I survived a ‘brain attack’ 20 years ago. Now a revolution in care is under way
For about 20 years, my sleep was dreamless. I’m inclined to attribute this to the things that happened inside my head in 1995, but I can’t be certain. The brain remains a mystery. It’s certainly the scene of more crimes against wellbeing than any other part of the body.
Everyone knows about heart attacks, but a brain attack, or stroke, can wreak as much havoc. The heart stops in only one way, but the brain has many ways to remind us of human frailty. I know this, because I had one kind of brain attack 20 years ago. Since then, I have grappled every day with the aftermath of that assault on my central nervous system. Recently, as part of a rearguard action against some tenacious pockets of resistance, I went back to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London to engage with what neurologists describe, in quasi-military jargon, as my “deficits”. In plain English, the long-term disabilities attributable to that brain attack.
Among the ways a brain can fail – tumour, aneurysm, haemorrhage, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and so on – stroke is one of the most common. It’s a soft, inoffensive word – you stroke a baby or a lover – but a lethal affliction.
In Britain, every year, 150,000 people of all ages will suffer what the medical textbooks call “a severe insult to the brain”. Euphemisms and “stroke” seem to go hand in hand. Increasingly, in Britain and North America, the term “stroke” is slowly being replaced by “brain attack” in the hope that new language will sponsor a new attitude towards the illness, and help modify our behaviour, making us less complacent and perhaps improving survival rates. Whatever the terminology, it’s a chilling statistic that this kind of “brain attack” will occur somewhere in the UK every three and a half minutes. Of these unfortunate souls, one third will die; one third will be seriously disabled; and 50,000, the lucky third, will go on to lead fairly normal lives.
But what does it mean to have a stroke and what are the routes to recovery? And what does a stroke tell us about the way our brains work? In the last 20 years, in a dynamic interplay between research and ill-health, developments in our understanding of the brain have transformed stroke treatment.
In the process, neurology has become the coolest frontline posting in modern medicine, the place where the puzzle of mind and body meets the latest technology. But first, before we come to the treatment, there’s the perennial fascination of the thing that the OED describes as the “organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull of vertebrates”. You would have to be made of marble not to become intrigued by the human brain.
Chris Tarrant suffered a stroke last year. Since then, he has become addicted to the wonders of ‘this extraordinary machine in your head’. Photograph: Rex
In March last year, after a flight from the Far East, the broadcaster Chris Tarrant suffered a stroke. Since then, he’s become addicted to the wonders of “this extraordinary machine in your head”. Fully recovered from his attack, he reports: “I’ve learned a lot about the brain. I’ve been going to a neuropsychologist. One day she came in with this plastic model of a big, fat, crinkly, porridgy melon. And I went, ‘What!’ I mean, I had no idea. The brain is this most extraordinary, fantastic thing. I did say, ‘Does this make you believe in God?’ And she said, ‘No. But it does make you think.’”
According to an old medical joke, the brain is the only organ in the body to have named itself. It’s a fact: our brains are us. Each one weighs about 1.4kg (3lb). You could hold it in the palm of your hand. But it’s more than just an organ. It’s you, in every sense of the word: your intelligence, demeanour, personality, and consciousness. Oscar Wilde wrote: “It is in the brain that everything takes place. It is in the brain that the poppy is red, that the apple is odorous, that the skylark sings.”
In short, it’s your command centre, your HQ; and one thing is certain. A brain attack is like having an earthquake at the centre of your fragile self. When the brain fails, for whatever reason, the human animal will find itself in extremis. Insults to the brain usually come out of the blue. I was 42 when, overnight, I experienced a right-hemisphere haemorrhagic infarct. Today, memories of my weeks on the front line of ill-health – the aqueous blue blink-blink-blink of the ambulance, the muffled sounds of the intensive care unit and the cement-mixer roar of the MRI chamber – have faded to the texture of an old nightmare. I will, however, never cease to be a veteran of that conflict. Scan my cerebral cortex and you will see a fuzzy grey scar, the size of a thumbnail, indicating where the wound in my brain used to be. This “cerebral lesion” has now become part of that infinitely complex organ in which the neurologists of the National Hospital specialise. Professor Andrew Lees, one of Britain’s leading Parkinson’s specialists, says that below the surface of the brain there are the “100bn tiny nerve cells that make up the grey matter”. Another renowned brain surgeon, Henry Marsh, from St George’s Hospital, London, comes to the brain from a different perspective.
In Do No Harm, an award-winning account of his work, Marsh writes that, as he begins to operate, “mind” and “brain” intersect. He says the idea that his instruments are “moving through thought itself, through emotion and reason, and that memories, dreams and reflections should consist of jelly, is simply too strange to understand. All I can see in front of me is matter.”
