By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Where’s the only place you can see the director of ST. ELMO’S FIRE and the Scumdogs of the Universe in the same room? At this year’s edition of the Cinepocalypse film festival!
The people behind the Chicago-based genre event have announced that Schumacher, whose credits also include the vampire classic THE LOST BOYS, the paranormal chiller FLATLINERS and the snuff shocker 8MM, will serve as president of Cinepocalypse 2019. Taking place June 13-20 at the city’s historic Music Box Theatre, the fest will host screenings of FLATLINERS in 70mm and his thriller FALLING DOWN in 35mm. “I’m absolutely thrilled to be heading back to Chicago, where I shot FLATLINERS and did a play for David Mamet at the Wisdom Bridge Theatre,” Schumacher says. “I am also very flattered to be asked to be head of the jury, which I have no qualifications for whatsoever.”
Cinepocalypse founder Josh Goldbloom says, “We’ve wanted to honor Joel’s iconic filmography for some time and, as it turns out, he’ll be the one honoring us. To have a filmmaker of his influence presiding over our jury is at once humbling, mind-numbingly rad and mostly just completely insane. I hope I don’t scare him away by quoting too many lines from FALLING DOWN.”
In addition, BälSäc the Jaws o’ Death and Sleazy P. Martini of seminal (in both senses of the word) heavy metal band GWAR will invade Cinepocalypse for screenings of their boundary-bashing short films and music videos, a career-spanning Q&A and a special show where they’ll live-riff on John Fasano’s guilty-pleasure classic ROCK ’N’ ROLL NIGHTMARE! The full list of Cinepocalypse films and other special guests will be announced in May, so keep your eyes here!
