@ BIFFF 2010

Rejoice oh faithful. The Brussels Festival of Fantasy Film is back in town. And after numerous (well, one) complaints about having abandoned my traditional summaries, informed advices and reports straight off the festival floor last year, I will better my life and resume said efforts for the 2010 edition.

The times have changed however. My rather late adoption of the whole range of social networking and blogging opportunities provided by our “the future is now”-world cancels the need for group-emails. This year I will collect everything I have to say on a blog, and alert the entries to you, dear reader, via Facebook.

So what better subject for the very first entry in my new blog then a complete rundown of the program of the 2010 BIFFF? Let's get started, while, appropriately, in the background the Duncan Jones SF-movie “Moon” is playing...

I always do this: I look at the program and get all excited, but by the time the festival is over I have to admit to almost as many disappointments as high hopes I initially entertained. Nevertheless, after having a look at the program for this year's festival that has just today taken it's final shape, I still feel it is going to be a really good year. It becomes a bore to say it, but I see again a perfectly balanced collection of brutal horror and gore, stylistic experiments, big-budget USA, Asian fantastic cinema and anime and a generous selection of European genre films you might otherwise not encounter at your local movie complex.

I do hope that some of our digital tv-providers are taking notes, because their technology for renting films “online” allows for a new distribution channel by which these films might find an audience. Hey you, Jan Verheyen with your little advisory job for Belgacom tv, why not create a special category this April with movies from last year? Then repeat...

Anyway, back to the program.

Full disclosure: everything I say from now on is entirely based on bias and prejudice, with the exception of the handful of movies I have already seen. I reserve the right to recant everything I confess.

Thursday 8/4 - Opening Night

“Well girls”, said the stoic detective looking out the window in the middle of the 80s classic Night of the Creeps, “I've got some good news and some bad news...”

“Oooh”, chirped a bunch of girls in the dormitory, all ready for their senior prom, “what's the good news?”

- “Your boyfriends have arrived”

“Oooh”, they chirped, excitedly, only to lower their voices for the inevitable: “But what's the bad news??”

- “They're DEAD.”

So I have some good and bad news too: the good news is you can save your money for the expensive opening night movie. The bad news? That you should save it, I guess.

The Fourth Kind is the slightly less comfortable encounter with UFO's then Spielberg's happy-go-lucky Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The fourth kind, we are told, also entails contact with extra-terrestrials but with the unpleasant addition of an alien probe inserted somewhere in your body where the sun don't shine. At the start of the movie, actress Mila Jovovich approaches the camera and announces she will be playing the part of a doctor in a dramatization of real-life interviews taken with people who have experienced alien abductions. As the movie progresses, the scenes are interspersed with footage from the original interviews.

Now, only people with their heads stuck between the gates of Area 51 can be stupid enough to believe that this footage is actually real. Of course, these scenes are also filmed with actors, just different ones, and with a low-quality camera, all with the intent to launch some kind of “meme” on the internet that resembles the marketing campaign that catapulted The Blair Witch Project into movie history.

That is all good and well, and I actually like a lot of these “live captured” movies like REC and Cloverfield. The technique they use is an innovative form of “folding”, something that will get more explanation at a later date. But this movie is more akin to the recent Paranormal Activity. Inexplicably, some people some of who's opinions I respect, really liked that movie but I have to give it the dreaded IMDB forum post title “WORST MOVIE EVER”. The problem I have with it is that the story just doesn't go anywhere. By the time you think it finally picks up pace, you have arrived at the final shot of the movie. Again, it seems to be scary only to people who are already inclined to believe these things do happen in real life.

Maybe this total lack of narrative is somehow the point. Maybe the idea is to create some kind of atmosphere, to exist “in the moment”. Maybe there is some drug somewhere you can take to make the experience feel real but otherwise I can discover no redeeming quality to that movie.

Likewise, The Fourth Kind never goes beyond it's interviews in which people in increasing states of agitation or hypnosis recall some vague and undefined traumatic experience. We never get to see aliens or UFO's but for the briefest of shadows. I'll grant that The Fourth Kind has some more variation to it than it's predecessor and that the conceit of “dramatizing” the original footage allows for a movie that is at least better shot and looks prettier for most of it's running time. But still. “What was the point??” is the feeling with which I watch the credits. If you insist on seeing it anyway, you can come and enlighten me while I sample the sponsored drinks at the bar.

Friday 9/4

OK so we're off to a bad start. Let's call it the bad rehearsal before the great show. This show starts now.