The neurons of this “grey matter”, according to Lees, “form part of a kaleidoscopic internet. On its own, a nerve cell is no more effective than an isolated termite worker, but through a sophisticated lattice of nerve stations it creates unique trails that together produce a cosmic highway. No single nerve cell is separated from any other by more than six neurons.” Brains, however, nurture an awful lot of neurons. In an ordinary brain, for instance, there are about 20bn neurons and each one makes on average 10,000 connections. The extraordinary computational power of a healthy brain holds the key to our lives as human beings.
To put this another way, if you could somehow connect all the laptop computers of London or New York, you would only just begin to equal the capacity of a single brain. This analogy comes from Dr Richard Frackowiak, formerly of the Wellcome Institute, which faces the National Hospital from the opposite side of Queen Square. Frackowiak also describes the brain as “an organ in a box (the skull) with a hole at the bottom where the brain stem is situated”. Such an oversimplification is a provocative response to a profound mystery. The working of the brain is so complex that even the experts still resort to metaphor to convey its functions, a response that’s as old as Aristotle. For the Greeks, the brain’s function was to cool the blood. For Descartes, in the 17th century, the brain was comparable to the latest, dazzling artistic technology, the hydrostatic fountains of Versailles.
After the industrial revolution, doctors revised this metaphor still further, establishing an orthodoxy that persisted to the end of the last century. To the Victorians, therefore, cerebral activity was analagous to the latest technology. The pathways of the brain were seen as fixed and rigid, like a railway network, and later as a telephone exchange. We, in the computer age, have found other ways to describe the working of the brain, derived from computer science, the phenomenon known as “plasticity”.
An MRI scan of Robert McCrum’s brain.
“Plasticity,” says Lees, “is the major advance of the last 30 years”, replacing the traditional view that the brain is physiologically static. Neuroplasticity, according to the dictionary, “refers to changes in neural pathways and synapses due to changes in behaviour, environment, neural processes, thinking, emotions, as well as changes resulting from bodily injury”.
Neuroplasticity occurs on a variety of levels and has been shown to involve dramatic cerebral responses to brain injury, especially in the field of “cortical remapping”. In neurology today, the role of neuroplasticity is widely recognised in healthy development, learning, memory and in recovery from brain damage.
Lees continues: “Plasticity recognises some adaptability in nerve cells and the circuits of the brain. The younger you are, the more adaptable your brain is. We know this from ‘brain mapping’. In a damaged brain you find some areas taking on the functions of other areas. Compare the liver, for instance. You can lose almost all your liver and it will regenerate. In the brain, the nerve cells are not the same. It does not regenerate in the same way. But there’s now more understanding of the ways the brain can respond to injury.”
To explore “plasticity” for myself, I enrolled in an experimental NHS programme in Queen Square. Perhaps it was inevitable that I should make my way back to the National Hospital where I had first been treated in 1995. There, as part of my coming to terms with what had happened to me, I wrote a kind of war memoir, My Year Off: Rediscovering Life After A Stroke, and have been associated with the hospital ever since.
Still, it was strange and unsettling to return to the world of neuro-rehabilitation. This used to be a depressing and primitive environment. However, a new approach to “brain attack”, combined with new attitudes to the doctor-patient contract, has transformed the relationship between neurologists and stroke survivors. Once, it was dour and fatalistic, today it’s dynamic. Where doctors used to speak about a patient’s likely recovery from brain injury with the greatest caution, and in the most guarded terms, now there’s an air of optimism.
This comes from a renewed sense of wonder at the working of the brain. Lees says that this last great mystery of the human body “is why so many young people are getting interested in neurology. Neuroscience has almost replaced philosophy and become virtually a surrogate name for philosophy. Young people are going into ‘neuro-science’ to understand the mind.” There are still acres of uncharted cerebral terrain to explore here, from the research labs to the patient, backed by new resources of time and money. At a pioneering neurological hospital like the National, this new mood is symbolised by refurbished wards, shiny new equipment and a reinvigorated attitude to physiotherapy.
Where stroke patients used to be wheeled down gloomy linoleum corridors into dark Victorian wards equipped with little more than rows of adjustable exercise beds, now there’s an air of hope and determination From the pine floors, and coffee dispensers, to the cheerful decor, television, and shelves overflowing with paperbacks, magazines, and picture books, the atmosphere is upbeat and positive.
Robert McCrum with Salman Rushdie in 1995, shortly before his stroke. Photograph: Caroline Forbes
In 1995, “plasticity” played no part in the vocabulary of convalescence. Now it has utterly transformed the stroke doctors’ approach to neuro-rehabilitation. For Lees and his generation, it’s the game-changer. “We never used to talk about plasticity. The brain was considered to be immutable and there was nothing you could do about it.” The upshot has been a comprehensive renewal of routine procedures in the treatment of stroke in the UK. Lees again: “We now have acute stroke units in a way we didn’t before. There’s been a big push through the acute medical services to get people into A&E as quickly as possible.”
