Volume 15, Issue 4 / April 2011

Fantasia 2010

With the 2011 Fantasia International Film Festival nearly upon us Offscreen casts a long look back at the 2010 edition, which marked year 14 for the ever growing festival. There were many highlights at Fantasia 2010, including a major spotlight on Serbian Horror Cinema, the presentation of a lifetime achievement award for Ken Russell, along with the screening of his notorious period piece, The Devils, the gala presentation of the restored (digital with orchestra accompaniment) copy of Metropolis, the presentation of Stuart Gordon directed one-man stage show starring Jeffrey Combs as Edgar Allan Poe, Nevermore, and a host of other discoveries, premieres and surprises. More is in store around the corner, but Offscreen recaps the 2010 edition with two interviews, and a two-part festival report. Fantasia mega-regular Randolph Jordan provides the broad overview with his two-part report on the films and trends that struck him the most at Fantasia 2010 (siphoning out odd and particular trends has become a specialty of Jordan’s over the years). The first of the interviews is with film critic/author Dejan Ognjanovic, who was on hand to supply much needed historical and cultural context for the seven films that played in the spotlight on Serbian horror film. The second interview is with the enfant terrible of British cinema, Ken Russell, who was ably assisted during the interview by his lovely wife Lisi Tribble. Tribble was a welcome presence during the interview, adding enthusiasm and prodding Russell, who was more reserved, almost shy, at the start of the interview, to open up. Closing up the issue is a non-Fantasia piece by Peter Rist, on the recent Chinese film dealing with the controversial Nanjing massacre of 1937–38, also called the “Rape of Nanking,” City of Life and Death. The piece is, however, tangentially related to Fantasia because the most notorious treatment of this subject, the film Man Behind the Sun, and its maker T.F. Mous, played at Fantasia way back in 1999, and Offscreen conducted a fascinating interview with T.F. Mous (which is linked in Rist’s review). (Donato Totaro, ed.)