Not to be missed:

Due to loss of a second theater, no big loss if you ask me since that little side room consistently suffered from technical difficulties and ambient noise from outside, the festival starts much earlier than other years, to wit at around 14h00 most of the days. Hey, it's more or less holiday season.

If nevertheless you can make it, you could do worse than catching Blood River, the third movie by Adam Mason. Mason is a cool guy I had the pleasure of interviewing for The Devil's Chair two years ago and before that brought the brutal Broken to the BIFFF. Both were fine movies realized with limited means. He likes to reach out to his audience too, including with podcasts that you can find online. And the guy makes his own movies, without holding back or compromising. Plus he seems to have an instinct for making the right decision just before shooting finishes, steering his movies in the right direction before disaster can strike. I hope to be pleasantly surprised a third time in a row on his Blood River.

The 20h00 spot of the first actual day of the festival, for some reason, has always been the place to find something that if it doesn't grow into a full scale classic, like the first Scream movie once did, still typically hosts a pure BIFFF movie that defines the festival and is virtually guaranteed to provide a good time. This year a childhood memory comes to the big screen. Luc Besson, french director of huge movies like Leon or The Fifth Element has turned the comic book series Isabelle Avondrood by legendary artist Jacques Tardi into a feature film and this is going to be big, sexy and cool. Imagine early 20^th century Paris, a beautiful parisienne as heroin, a kind of steam-punk atmosphere but with a pterodactyl instead of a robot hovering over the city streets... Now throw in the budget a man like Besson can generate and you will have Les Aventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec. (I know, the dutch translation of her name does not at all resemble the french original – sounds just as good all the same). For the recreation of pre-war Paris alone, this is going to be worth your while.

Also tonight:

16h00: The Collector comes out of the neighborhood that set the Saw-franchise loose upon the world. This may be a bit more mainstream, and it may also try to hard too launch a new franchise. Freddies don't grow on trees though, so I have my doubts. Anyway, you are sure to catch it in theaters after the festival.

18h00: I have no idea about this Hidden so I'll leave that one to your coin toss.

22h00: Hardly out of the theater from Adele Sec-Blanc you may be tempted to go back in for the umpteenth zombie-movie by George Romero. Let's remember two things about this man. First he not only invented the genre but made the best zombie movie ever with (the original) Dawn of the Dead, a movie so good it's poster has earned a place on my wall. Secondly, his belated return to the genre with Land of the Dead was a toe-curling disaster of left-wing political correctness in which the zombies represent the misunderstood muslims about whom the evil capitalist humans have no reason to complain when they run over their big tower building. Get it? Not only are Romero's political allegories as daft as Chomsky's, but at a deeper level, it is profoundly unwise to try to turn the dead into “good guys”. Because something that is dead and walking is evil. Something prehistoric inside our brains knows this, and you mess with that at your peril.

Ironically, his next one, Diary of the Dead was great. Again using the technique of the in-movie camera, we follow a film crew that while filming a horror movie, gets caught up in a real-life zombie infection and decides to just keep on filming. This movie worked like a charm because every single scene was familiar from previous Romero movies, and the “breaking out” of these scenes into the world of the movie-makers, which also happens to be yours and mine, was profoundly effective. Again an example of the “folding”-effect. Unfortunately it seems Romero struck gold while looking for water: he seemed to think he was making some deep political commentary on “the media” while in reality he managed to only make a comment on... Romero zombie movies.

So how is this Survival of the Dead going to fare? That is anybody's guess but the claim can be made that for no other reason than his contribution to horror history, this director deserves the benefit of the doubt.

24h00: We go into the night with a Japanese double bill: Hard Revenge, Milly and Hard Revenge Milly: Bloody Battle. The fact that each movie is hardly longer than an hour and the originality of the title of part 2, should give you some idea of the density of blood-letting per meter film. Japanese movies like this tend to be fun in a so-bad-it's-good kinda way, although by the time they reach this festival, the best of the crop have usually been selected. If interested I got a better idea a few days from now.

Saturday 10/4

Not to be missed:

Aaahhh!! So happy to see this at BIFFF this year. I know it's Saturday and I know it's early, but Pontypool (16h00) has a LOT to offer while pretending not to. Hup, it's another zombie outbreak. From the confines of the studio of a radio station, we follow the radio jockey and his crew of two, as strange and increasingly frightening news reports keep coming in and convince them that instead of an elaborate prank, something seriously bad is happening outside. The movie effectively hides it's low budget by limiting itself to one location (and relatively few zombies). Instead it masterfully builds up the tension, helped enormously by the charismatic lead actor (who was also the older Nite Owl in Watchmen). All this is already great and well, but then follows a twist about the particulars of this zombie-virus, something so original and at the same time so contemporary I'd really hate to spoil the surprise for you here. Damn.. You know what, I'll come back to this movie after the screening, because a lot more can be philosophized about it. Also, rumors have it, it may be the first part of a trilogy, so be hip and be there first. 