After the acute phase, there’s the long-haul business of physiotherapy, that heart-sinking word. Here, too, the techniques of neuro-rehab have become more brain-aware. Lees says: “We now have much better ways of rehabilitating patients with [physical] deficits. If you survive the first few dangerous weeks, it then becomes a question of time and of exactly how much recovery you eventually make.”
This is a question to which Dr Richard Greenwood, a Queen Square colleague of Lees, has devoted much of his life. For Greenwood, his work in neurophysical rehab is now wholly underpinned by plasticity. “The term began to enter the profession in 1980s, and became popularised through the 1990s,” says Greenwood, widely acknowledged to be one of Britain’s rehab experts. “It’s important to remember that plasticity happens to everyone, whether or not they have a brain injury.” The principle of plasticity is that it underlies relearning. So, if you perform a task (for instance, picking up a fork) that attracts cerebral attention, it will generate “plastic” changes in the part of the brain that no longer fulfils that function. But the task has to be part of our consciousness. According to Greenwood: “You need an ‘enriched environment’ to generate plasticity. It’s not just a matter of 100 hours. The patient has to attend to what he or she is learning. You are teaching the brain – not a muscle.”
Enter the Silver Spring monkeys. These 17 macaques from the Philippines, which were kept in the Institute of Behavioral Research in Silver Spring, in the US state of Maryland, from 1981 until 1991, became famous lab animals as a result of a battle between animal researchers, animal advocates, politicians and the courts. Among scientists, these monkeys are known for their use in experiments into the ability of the adult primate brain to reorganise itself. In simple terms, the researchers severed the tendons in the monkeys’ right arms, achieving the kind of impairment that mimics a stroke, disabling their right side. Conventionally, the adult primate’s response to this disability is to deploy the unaffected, fully-functioning left side (arm, hand, fingers etc).
At Silver Spring, however, the monkeys’ “good” left side was inhibited by the researchers. So now – to feed and function – the monkeys had somehow to recruit mobility in their disabled right side. In theory, this should have been impossible. What the Silver Spring researchers discovered, however, was that, after a while, the monkeys’ brains found new “pathways”. Miraculously, their right arms began to work. At Silver Spring, they called this “plasticity”, a phenomenon described by Greenwood as “underpinned by structural changes at a microscopic level in the brain”. He says: “The frustrating thing is that we can demonstrate and explore this in animals, but we can’t do it in man.” This discovery quickly became one of the most exciting medical breakthroughs of the 20th century.
In neuro-rehab, Greenwood believes that some of the most useful advances in physiotherapy have been inspired by the lessons of plasticity. “When I started, people compared physiotherapy to water divining or herbal remedies. In the last generation, there’s been a complete change. What we do in neuro-rehab is no longer part of the wacky fringe.” The degree to which physiotherapy has become mainstream is demonstrated by the case of broadcaster Andrew Marr, who suffered a stroke in January 2013. Marr has waged a remarkable public battle with his disability, but admits to me that “I’ve now gradually come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be 100%”. A lifelong fitness fanatic, Marr has treated his rehab in very practical terms, undergoing long bouts of extreme physio in the pioneering Arni (Action for Rehabilitation from Neurological Injury) programme.
This speaks directly to one issue that interests Richard Greenwood. “Can you,” he asks, “take thought to get better?” To which he replies: “People who can’t generate effort (because of brain injury) have a serious problem in achieving physiotherapeutic goals. MRI imaging has demonstrated that imagining a task does light up appropriate parts of the brain.” Now, says Greenwood, as the importance of plasticity becomes fully recognised, physiotherapy is being infiltrated by robotics: “Robots can assist physiotherapists and provide more hours of retraining. How we apply robotics in rehab is just beginning to be explored. This cannot be a mindless programme. Having a robot is not just a question of wiggling a lever. There need to be individualised programmes. There may even be a role for robots in gyms. Currently, the problem for the stroke patient is that rehab ends after two or three months.” Greenwood says that the potential of robots underlines the need for a long-term strategy. “There’s been a huge amount of work done in the UK on stroke,” he says. “But people still get less rehab than they need. Patients often get put out to grass, through the association of stroke with old age. Some of the treatment must be psychological. Patients get depressed. The patient’s family must be involved as part of the recovery team.”
