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Frontières International Co-Production Market – back to an in-person event after four online editions – has unveiled this year’s projects, including 18 titles in its official selection, all in advanced development stages or now financing.

Ranging from the highly personal to absolutely outlandish, they make for a varied lineup. It is packed by female-centered stories, from “Camp,” about a woman so dependent on her new friends that she fails to notice their sinister agenda, to “Beasts of Prey,” “Bugul Noz,” “Jane” or Canadian offering “Bloody Bunny” by Kat and Karissa Strain.

“There simply aren’t enough women in the film industry, especially the indie film scene in Canada, for us to draw on as mentors and collaborators. We hope ‘Bloody Bunny’ can play a part in the change we would like to see,” they said, calling it a film “for women by women.”

Mètis filmmaker Laura Tremblay will produce, while the directors...

Amcomri Entertainment has come on board as financier and producer, alongside Ireland’s Studio Atlantic, on Victorian-era thriller “The Gates.” The film stars John Rhys-Davies, who played Gimli the dwarf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Amcomri’s 101 Films Intl. will handle global sales.

The film is set in London in the 1890s. Serial killer William Colcott has been sentenced to death by electric chair, but in his final hours, he puts a curse on the prison he is in, and all of those in it.

The film, directed by Stephen Hall and written by Tim Reynolds, also stars Richard Brake, Elena Delia and Michael Yare. Filming started this month in Ireland, with delivery expected in time for the Cannes Film Market. The director of photography is Burschi Wojnar.

Silentpoint Limited, now renamed Amcomri Productions Limited, was recently acquired by Amcomri Entertainment, and will produce and finance the project with Studio Atlantic,...

​U.K.-based sales company 101 Films International has picked up overseas sales rights to “Love Yourself Today,” a documentary about Irish singer-songwriter Damien Dempsey, and it has launched sales on Philippe McKie’s theatrical feature film “Dreams on Fire.”

“Love Yourself Today” is directed by Ross Killeen and produced by Fis Eireann/Screen Ireland and Motherland in association with Thirty Nine Films and pitched as a half doc-half concert film, taking place during the Christmas holiday at Damien Dempsey’s annual Christmas show at Vicar Street in Dublin. In the film, Dempsey’s own story is mixed with those of three audience members to touch on themes of addiction and loss, but also hope and positivity.

“We’re really honored to launch ‘Love Yourself Today’ internationally with Eoghan and his team at 101 Films International,” said Motherland director Ross Killeen. “The response to the film in Ireland has been overwhelming...

Leading US genre festival Beyond Fest has set a slate of programming comprising 39 features ahead of its return to theaters between September 29 and October 11.

The festival will open with the West Coast premiere of Julia Ducornau’s Palme d’Or Winner Titane, which will be screened from a never-before-seen 35mm print. The fest is also presenting the US premiere of David Gordon Green’s anticipated Blumhouse slasher, Halloween Kills—the 12th chapter in the iconic Halloween franchise, which had its world premiere in Venice.

Other major festival titles screening are Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Cannes horror pic Lamb, and Gaspar Noé’s Vortex. V/H/S 94, The Black Phone, Earwig, Travelling Light, South of Heaven, The Seed, The Feast, The Banquet are also on the lineup.

As part of its Icons of Cinema series, the festival will also present screenings of past films from Michael Mann (Collateral and Thief), Udo Kier...

Yoo Ah-in (Voice Of Silence), Zelda Adams (Hellbender) win acting prizes.

EuiJeong Hong’s South Korean thriller Voice Of Silence has won the 25th anniversary edition Fantasia International Film Festival’s Cheval Noir award for best film.

Hong’s film follows a mute low-level gangster tasked with taking charge of an 11-year-old kidnapped girl from a wealthy family. The jury described Voice Of Silence as “impossible to pin down, and truly idiosyncratic. Put simply, it’s unlike anything we’d seen before”.

Juried awards

In other Cheval Noir awards Yoo Ah-in who plays the mute man won best actor while...

Philippe McKie was born in Montreal, Canada. He graduated with distinction from the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema

and moved to Tokyo in late 2010, only a few months before the great earthquake of 2011. While living in Japan, he has been steadily working towards establishing himself as a filmmaker, making a variety of short films, culminating in 2018 with “Breaker” and “Be My First” that collectively played in over a hundred film festivals and won over 70 awards. He also worked as a DJ and event organizer, playing in many of Tokyo’s most famous clubs, including Womb and Ageha. He also has experience working as a ‘fixer’ in Japan, doing everything from casting, location scouting, gear rental and booking crew for productions from around the world, including work for Apple, CNN, BBC, WWE, Channel-4 and more. “Dreams on Fire” is his feature film debut, for which he was also the writer, editor and art-director.

Films shot in Japan by foreigners have given us a number of notable features during the recent years, with the works of Anshul Chauhan and Ian Thomas Ash being the first that come to mind. Philippe McKie, a Canadian who has been living and working in Japan for the past ten years in the fashion industry, as a DJ in Tokyo clubs, and as a filmmaker, has also come up with his own feature, focusing on the underground dance scene that seems to be rather vibrant nowadays in the country, in a film that managed to find distribution in Japan, even amidst the pandemic.