Also tonight:

14h00: The Japanese manga adaptation Ikigami has me concerned for a number of reasons: it's programmed really early and it's story resembles a bit a lot the classic two-parter Death Note from a few years ago. This has no bearing on the manga, but it might mean this film adaptation was rushed into production to jump on the bandwagon. Nevertheless, one cannot know until one tries. Hey, the ticket is bound to be cheap!

18h00: I will say about the movie Christopher Roth that it has a great poster, but that whenever somebody who is really great at one aspect of movie-making, in this case photography, gets it into his head to become a director, the results are not always guaranteed. It's allowance into the International Competition may be to support a budding filmmaker... Well I'm sure it'll look great.

20h00: Moving on to Solomon Kane: a) you're likely to encounter the film in theaters later. b) It is likely to settle in the middle between good and bad, which at the BIFFF is the worst you can get.

22h00: Remember the scary face of Le Chiffre in the Bond movie Casino Royale? The actor in question is back for the 22h00 time-traveling moral tale The Door. There is something relevant to time-travel movies, because they essentially boil down to a character trying to escape the story of which they are a part. And isn't that the human condition in a nutshell? I'm interested, but conceivably more inclined to save my energy for...

0h00 – 8h00: THE NIGHT!!!!

Tadaa! Bring out the toilet paper, the sirens and prepare to miss the first 15 minutes of the first movie, lost in screams and shouts as the audience goes wild, no berserk, for a full night of horror films.

In truth, this evening does not bring out the best out of the BIFFF audience, as there are always some losers present who don't know when to shut up, or when not to. Amateurs. Hold on to movie 3 or 4 though and they eventually lose their will power (or even better, fuck off to their beds).

Never mind, how about the movies? Are they worth staying up an entire night for?

Well...

Two years ago, with movies like REC and A L'Interieur which I will defend to be a french horror classic to whoever dares to contradict me, the choice was simple. This year, the films seem well chosen for the NIGHT, but perhaps are less interesting to see in their own right. Oh well, at least we are saved from German Star Trek comedies, that one still gives me nightmares and not in a good way.

Starter is Daybreakers, based on an idea that I heard a bunch of young Belgian guys float up in the bar years ago and that sounded just too ridiculous to me. I guess you never know. Not sure if they are involved in any way – I doubt it – but here it is: vampires have eaten up so much of humanity that we have become a scarce resource – allegedly like oil, you know – and some plan needs to be hatched and probably some battle to be fought. Don't know anything more except that this is high-budget USA stuff that will get it's own release in theaters later.

I promised a better alternative to the Japanese blood&gore explosion of the first day, remember? Here it is in the form of Vampire Girl and Frankenstein Girl. Hm. Couldn't they have called it something less repetitive, like Vampire Chick and Frankenstein Cougar? Whatever, from the makers of Tokyo Gore Police and Machine Girl, which says enough to those who have seen these movies, and for those who haven't, yeah, you should watch one of those films at least once.

Next up is the movie that allows you to catch some sleep if need be. Rumah Dara, an Indonesian version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the wife of the house as a Leatherface without the mask. 'Nuff said.

Finally, as should be, some derivative absolutely non-intellectual movie that is not based on a shoot-'m-up game but could be. Soldiers in a VR computer game battle a ghost. This just makes no sense at all. Luckily it is by now too late for good sense. Could these bad movies in the end be chosen to cut down on the number of croissants required afterward? Ghost Machine.

Sunday 11/4

Not to be missed:

The midnight movies are selected of course to be even more extreme, bloody, transgressive and over-the-edge than the rest. Surely it is no coincidence that the first two of these midnight movies are both from Japan. While operations on siamese twins are typically intended to separate them, in this movie two innocent girls, obviously abducted, become the subject of a medical experiment to join them, and thus create the first Human Centipede. I couldn't even care if the execution of this movie is not perfect although early reviews from FrightFest suggest it is, it deserves to be seen for the idea alone.

Also tonight:

14h00: Already awake for the Swiss SF-film Cargo? I can think of one reason to go: there are not enough SF films made. All the other reasons are for sleeping the previous NIGHT off. This movie sounds too cheap, too politically correct (the Earth's ecological system is history again, oh how I long for the days of Mad Max when a thermonuclear war was required for that, instead of the rise of the world's temperature by a poultry 1.5 degrees Celsius) and on top of it too predictable. Take cover in cryo...