Simultaneously, the breakthroughs of plasticity have also inspired an upgrading of neurological language. “Thirty years ago,” Greenwood says, “you could not mention the brain. One used to say ‘head injury’. It was almost pornographic to talk about ‘brains’. When you said ‘stroke’, most people didn’t have a clue what you were talking about. Now everything has changed.” Greenwood agrees with me that, compared with cardiac and cancer treatment, stroke/“brain attack” has suffered from an image problem. “People are more open about stroke now,” he says. “Look at Andrew Marr. In the past, people did not want to confront the consequences of brain damage.” This is partly because, compared with, say, a broken leg, the consequences are difficult to comprehend and grapple with.
Broadcaster Andrew Marr, who had a stroke in 2013, says: ‘I’ve now gradually come to terms with the fact that I’ll never be 100%.’ Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/for the Observer
I’ve found that doctors are immensely skilled at healing, especially when a medical intervention with tangible results is possible. That’s their basic contract with their patients: diagnosis followed by treatment followed by a cure. In stroke, however, there is no intervention and nothing is fully verifiable. The brain can be scanned by MRI, but it cannot, routinely, be examined. So a detailed diagnosis is difficult; treatment still quite basic and a full cure elusive. Doctors who treat afflictions of the brain are forced to use more abstractions in the quest for a trustworthy explanation.
Greenwood again: “One’s job as a rehab doctor is to explain what things are, and are not, possible. The patient has to be educated in a timescale of recovery. A lifetime is where you start from. People have to learn to adjust their expectations. Predictions are hard, if not impossible. Most models are ineffective. If one says ‘you will be able to walk 50 yards in three years’ time’, one will almost certainly be wrong. But it can become a shared exploration, a quest for achievable goals.” Marr agrees. “I have absolutely no doubt that the brain can rewire itself with enough training,” he says. “My left hand was useless, now it can grip. Things are coming back.” Does he believe you can think yourself into better health? “I don’t know.”
He reckons his character has probably helped his recovery. “I was always a stubborn bugger. I think that’s why my improvement has been faster than it might otherwise have been.” Marr finds the science of the brain enthralling. “I accept that the brain is totally dynamic. Plasticity is philosophically and medically fascinating.” Marr is excited by the prospect of using stem cells to rebuild the brain. Would he become a guinea-pig? “I won’t rule it out. I mean, why not? It’s like being in England in the 1650s. We know that America is there and we’ve begun to make a few tiny incursions. But there’s still an entire continent to discover and we haven’t really begun to approach it.”
If we accept Marr’s analogy, then what an MRI mainly does is to give you a black-and-white snapshot – as it were, from outer space – which tells us very little about the dynamic reality of the brain. For that, you have to come down to earth and return to the frailty of the human frame. That’s why, at the end of last year, I went back to the National Hospital, joining Dr Nick Ward’s experimental neuro-rehabilitation unit, a programme directly inspired by the discovery of plasticity in the brain. In simple terms, Ward and his team of expert physiotherapists – Kate Kelly, Fran Brander, Caroline O’Neill and Jo Briggs – choose patients with upper- or lower-body deficits – difficulties with arm and hand or leg and foot movements – and subject them to a programme of intensive physiotherapy. This amounts to sequences of repetitive exercise often involving the finely calibrated movement of a shoulder blade, wrist, or thigh. The aim is to stimulate new pathways in the brain to recover lost movement.
The contrast between the hi-tech world of MRI scans and neurosurgery and the mundane reality of a neuro-rehab ward is stark. When the brain is damaged, (through accident, stroke or geriatric deterioration), there’s a corresponding breakdown in physical competence: paralysed arms; legs that don’t move; words that can’t be found; inarticulate tongues; frozen hand gestures; steps that fail. This is the gap that Ward and his team are trying to bridge. Much of what Briggs and O’Neill will do, at first, is traditional physio- and occupational-therapy. It’s often crushingly boring and painfully mundane: repetitive exercises designed to fire up some lost muscle activity.
After my introduction to the work of the unit, we moved into robotics. One of my long-term “deficits” is my inability to make much use of my left side (arm, hand, leg, foot). I have learned to compensate for this by recruiting my right side. O’Neill was having none of it. Persuasively firm, she set new goals. Typing with both hands? I haven’t done this for 20 years, but she insisted it was possible and demonstrated at once that I probably had more flexibility in my left arm than I realised. After the first week, video coverage of my “typing” had begun to show small, but significant, improvements. From there, it was a short step to the unit’s Armeo Spring robot, a state-of-the-art Swiss device designed to isolate specific arm and hand movements and subject them to intensive therapy.
A patient uses the Armeo Spring rehabilitation robot. Photograph: PR
You could mistake the Armeo Spring for a video game. It uses programmes – interactive computer games like Chicken shoot, Goalkeeper and Raindrops – to persuade the disabled side of the body to attempt a response. But its effects, through electronic play, are far from recreational. Within two or three sessions, my left arm, and hand, were beginning to do things that hitherto had been unthinkable. After two weeks in Queen Square, I had been given a new physiotherapy programme, renewed optimism for the future and a fresh sense of purpose. Why should this not become part of every stroke survivors’ recovery ?
