One of the main attractions of ICON TLV –the 14th annual Science fiction, fantasy and role-playing convention- is its film festival. Showing films from all over the words in a variety of different programs, the film festival serves as a platform for the local premieres of films big and small, high-profile and virtually unheard of, in a wide variety of forms, formats and coming from all over the world.
The festival opens on September 25th with Scott Pilgrim vs. The World -Director Edgar Wright’s (Shawn of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) highly anticipated adaptation of Brian Lee O’Mally’s comic-book series. Michael Cera, geek heartthrob (Arrested Development, Superbad, Juno) who makes awkward look sexy, stars as a young man who has to fight his girlfriend’s seven exes to win her heart.
Mr. Nobody, winner of the Biografilm Award at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, will close the festival on September 30th. Far from the mainstream, this ambitious film from Belgian director Jaco Van Dormael deals with an 118 year old protagonist- the last mortal on earth- (Jared Leto) who reviews his life and relives the choices made along the way.
In between those two, are so many films it’s hard to choose what to write about, let alone see, but here are some films to consider:
Stanislaw Lem (Solaris) fans will want to check out 1, written and directed by Hungarian filmmaker Peter Sparrow, who will be present at the screening. The film is inspired by Polish writer of science fiction, philosophy and satire Lem’s essay One Human Minute – a meditation on the nature of reality and human behavior (and satire of the publishing world) in the guise of a review of a non-existent book that catalogues everything that happens on earth in one minute. In Sparrow’s version the entire contents of a bookstore are replaced overnight with a book titled 1. The mysterious book has no author or publisher and describes what happens to all of humanity in one minute. A police investigation is initiated, members of the bookstore staff are immediately hauled off to lock up, and the mystery becomes only more complex.
The Call of Cthulhu is a 2005 silent movie adaptation of a short story by H. P. Lovecraft, written by Sean Branney and directed by Andrew Leman, that employs Mythoscope, a blend of vintage and modern filming techniques intended to produce the look of a 1920s-era film. A young man inherits artifacts from the cult of Cthulhu from his uncle, and sets off on a search that becomes an obsession. The movie will be screened as part of the academic program of the festival, accompanying a session devoted to the writings of H. P. Lovecraft.
Metropia, recipient of the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the 2009 Venice Film Festival, is a Swedish animated film directed by Tarik Saleh and written by Fredrik Edin, Stig Larsson and Tarik Saleh. In a future Europe, with a vast inter-connected underground network, Roger avoids the underground because he finds it distressing. Sometimes when he is close to the underground, he hears a strange voice in his head. The desire to be free of the voice leads Roger to an even more unsettling discovery and ensuing adventures.
Zak Penn (The Grand, X-Men The Last Stand) meets Werner Herzog in Incident at Loch Ness (2004), a mockumentary film within a film within a film. The elaborate hoax will be screened as part of the festival’s academic program, accompanying a session on Cryptozoology – the study and search for mythical creatures considered non-existent by mainstream biology.
There is action of all kinds with Defendor– Kick Ass bratty sibling, with Woody Harrelson donning costume to fight evil, Predators the Robert Rodriguez produced return to popular 80’s franchise, with Adrien Brody, and Suck – with appearances by Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper in a Canadian rock comedy about a rock band that sees its popularity rise when its members become vampires.
Ivan Engler and Ralph Etter, Swiss co-directors of the movie Cargo are guests of the festival and will be present at the screening. Set in the future, when Earth is no longer fit for human habitation and most people must live on over-crowded space stations, Rhea, a planet five light years away is the place to go, but few can afford the expensive journey. Laura Portman, a young doctor, joins the crew of the cargo ship Kassandra on its four-year journey to Station 42 in hopes of earning enough money to join her sister Arianne on Rhea and becomes involved in a suspenseful mystery that takes place deep in space.
Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal (# 33 in the Disc World series) was made into a fantastic British mini-series. Any encounter with Pratchett wins a top spot on the “Don’t Miss” list.
Pandorum is directed by Christian Alvart, one of ICON TLV’s international guests, who will be present at the screening on September 27th and hold a discussion with the audience immediately afterwards. Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster star as two astronauts who awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard an apparently abandoned spacecraft, with no memory of their mission or their identities. Alvart, born near Frankfurt, Germany in 1974, grew up in a strict religious environment that disapproved of film and television, making it perhaps inevitable that he would be drawn to the forbidden media. At the age of 19 Alvart became an editor and layout designer with the X-TRO Filmmagazin, soon working his way up to editor-in-chief and eventually even owning the special interest publication. In 1998, he wrote, produced and directed Curiosity & The Cat, his first 35mm feature film. In 2005, he debuted Antibodies, his second work as a director. When it premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival he was named as one of “Five Directors to Watch” as well as the “German New Face of Cinema” at The AFI Festival.
Thirst, written, directed and produced by Park Chan-wook, won the Jury Prize at the 2009 Cannes Festival. The South Korean film tells the story of a priest who becomes a vampire as the result of a failed medical experiment. Splice is a 2009 Canadian-French science fiction-horror film directed by Vincenzo Natali and starring Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley, who portray a young scientist couple, who introduce human DNA into their work of splicing animal genes. Repo Men is a 2010 American science fiction action thriller directed by Miguel Sapochnik, starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker, based on the novel Repossession Mambo by Eric Garcia.
Three new Israeli features will be shown at the festival. Yaron Kaftori’s 2048 imagines a world in which Israel no longer exists from the point of view of refugees. Daniel Mann’s Future Diaries about a family’s rough and tumble existence after leaving Israel due to a disaster, depicted as a series of home videos. Assaf Tager’s Andante –a metaphysical journey through a world in which humans have lost the capacity to dream.
Horror and trash fans – you know who you are. Catch midnight screenings of Alien vs. Ninja, The Human Centipede, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl and Pontypool.
Let’s not forget the classics. It would not be a festival without The Princess Bride, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Galaxy Quest and wonderful cult movies like Robin Hood: Men in Tights – movies we love to see over and over and over again, regardless of their strict adherence to the SF genre.
A final word on the various short film sessions in the festival, Israeli & international: SEE THEM. Why? Because only at festivals such as ICON TLV is there an opportunity to become acquainted with these films that rarely receive wide distribution.
AYELET DEKEL AND SHLOMO PORATH