16h00: The thing to admit about 1 is that it has both a to-the-point and completely non-descriptive title. Also an intriguing poster. The BIFFF pays some attention to Hungaria this year, this is their film. It's claim to fame is that it is based on a short story by Stanislaw Lem, the Russian author of the novel Solaris. Now that is a credential that can count. It's going to be one hell of a busy day though but I'm going to give it a try. What is a BIFFF without a few days of 4 movies in a bloody row?

18h00: Look at the incredible poster of the Japanese anime King of Thorn and give up all resistance. Sure, adapting manga that in this case consists of 36 issues into a below 2 hour movie is always a tricky deal. The legendary Ghost in the Shell once pulled it off, even improving in some ways on the original. Can this one too? It is a fact that one of the directors managed to respect the original story of Appleseed when he made the first adaptation of that story. If he can bring the same balancing act to this anime, this could be interesting even for people who do not dress up like “L” on cosplay day.

20h00: In Ondine Collin Farrell catches a mermaid in his nets. Well, not one with a tail. So we are not in Splash! territory like the young Tom Hanks, but in a more serious psychological drama with ambitions of high art, for sure. Farrell of course played in both Alexander by Oliver Stone and The New World by Terence Malick. He is unlikely to sign on to a bullshit film. Having said that, these mainstream movies sometimes miss the edge I come to expect from a BIFFF movie. The director, FYI, is Neil Jordan who you cannot forget made The Crying Game and more in the genre, In Dreams.

22h00: The thing with the staple anti-racist movie is that it betrays a double superiority complex: everybody is a xenophobe with a mob mentality, except the hero of the piece who functions as – dare I say it – an Avatar for the director who can then put himself on a pedestal of moral superiority, looking down on his uneducated fellow country men. For the accusation of xenophobia to hold, it becomes necessary to paint the foreigner as a “noble savage” who is too innocent to be capable of evil. That attitude is the other side of the superiority complex because it hides a perspective on the “other” that is in essence condescending, paternalistic and even neo-colonialistic. Deliver Us From Evil indeed, especially of this kind...

Monday 12/4

Not to be missed:

The center of today's offering is of course the new Dario Argento movie Giallo at 20h00. Argento is the godfather of the BIFFF, he opened the very first festival in 1983 and since then everything he makes automatically gets a place on the program. For most of the time this was always deserved – Suspiria is a visual feast and The Stendhal Syndrome I consider to be my second most favorite movie ever – but truth be told, in recent years Dario has lost a lot of his magic. His final entry in the Mothers-trilogy, The Third Mother, did not click at all for me and even his stories in the Masters of Horror TV series were just exercises in extreme gore without much intelligence around it.

Perhaps, under commercial pressure from his unfortunately conservative fans he has repeated himself too much? If this is the case, the title of this movie promises little good as “giallo” is the genre that made him famous in the 70s. It refers to a kind of pulp fiction detective story that distinguishes itself by setting the action in exquisite sets and/or the use of elegant and designed camera moves. On the plus side, an actor like Adrien Brody (The Pianist, King Kong,...) has seen fit to join this project. So maybe it is a return to form for the old master, or else another waste of your time. I refuse to not give it a try but cannot recommend blindly, anymore.

Also tonight:

14h00 & 22h00: Both Savage and Heartless seem to address the same theme: in cities infected by “youth” crime (hm, curious which “youths” it are going to be) single, isolated and traumatized men take justice into their own hands. No heroics from a Charles Bronson or caped crusader here, though. These men seem too far gone to save anybody, certainly not themselves.

16h00: Lighter material may be found in the small-scale Japanese movie Fish Story in which a handful of losers travel back in time and might, or not, save the world from an approaching meteor. It sounds like this movie is going to depend mostly on characters and good scripting. That can be a refreshing change at the BIFFF, sometimes.

18h00: Buffy The Vampire Slayer-fans may be interested to check out Timer because it features Emma Caulfield who played the ex-vengeance demon Anya on that show. I'm sure she can do comedy, not sure if the people who make good comedy are smart enough to ask her. Some of the old Buffy-crew have made it into new, good series, others like Caulfield have hardly been heard from. Nevertheless, the idea here – everybody carries a timer that counts down to the time when they will meet their soul mate – is one of these SF-ideas that takes advantage of the rule you can ask the audience to believe 1 magical thing about your story – all the rest from that moment on has to make sense without further suspension of disbelief. Also, if you are a romantic, you are on the wrong festival here so this may be your only chance.