“Dreams on Fire” is screening at Fantasia International Film Festival

After watching a dance performance in the theater as a teenager, Yume has only one dream, to become a professional dancer in Tokyo. Against her father’s wishes (played in a rather ironic fashion by legendary...

A dancer’s quest to be discovered for her talent has ultimately released a vibrant side of Japanese culture to the world that’s never before been showcased in cinema. Celebrated Japanese dance icon, Bambi Naka’s protagonist of Yume is struggling against the harsh realities of what it takes to achieve success as a dancer in the […]

The post Fantasia International Film Festival 2021 Interview: Philippe McKie Talks Dreams on Fire (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.

Upcoming North-American premiere at Fantasia 2021

https://fantasiafestival.com/en/film/dreams-on-fire

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Fantasia 2021 will run from August 5th to the 25th. A great number of films will be available to watch on-demand on the Festival’s virtual streaming platform (powered by Festival Scope and Shift72). Some virtual screenings will be scheduled at a specific date and time, check out the website to know when to tune in! Several films will be shown in person at Montreal’s Cinéma Impérial, Cinéma du Musée, or outdoors at Place de la Paix. Click here to see which ones! All panels, talks, masterclasses and special events will once again be completely free and accessible worldwide on Zoom or YouTube.

You can buy a Festival Passport Here. Please check the Official Website for more info.

Here are, in alphabetical order, all the Asian Films:

The 12 Day Tale Of The Monster That Died In 8 | Japan Dir: Shunji Iwai

North American Premiere

Shunji Iwai’s latest is a delightfully...

"We've got similar styles don't you think? You and I?" Get a first look at this underground dance film from Japan titled Dreams On Fire, featuring the first leading role from celebrated Japanese dance idol, Bambi Naka, the former lead dancer on Madonna's Rebel Heart Tour. This premiered at the Glasgow Film Festival earlier this year, and next will play at Montreal's Fantasia Film Festival this fall. An electrifying and dazzling feature debut from Canadian-born, Japan-based filmmaker Philippe McKie, Dreams on Fire is a "love letter to the dynamic and striking urban dance and underground scene of Tokyo and the artists that occupy it. Philippe, who also wrote, art-directed, and edited the film, has been living in Japan for the past ten years and worked in the fashion industry, DJed in Tokyo clubs," and made films. Now he's telling us a story about a dancer. At first glance, this...

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival got an early 25th birthday present in the form of James Gunn’s “Suicide Squad,” which will receive a special screening on Aug. 4, the day before Fantasia officially kicks off with the world premiere of Julien Knafo’s zombie thriller “Brain Freeze.” Gunn is a long-time friend of the fest, having first attended in 1997 before later returning for the Canadian premiere of his Marvel blockbuster “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Fantasia also unveiled its second wave of features participating at this year’s festival, joining a raft of titles announced in May, and will announce the rest of its slate in late July along with details on several virtual events and this year’s juries.

New world premieres, joining the a six-pack announced last month, include Ruth Platt’s “Martyrs Lane,” Anna Zaytseva’s feature debut “#Blue_Whale,” Jonathan Rhys Meyers-starrer “Yakuza Princes” from filmmaker Vicente Amorim,...

In 2018, AyaBambi troupe star Bambi Naka broke hearts across Japan when she announced that she was giving up dancing. She had already found a new career, however, and if this film is anything to go by, she'll have no difficulty carving out a career as an actor. She plays a young woman, Yume, who wants to become a dancer, so it's arguably safe territory for her, but Philippe McKie's film still requires her to work hard in other ways and her performance is vital to its success.

Yume grows up in an unhappy home and heads for the big city to seek her fortune, convinced that if she does her best and just keeps trying then one day her dream will come true. With this synopsis, you might think you were going to be watching a Disney movie, but this is very, very different in tone. It's one of very.

UK festival recently moved online-only due to virus crisis.

The Glasgow Film Festival (Gff) has revealed the programme for its 2021 edition (Feb 24-March 7), which includes several award-winning festival favourites and a focus on South Korea.

The 17th edition of Gff, which recently announced it would shift online-only due to the ongoing virus crisis, includes six world premieres, two European premieres and 49 UK premieres – around a third of the event’s usual programme of 180 titles.

However, Gff co-directors Allison Gardner and Allan Hunter said the reduced number of slots had forced them to raise the bar for selection and produce a stronger programme as a result.

When Philippe McKie was seven years old in 1996, his cinephile father took him to a screening of the Japanese anime “The End of Evangelian” at the very first edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. “It blew my mind,” said McKie in a recent interview. “It created this love for international cinema — and this love for Japanese cinema.”

That passion continued through his teen years, as he continued watching movies at the three-week genre festival and eventually went to film school at Montreal’s Mel-Hoppenheim School of Cinema, before leaving the city to make movies in Japan. Now he’s back in an entirely new context, as a filmmaker with two short films in competition, both made abroad. “It hasn’t even fully dawned on me that I’m part of it now,” he said.

“I know the programmers by reputation but it’s my first time being a part of the fest.