In the 20 years since I had my “brain attack”, stroke treatment in the UK has undergone a revolution. It’s now linked to the best and brightest technology in the world, the most advanced machines medical science can devise. Ever so slowly, the brain is yielding its secrets. We now know more than ever about how and where, in the cortex, the attack occurred. In a minority of those cases that survive, it’s possible to treat the stroke with drugs and diminish its impact.
Beyond that, the mysterious miracle of the brain continues to frustrate efforts to elucidate its hidden pathways. The neurologist remains like a person shining a pocket flashlight into a darkened ballroom, hoping to pick out a single precious stone. Progress is painfully slow with (at best) a series of small victories. Nevertheless, the challenge remains. Individual consciousness inspires the determination to tackle a unique conundrum – the intersection of mind and brain. At this mysterious cross- roads, here’s one inexplicable bit of data. In the weeks since my visit to the National, my sleep has become animated with the most vivid dreams. I cannot begin to determine if this is a strange by-blow of “plasticity”, but it speaks to the ongoing quest for answers to the workings of the cerebral cortex. Who knows when or how that will end?
Waiting one day in the hospital lift, I glimpsed my reflection trapped between two mirrors. It seemed, at that moment, an apt summary of my predicament. As stroke patients, it sometimes feels as if we stand between advanced neurological research, on the one hand, and mundane consciousness on the other, with the image of a cerebral cure regressing infinitely into the future.
Robert McCrum’s two-part programme, Brain Attack, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 11am on 2 and 9 March
A stroke patient undergoing rehabilitation uses a robot at Leeds General Infirmary. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/for the GuardianReview: Flying Lotus, You’re Dead!
Dan Bejar insists there’s no deeper meaning to the name Destroyer. In 2016, he told NPR he chose it because “It’s got three syllables, which is good, but it’s still one word, that’s also cool.” And yet, Destroyer figuratively destroys itself every few years: abandoning guitars for electronics, or veering from big-band dramatics to adventures in solitude.
Bejar began Destroyer as a solo project, tracking songs by himself on a basic four-track cassette recorder. His touring band has grown its ranks since then—peaking with the current eight-piece art-rock orchestra—but in the studio, Bejar has occasionally opted to return to the DIY spirit of his earliest work, as he did on 2004’s Your Blues, which was performed almost entirely on MIDI instruments. Destroyer’s 13th album, Have We Met, was constructed similarly, with electronic elements layered on top of Bejar’s basic demos. Not unlike his lyrics—which are the most layered and entertaining they’ve been in years, both dark and funny—the resulting music is as vexing and strange as it is comforting and familiar.
Unlike Your Blues, though, Have We Met features real electric bass and guitar, and the synths are slicker and fuller, landing very far from the chintzy, fake-sounding tones Bejar employed on that album. And the drums on Have We Met are heavier and funkier than on any previous Destroyer album. On “Kinda Dark” and “Cue Synthesizer,” they lock into a dirty stutter, crossing over into hip-hop-like territory and cleverly contrasting Bejar’s relaxed delivery.
Have We Met is perhaps closer in timbre to 2011’s Kaputt, with its angular guitar work, dreamy synthscapes, and Bejar’s detached, lackadaisical vocals. But while the synths on Kaputt are cold and dreary, and distinctly retro, here they’re warm, inviting, and modern, establishing an entirely distinct emotional tone. Swaying reveries like “University Hill” and “foolssong,” which Bejar first played live in 2009, are much sweeter-sounding than any other recent Destroyer songs. “It Just Doesn’t Happen” plays up a similar late-night, neon-lit atmosphere as Kaputt, but the synths here are more evocative of a video game arcade than a discotheque. Even as Bejar calls attention to the artifice of his musical surroundings on “Cue Synthesizer”—“Did you realize it was hollow?” he asks before listing off the culprits of this “idiot dissonant roar”—he proves that artifice can still hold a broad emotional range.
Credit for this should go largely to longtime producer and bassist John Collins, who mostly pieced together the final tracks himself on top of Bejar’s home demos. (The only personnel on Have We Met are Collins, Bejar, and guitarist Nic Bragg, whose distinctively wobbly playing has been perhaps the sole consistent element in Destroyer’s ever-shifting sound since he joined the band in 2002.) To Collins’s credit, the album certainly sounds more like the work of a full band than that of someone seated alone at a keyboard, iPad in hand. Still, the arrangements are inevitably more utilitarian and less focused on band dynamics than any of Destroyer’s post-Kaputt efforts. This is vital, because for the first time in too long, those arrangements sound like they’re built to follow Bejar’s voice and lyrics rather than the other way around.