0h00: The midnight movie Invitation Only, finally, is a category 3 Hong-Kong rip-off of torture porn, a genre I am no great fan of. The genre seems to think the interest in horror movies is because the audience likes to fantasize about being the torturers themselves. I think that is an over-simplification of what we really look for in horror movies, so the torture porn flicks end up being as superficial as their philosophy, and not a little hypocritical to boot.

Tuesday 13/4

Not to be missed:

It is absolutely shameful to admit it, but I have never seen a movie by Japanese cult director Sabu. I promise to make it up this year with Kanikosen. If anybody else but a director with his reputation would try to tackle the following story, I would run for the hills: based on the novel of a Japanese communist from 80 years ago, a fishermen crew exploited by their captain finds refuge in the communist paradise on board a Russian cargo ship. One cannot possibly film this story sincerely without falling into the worst and outdated propaganda – which I am sure the original novel has become by now. Just to see what twist Sabu is going to pull off to make this work, is going to be worth the price of admission alone. Hey, the price for me is actually zero! My life in shame is almost at an end.

Also tonight:

14h00: If the Austrian version of Jef Geeraerts would turn one of his own crime novels into a movie, you would get more or less The Bone Man. Rather then have really, really bad guys, this movie will be slightly more comedic. It is also terribly early so maybe we should leave it to the Austrian expats currently living in Brussels.

16h00: Ingrid is a bit of an experiment; finding actors on the internet and having them play themselves is the director's starting point for a movie that takes place amongst a kind of bohemian community of artists, except they are a bit more warped then expected. The improvised way to make the movie may prove to be it's weak point though, as a good story is still usually the best way to hold an audience's attention and filming yourself is not half as interesting to strangers as it is to those being filmed.

20h00: Now that Kathryn Bigelow has won the Oscar for best director, the professional feminists are pretending some kind of revolution has taken place while in reality, they have been living for decades in a world where nobody gives a damn whether a director has a penis or not. It's just that there are so very few female directors, and hence also very few winners. I have my doubts that the director of Cold Souls will ever join the short list, but still, a bit of a dark comedy in the vein of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind could be entertaining enough.

22h00: And so we come to another recurring visitor of BIFFF: Uwe Boll. Known amongst some as the worst director working today, he is certainly a shrewd business man who has managed to turn an endless list of video games into movies, to great protest and howling of the fans of these games. His real trick was to take advantage of a German tax evasion system that virtually guaranteed him to break even on his movies and allow him to spend obscene amounts of money on hiring big Hollywood names.

Those days are over. A change in the law has forced even Uwe Boll to balance the budget, which has actually turned out to be a good thing. His merciless 9/11 parody Postal was, despite it's knee-jerk anti-Americanism, good. Partially, it helps that he seems to be honest about not being supposed to be taken seriously. No correct that, he is serious about self-promotion and self-deprecation at the same time. What other German director has the spotlight find him by wearing t-shirts that read: “My movies are paid with Nazi gold”?

Never mind the movie, which I will go and see, you know, but definitely come to the Q&A which will be at least as entertaining as the movie, Rampage, itself.

0h00: In Reykjavik Whale Watching Massacre, a crew of out-of-business whale hunters turn their harpoons on Greenpeace activists instead. Heh-heh... bring it on! The Icelandic movie industry is in a worse state than the rest of the economy, so this may be your last chance to see a movie from this country. On the other hand, genre-films are typically a guaranteed way to make their money back so with a little luck, perhaps we will see even more horror come out of Iceland soon. A hunt on Icelandic bankers, this time, maybe?

Wednesday 14/4

Not to be missed:

The film to love or hate today will be Thirst. Director Park Chan-wook is South-Korea's hottest commodity right now. His Vengeance-trilogy, which includes Old Boy, was hyped by Quentin Tarantino in the West so that helped. In his new movie a catholic priest becomes a vampire which allows Park to address themes of guilt and desire. This movie is no gore-fest, it is a serious film that invites much more discussion afterward. I actually already bought the Blu-Ray and am quite happy now that I haven't gotten around to watching it yet. Having said that, I hope the BIFFF audience will show some respect. Park can manage to divide audiences sometimes, especially it seems with this film. Some people have reported turning the damn thing off while others hail it as a masterpiece. But those are the movies worth trying. It may also be remembered that the young actress Ok-bin Kim got the part after more established actresses refused it over the copious amounts of nudity and sex scenes. There, see how easy it was to convince you?

