latin American Premiere)
- KICK ME (d. Gary Huggins. 2022, United States; International Premiere)
- A LIFE ON THE FARM (d. Oscar Harding. 2022, United Kingdom; Brazilian Premiere)
- LINOLEUM (d. Colin West. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- MELTDOWN: A NUCLEAR FAMILY’S ASCENSION INTO MADNESS (d. Colton Van Til. 2023, United States; World Premiere)
- MINORE (d. Konstantinos Koutsoliotas, 2023, Greece; World Premiere)
- MOLLI AND MAX IN THE FUTURE (d. Michael Lukk Litwak. 2023, United States; International Premiere)
- MOON GARDEN (d. Ryan Stevens Harris. 2022, United States; National Premiere)
- MY GRANDFATHER’S DEMONS (d. Nuno Beato. 2022, Portugal; Latin American Premiere)
- NEXT EXIT (d. Mali Elfman. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE FUTURE: 2121 (d. Serpil Altin. 2022, Turkey; Latin American Premiere)
- ONE PERCENTER (d. Yûdai Yamaguchi. 2022, Japan; Latin American Premiere)
- ORPHEA IN LOVE (d. Axel Ranisch. 2022, Germany; Latin American Premiere)
- ROTTEN FLOWERS (d. Kasper Juhl. 2022, Denmark; Latin American Premiere)
- SAFE SPACE (d. Stefan Kubicki. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- SIREN (d. Junyong Ahn. 2022, Brazil; Latin American Premiere)
- SOFT & QUIET (d. Beth de Araújo. 2022, United States; Latin American Premiere)
- TOBACCO BARNS (d. Rocío Mesa. 2022, Spain; Latin American Premiere)
- VESPER (d. Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper. 2022, France, Lithuania, and Belgium; Latin American Premiere)
- VIRUS-32 (d. Gustavo Hernández. 2022, Uruguay and Argentina; Brazilian Premiere)
- WE ARE STILL HERE (d. Chantelle Burgoyne, Beck Cole, Dena Curtis, Richard Curtis, Mario Gaoa, Danielle MacLean, Miki Magasiva, Renae Maihi, Tracey Rigney, and Tim Worrall. 2022, Australia and New Zealand; Latin American Premiere)
- WITCH GAME (d. Fabián Forte. 2023, Argentina; World Premiere)