Bejar the enigmatic, drunken poet has for several Destroyer albums now taken a back seat to Bejar the singer and bandleader. And while the singing on Have We Met remains tastefully restrained, lyrically there are glimpses of the younger, brasher Bejar here. He makes himself known a verse into opener “Crimson Tide,” the sort of rambling stream-of-consciousness epic that used to constitute almost the entirety of Destroyer albums. It’s a quintessential Bejar track, largely for its liberal use of comfortingly well-worn lyrical tropes: the direct juxtaposition of the poetic with the flippant and coarse; conscious contradictions like “I was like the laziest river/A vulture predisposed to eating off floors/No wait, I take that back”; direct references to other songs, both those of others and his own, including allusions to, of all things, “The Gambler,” as well as at least two other Destroyer tracks.
The rush of catharsis “Crimson Tide” provides is rivaled a few songs later by “The Raven,” which opens with its own slippery couplet—“Just look at the world around you/Actually no, don’t look”—and proceeds to careen through delightfully idiosyncratic territory, from a “city of dying the embers” to a “petite terror train” and “the Grand Ole Opry of Death.” Despite the apocalyptic imagery, the tone is invigorating. “It feels so good to be drunk on the field again,” Bejar intones, his voice quivering with the kind of ardor that he rarely draws for his singing anymore. Like most of his lyrics, if there’s a literal meaning to the line, it’s impossible to parse, but the implication is clear enough: Bejar is feeling the groove again.
Label: Merge Release Date: January 31, 2020 Buy: Amazon
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FANTASIA 2019: Second Wave Resurrects SADAKO, Plays A Wicked Game Of DREADOUT, Goes Monstrous With MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT, And More!
FANTASIA 2019: Second Wave Resurrects SADAKO, Plays A Wicked Game Of DREADOUT, Goes Monstrous With MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT, And More!
Almost a month ago, the first wave of Fantasia 2019 was revealed. Today, the second and final wave (although we’re hearing rumblings of some surprises on the way) has been revealed and it’s PACKED full of incredible announcements!
The opening night of the festival will be the North American premiere of Hideo Nakata’s Sadako, which will be the director’s long-awaited return to the Ringu franchise. Additionally, the festival will be the home to world premieres such as Homewrecker, Mystery of the Night, Stare, and Blood On Her Name. The festival will close with the highly-anticipated anime feature Promare, which will be preceded by the short film world premiere of manga artist Nagabe’s The Girl From The Other Side.
Some North American premieres to be excited about are Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium, Yuya Ishii’s Almost A Miracle, Gabriela Amaral Almeida’s The Father’s Shadow, Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s Night God, and Masaaki Yuasa’s Ride Your Wave.
Also making their world premiere’s at Fantasia will be David Marmor’s 1BR, Shaun Piccinino’s American Fighter, Jordan Graham’s Sator, John Adams, Toby Poser, and their daughter, Zelda’s The Deeper You Dig, and Chris Bavota and Lee Paula Springer’s Dead Dicks.
Here is the full announcement of all films, events, and more that you can expect at Fantasia 2019!
JAPANESE HORROR ICON SADAKO WILL OPEN FANTASIA 2019!
Twenty years ago, Fantasia celebrated the North American Premiere of Hideo Nakata’s RINGU and its sequel, which led to Dreamworks acquiring the franchise and is largely seen as having been the birth of J-Horror in the West. This Summer, the festival is proud to open its 23rd edition with the series’ latest sequel, SADAKO (North American Premiere), which also marks the return of director Nakata to his beloved franchise. One of cinema’s scariest characters is back on the big screen, and you’d better prepare yourself in case she and her young acolyte decide to crawl out of it. SADAKO cleverly respects all of the elements that made Koji Suzuki’s novels so successful, but brings in a host of new elements that will revive J-horror for an all-new generation of terrified moviegoers.
FANTASIA 2019’S CLOSING FILM PROMARE BURNS THE HOUSE DOWN WITH ANIME INSANITY
Extreme heat never looked so cool! In the embers of the globe-engulfing great flame war, the maverick firefighters of Burning Rescue confront the fiery terrorists of Burnish Mad. Director Kazuki Nakashima and writer Hiroyuki Imaishi, who previously worked together on GURREN LAGANN and KILL LA KILL, are at the wheel for PROMARE (Canadian Premiere), the debut feature from edgy anime studio Trigger. A raging riot of bright colours, daring design, crazy characters, and whiplash action, this isn’t just the most thrilling anime of the year, it’s a genuine pop art masterpiece.
Preceding PROMARE is a special anime treasure – the World Premiere of Wit Studio’s short film THE GIRL FROM THE OTHER SIDE, the screen debut of manga artist Nagabe’s affecting gothic fairytale!