Also tonight:

14h00: There are not many movies at the BIFFF you can take your children to, but I'm afraid Under the Mountain is not much of a candidate. Rumor has it that despite it's Weta-created special effects, it is a bit of a bore.

16h00: In Beacon 77 the hacking of the firewall of the Vatican unleashes an evil spirit. Is this something new, paranormal tech-thrillers? Maybe worth a try if expectations for this low-budget effort are sufficiently lowered.

18h00: Outcast also mixes two worlds: the magical and the “fourth world” of unemployment and poverty. That sounds actually like an interesting mix, if and only if some kind of folding between these two worlds ends up being the theme, and not just one functioning as the background for the other. We shall see...

22h00: The actor playing the serial killer in Duress is Martin Donovan, a man who became mostly recognized through his work in Hal Hartley movies. His style is very understated yet I believe he will be able to portray this part with absolute menace. The story is that he takes a house father hostage and trains him as his protege. The psychological form of horror is not overly present on this BIFFF so this may be a good chance for some change of pace. Plus let's face it, cat and mouse games are inherently entertaining.

0h00: Several so-called civil rights organizations in the USA, like CAIR, the Council of American Islamic Relations, are front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood, the theological founders of Al-Qaeda and in their own words dedicated to “a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and 'sabotaging' its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions." Due to lack of any significant retaliation of Americans against muslims living in the US after 9/11, CAIR has been caught on occasion inventing such “hate crimes”. One wonders why they have to go through the trouble when you have movies like ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction, in which the American rednecks must team up with an arab girl and a gay guy they were previously attacking, to ward of – yes – another zombie invasion. The zombie movie as a moral lesson against “islamophobia”... That sound you hear is not a zombie devouring it's victim. It's me throwing up in the seat beside me.

Thursday 15/4

Not to be missed:

The founding myth of America is that it is a “promised land”, in the biblical sense of the word, to which the pilgrim travels, throwing off his origin culture in order to be reborn into a new religion. If the religious conflicts that chased the early Americans out of Europe can be considered to be the remnants of pagan sensibilities of the only partially christianized Europeans, and hence America as the only pure realization of the christian ideal, than how interesting is a movie like Valhalla Rising (18h00) that shifts the whole story to the time of the Vikings, pits early Christians and old pagans against each other as one group follows a mute and brutal fighter to an accidental discovery of America? This movie takes itself bloody serious and will probably not be easy to sit through – but the potential for pondering the themes after the screening are too good to miss out on.

Also tonight:

14h00 & 16h00: I will drop the ball on Slice and The Eclipse, I know little to nothing about them. I'll just note that, for the first, Thai horror won the Golden Raven two years ago with 13 Beloved, so the country should not be underestimated, and for the second, that it sounds like one of the more convincing love stories at the BIFFF this year. Also with a ghost added to the mix, of course.

20h00: Orphan is a more by-the-numbers movie and if you were not at the BIFFF but at the video store it might be an OK choice. Here however you should prefer stuff more on the edge. But if you like your formulas than this horror movie about the “evil child”, although through most of it's running time entirely predictable, will work for you. And there is one nice thing to say about it: the “explanation” at the end is a good one, and pretty unexpected.

22h00: Another South-Korean horror movie I have already seen is Possessed. It is certainly well made, telling the story of a girl looking for her disappeared sister with the help of a skeptical police officer. Two things stand out: the excellent acting of both lead actresses and the collision of two belief systems: the fanatic Christianity of the mother and the suspicious dabbling in black magic by the neighbors. Unfortunately, despite the acceptable story and it's conclusion, there are very little scares in it, for a horror movie that is. It plays out more like a kind of supernatural family drama. It's commendable that the director did not litter his film with cheap scares and loud noises, but something to replace them would have been nice. As it stands, it is hardly a film that cannot be missed.

0h00: As for Life and Death of a Porn Gang, there must be something existentially rotten in the state of Serbia if the victims of snuff porn movies volunteer their lives, deemed not worthy living anyway.

Friday 16/4

Not to be missed:

Kaboom! There is no way to choose a favorite today because if all goes well, I will see all four films. This I might add is the day to come for the sadists amongst us. The violence on display will be record-breaking. I wonder what people would have thought on the first BIFFF in 1983 if we were to present them with some of the movies of today...

At 20h00 is the scandal creating The Killer Inside Me by Michael Winterbottom. Having previously directed movies like 9 Songs and Code 46 he is automatically worthy of our attention, especially if you know the hype around this movie involves the serious violence inflicted on such mainstream stars as Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson. It will be particularly nasty as this film will put us squarely in the mind of the killer, not the victim.

Also highly interesting is the next movie, Ink. A small-scale independent production, it hardly could find a distributor until it became a download-hit online, leading to word-of-mouth and eventually higher DVD-sales. The temporary highlight of this movie's career is of course it's appearance on the BIFFF program! Of the story I know little save that is has some fantasy reality mixed in with contemporary reality, and storytellers. And folding, like origami.

We end this spectacular day with a movie I fear might reach even my pain threshold. A Serbian Film sees a retired porn actor be recruited for one final project, only to discover that this one involves real rape and real murder. While the subject of snuff has been dealt with before, never has it been in a movie that feels and sounds like a snuff film itself. The sex and violence on display in the trailer alone are impressive. I cannot recall anything similar except perhaps the American underground film Murder Set Pieces. If there is a Q&A, somebody should ask a question pertaining to the Yugoslavian civil war, theater of real life equivalents of this movie.

Also tonight:

18h00: One of the Hobbit actors (Billy Boyd) stars together with Gerard Depardieu in a movie about a duel between two rivaling pianists. This story has been done, and better no doubt if only for the more interesting profession, in Christopher Nolan's The Prestige. (the duelists in that movie are stage magicians). But regardless, it can be fun to see the exercise repeated. The duel is one of the most fundamental stories that can be told and although playing music is a more abstract performance than a magical act, it still leaves room for an interesting fold. Glen 3948.

Saturday 17/4

Tough call to choose a favorite today.

14h00: If you have seen the first part, the Japanese 20^th Century Boys part 2 is not to be missed. The story is one of the most involved, world-affecting plots ever and quite the hype in it's country of origin. Part 3 plays a few days from now. However if you have not seen part 1 yet, there is little point. One for the fans.

16h00: Alternatively, the movie Metropia uses yet another animation technique. The effect should be wholly original, which may not be said about the derivative dystopian future in which the story takes place.

18h00: I have zero faith in the Belgian Vampires, a kind of fanged version of C'est arrive prez de chez mois. While obviously that movie was very entertaining, I fear that in this replay of the same idea, as usual, french cinema is going to be too satisfied with itself too soon.

20h00: An obvious high-budget movie to recommend would be The Crazies, the up-scaled remake of George Romero's first movie and preliminary study for Night of the Living Dead. The real attraction for me will be the presence of my favorite actress: Radha Mitchell. She is quite the BIFFF appearance, having played in movies like Pitch Black and Visitors and other genre movies that didn't make it to the festival like Silent Hill, Rogue and Surrogates. The movie itself will no doubt be competently made, but offer little new.

22h00: The Canadian 5150 Rue des Ormes has another hostage being held by another crazy family. The set-up is becoming all too familiar, although surely somewhere someone must be doing it in a satisfying way. This movie? It is quite possible, because it seems to focus more on the psychological effects of being imprisoned rather than on allowing the make-up crew to go all out. I'm beginning to think it would be a shame if the Q&A for The Crazies would prevent me from trying this out.

0h00: The Greek zombie movie Evil in the Time of Heroes fits the midnight slot well with it's foul mouth and tongue-in-cheek style, which includes a Spartan warrior it would seem.

Sunday 18/4

Today is Japanimation day! Cute teens in costumes will show up for cosplay, which you should try to catch a glimpse of if at the BIFFF at all during that hour. There is no info as of yet about which anime will fill the early hours. But the truly high quality package only starts at 18h00.

Not to be missed:

The anime not to miss – even if you never watch these kind of movies, allow your brain an opportunity to change it's mind – is Summer Wars. The reputation of the director has been entirely and eternally established by the brilliantly written and adorably cute The Girl Who Leapt Through Time from a couple of years ago. Not only was it one of the first anime's in a long time to be able to compete with aging classics and that without coming predictably out of the Hayao Miyazaki stable, it also had none of the cliches like cyborgs, space battles or otherwise action-oriented sequences. Yes, this new anime does take place in a massive online reality game, but this one is no Matrix, rather it's function is that of a massive social network and social relations, that is what Mamoru Hosoda's movies are all about. If you do not wish to see this, it only means you don't know that you do.