BLOOD ON HER NAME IS A SOUTHERN GOTHIC NEO-NOIR FOR THE AGES
A sad, soulful crime drama about choice, guilt and consequence, imbued with a creeping sense of damnation that will haunt you to your core, BLOOD ON HER NAME (World Premiere) is a scorching feature debut for director and co-writer Matthew Pope. It’s an intimately powerful film centered around an extraordinary performance from Bethany Anne Lind, who reveals herself to be one of the most remarkable actors working today. Through her character’s perspective, she and Pope deliver a compelling exploration of moral compromise steeped in a tone of defeated desperation that pulls us into its world without a single false move. Also starring Will Patton and Elisabeth Rohm, this film will mark you forever.
FEAR THE MYTHICAL ASWANG IN MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT
Adolfo Alix Jr. (DARK IS THE NIGHT, MANILA, PORNO) is one of most prolific independent filmmakers of the Philippines, whose multi-genre films have graced the screens of Cannes TIFF, Rotterdam and Locarno. With MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT (World Premiere), he gleefully turns to horror with a strange, impactful, 1900s-set adaptation of Rody Vera’s play “The First Aswang”. Making great use of the classic folklore of the Aswang, Alix Jr. addresses the multi-generational horrors of Spanish colonial rule in a classic fairy tale retold with a dash of eroticism and the weird. This special, unforgettable film achieves a unique and strange aesthetic that builds to great hypnotic effect, sinking its claws into its audience, and dragging them further into the night.
PREPARE TO BE TRAPPED BY THE NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE OF VIVARIUM
Following an acclaimed launch in Critics Week at Cannes, Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan’s VIVARIUM will be making its North American debut at Fantasia 2019. It tells the story of a young couple, played with charm by Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg, who check out a potential new home in a Kafkaesque suburbia, only to later discover that they’re unable to escape from the endless, empty residential neighbourhood. Featuring stellar supporting performances by Eanna Hardwicke and Jonathan Aris, this fascinating paranoid thriller is in the vein of the greatest Twilight Zone episodes: a tense science fiction fable that will imprison you in its otherworldly hold and never let go.
COVER YOUR EYES FOR THE WORLD PREMIERE OF STARE
The dead are piling up at an alarming rate, and the state in which the victims are discovered is even more shocking. Everyone seems to have died from heart attacks, visibly provoked by extreme fear – and their eyes have literally exploded. Fans of RINGU’s Sadako and THE GRUDGE’s Kayako will be thrilled to experience STARE (World Premiere)… and meet Shirai-san, an unforgettable new Eastern apparition that will haunt festivalgoers’ nightmares forever. 2019 continues to deliver on cutting edge J-horror – and there is no doubt that director, screenwriter, and author Hirotaka Adachi’s STARE will be one of the year’s biggest highlights.
1BR LEASES THE APARTMENT COMPLEX OF YOUR NIGHTMARES
The feature debut of writer/director David Marmor, 1BR (World Premiere) joins a very select group of quality horror films – including Polanski’s THE TENANT and Argento’s INFERNO – to successfully explore the terrors of apartment living, but what sets this film apart is its plausibility. It would be running into spoiler territory to divulge more, except to say it’s probably not a coincidence the story is set in Los Angeles, a city where unsuspecting people, looking to make a change, all too often have that change forced upon them against their will. Marmor’s smart script and solid cast of mostly unknowns make 1BR one of Fantasia 2019’s top discoveries.
A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND, BUT THIS ONE MIGHT JUST END YOUR LIFE
Tense, well scripted, and terrifically performed, A GOOD WOMAN IS HARD TO FIND (Special Advance Screening) is a compelling take on the tried-and-true “ordinary person caught in extraordinary circumstances” story. Repurposed through the prism of a vengeance thriller – and told through the perspective of a fiercely strong female lead (MAYAN MC’s Sarah Bolger) – it will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, and deliver countless surprises along the way. The stylish sophomore feature of British filmmaker Abner Pastoll (ROAD GAMES) – and featuring a career-best performance from IFTA award-winning Bolger – the film (which co-stars Edward Hogg and Edward Simpson) takes hold with frighteningly desperate situations and unexpected bursts of violence.
AMERICAN FIGHTER PROMISES NO-HOLDS, BARE KNUCKLED ACTION
In Shaun Piccinino’s AMERICAN FIGHTER (World Premiere), a wrestling champ is desperate to get his mother safely out of Iran, but this can’t be done through conventional channels. And it can’t be done cheaply. The only answer? Head-to-head fights, any style goes, for cash. Producer Ali Afshar told his own inspiring story with the 2017 sports drama AMERICAN WRESTLER: THE WIZARD, and has his alter ego Ali Jahani (George Kosturos) follow a much darker path this time. A pinch of political thriller, a helping of California coming-of-age tale, and whole lotta bare-fisted battling in the bad part of town add up to a solid win.