 Now hurry back into the theater for the 20h00 movie. Last year the famous Spanish movie director Alejandro Amenabar, known at BIFFF for Tesis and Abre Los Ojos and also for The Others, made the movie Agora. It told the story of the philosopher Hypatia and her murder at the hands of early Christians in 400BC, in the wake of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria. It had actress Rachel Weisz in the lead and featured a massive recreation of ancient Egypt... it was poised to win massively at the Goya Awards, the Spanish Oscars. And then it pulled an Avatar. Winning the technical categories with ease, it lost all major awards to the movie of tonight: Celda 211. Think Prison Break, but no break but a riot instead. That is all I know, but all I need to.

Also tonight:

16h00: Higanjima: Survival island, vampire movie, martial arts and wire work all into one. I'm in fact looking forward to the specifics of the vampire hierarchies on the island – I bet they will be a lot more interesting than those of Underworld.

22h00: Detour: A couple of moonshine alcohol runners, run into a depraved family in the wilderness who proceed to torture them. Texas Chainsaw Mass.. oh no not again.

0h00: Sept Jours du Talion: The father of a raped and murdered daughter kidnaps the culprit and proceeds for a period of 7 days to tortu... oh for the love of god. No actually, the fact that the daughter is only 8 may mean that the volume gets pumped to 11, here, or perhaps that we get a psychological duel that talks about crime and punishment. The theme might not sound so worn out had the movie been programmed at the beginning of the festival, and that is obviously not it's fault.

Monday 20/4

We are beginning to approach the end. This is the final “normal” day of the BIFFF. Let's hope we finish in style.

Not to be missed:

Last year a particularly funny Japanese comedy played in the side room: Big Man Japan. It was a story about a down-on-his-luck superhero who had lost the adoration bestowed upon his grandfathers and living in a deprecate flat more or less tried to make ends meat by battling the occasional super-villain much to the chagrin of his fellow citizens who had tired of having to pay for the extensive damages inflicted upon Tokyo.

The same actor/director of that movie, Hitoshi Matsumoto, is now back with a surreal film that seems to improve upon the first. On one trail of the story a wrestler prepares for battle while on the other one a man locked in a strange room in his pajamas tries to figure out where he is and what he is doing there. Reviewers of the movie love it but keep their lips sealed about the further developments of the plot for fear of spoiling the best parts – but picture flicking the light on and out in the room and then discovering the light switch is the penis of a disappearing little angel.. yeah we are in for something off the charts. Rightfully Symbol has been promoted to the big theater. Also of course because there is no small one anymore...

Also tonight:

17h30: For those who are still following the trilogy 20^th Century Boys, today is the 3^rd and final part. It's long so it starts early.

22h00: Give 'Em Hell Malone: a stylistic exercise in the film-noir genre. I am not convinced this is going to work. Noir is a lot more than just some dames in stockings walking into a smoke-filled office of a private dick. It is the cinematic narrative that defines a fate outside of the movie that through our act of watching the movie, interferes in the life of the characters on-screen in unlikely ways. In short, noir is about the script, not the lightning. Will this movie understand that?

0h00: The Revenant: A buddy movie with one member of the duo being a zombie. It may have collected some awards on the American indie-circuit, but that doesn't mean all that much. Indie movies in America usually disappoint so much that I have drawn the conclusion that everybody that has real talent in the US, actually does make it to Hollywood. Consider it if you haven't seen a single midnight movie yet this BIFFF.

Tuesday 21/4 - CLOSING NIGHT

Also known as beginning-of-depression night as the realization sinks in that the next BIFFF is now 365-13 days away. Today we find out the winners of the competition and I predict we will again find ourselves in a year dominated by Asian films. Either Thirst or Symbol are going to walk away with the Golden Raven, with only the anime Summer Wars standing backstage to stage a coup. Of course, I may have to eat every single one of these words by the time this night is over.

It is a given for me to go to the closing film, Kick-Ass. It's a superhero comedy about a geeky kid that doesn't have any superpowers but decides to wear the tights anyway. Chaos ensues, that and some major action set pieces. Nicolas Cage, obviously a fan of the genre looking for a better movie than Ghost Rider to be in, will be invited to overact to his heart's desire in this one and it won't even sound out of tune. Yeah I think it will be a good one, because for once the appearance of the words “American” and “comedy” need not invoke feelings of dread. It'll be genuinely funny so if you have the money to spare you might as well... This movie will of course come out in theaters.

And so it is.

The end is near.

And so we face

The final chop block.

See you there.

(BIFFF starts on Thursday 8/4 and continues till Tuesday 20/4 and takes place at Tour&Taxis. The website is www.bifff.net)

PS: On a final note, I can not understand why the Vincenzo Natali movie Splice has not appeared in this list. It is unforgivable for the BIFFF not to have this movie everybody is looking out for, and they'd better have a good excuse...