IT’S ALMOST A MIRACLE THAT ANYONE CAN BE THIS KIND
Fantasia favourite Yuya Ishii (THE TOKYO NIGHT SKY IS ALWAYS THE DENSEST SHADE OF BLUE) returns to Fantasia with ALMOST A MIRACLE(North American Premiere), a big-budget adaptation of Yuki Ando’s beloved manga. Nerdy Hajime Machida would be typical high-school student, were it not for an almost pathological condition that prompts him to constantly help everyone around him, often to his own detriment – an ailment that leads to a myriad of comedic complications. In keeping with his interest for loners, iconoclasts, and unique protagonists, director Ishii provides audiences with an empathetic and heartwarming portrait of an unlikely hero, in what is already one of the most crowd-pleasing and heart-warming films of the year.
THE FATHER’S SHADOW UTILIZES THE FANTASTIC TO EXPRESS ANGUISH
After her first feature, FRIENDLY BEAST, a theatrical tale of blood, sex, and the battle between social classes which world-premiered at Fantasia 2017, Gabriela Amaral Almeida returns with a second, much darker film. THE FATHER’S SHADOW (North American Premiere) was a short film written and developed in 2014 through Sundance’s Director’s Lab program, which evolved into a feature. Inspired by virtually every great master of horror, and much like her zombie-obsessed young lead, Amaral uses her fantastic imagination and ability to create visceral, haunting images in order to express the anguish of Brazilian society in decline.
THE SHACKLES OF CANADIAN POLITENESS ARE FUEL FOR NIGHTMARES IN HOMEWRECKER
Michelle (Alex Essoe) meets Linda (Precious Chong) at a yoga class. Linda’s wide-eyed enthusiasm is clearly off-putting, but Michelle’s aversion to conflict makes it difficult for her to brush off the increasingly pushy woman. Things escalate once Linda asks Michelle to redecorate her home and refuses to let her leave. Written by director Zack Gayne and the film’s two stars, Chong and Essoe (who wowed audiences with her breakthrough performance in 2014’s STARRY EYES), HOMEWRECKER (World Premiere) embraces an unusual tone informed by late 1980s pop sensibilities. With the energy of a Jane Fonda workout tape, the movie escalates into the uncanny, especially as it deals with gendered expectations surrounding femininity and romance.
ONLINE GAMING REUNITES FAMILIES IN BRAVE FATHER ONLINE
Recalling his fondest childhood memories – bonding with his workaholic dad over 8-bit victories in the earliest Final Fantasy games – Akio hatches a plan. He’ll convince his father to take up gaming, befriend him anonymously within the online world, and rebuild their connection. Directorial tag team of Teruo Noguchi and Kiyoshi Yamamoto have created something special with BRAVE FATHER ONLINE – OUR STORY OF FINAL FANTASY XIV (International Premiere), the former overseeing the film’s live-action scenes, the latter commanding a squad of online players in an inspired combination of virtual combat and animated melodrama. The two outdo themselves with a clever, thoughtful, and flat-out great-looking film that is not to be missed.
SATOR IS A TERRIFYING SUPERNATURAL CREATION
A malevolent spirit menaces a family already frayed at the edges in SATOR(World Premiere), an exercise in horror minimalism that draws you in, holds you captive, and then freezes your blood with freakish visions and unflinching violence. Basing the story on his own family’s experiences, Jordan Graham weaves a moody tale of physical and emotional isolation and dysfunction, exacerbated by the growing threat of the supernatural. As signaled by the handwritten opening credits, this was a true do-it-yourself project for Graham, who wrote, directed, produced, shot, edited, and did pretty much everything else on SATOR, a passion project which has taken him five years to complete.
ACCLAIMED ACTOR KIM YOON-SEOK DELIVERS AS DIRECTOR IN ANOTHER CHILD
Kim Yoon-seok is one of South Korea’s most respected actors. Whether he’s a sympathetic antihero in THE CHASER or a terrifying antagonist in 1987: WHEN THE DAY COMES, he’s always managed to capture audiences’ attention with his immense talent. With ANOTHER CHILD (Canadian Premiere), Kim goes behind the camera as director and co-writer to impress us once again, this time by imbuing his fundamentally feminist directorial debut with a finesse and sensitivity that highlights its narrative richness. This delicately crafted coming of age film relies not only on a beautiful story, but on the absolutely mind-blowing performances of four majestic actresses.
BLOCKBUSTER DIRECTOR SHINSUKE SATO GOES TO WAR WITH KINGDOM
Fearless, headstrong, and furious, Shin is determined to avenge his friend and help the exiled monarch of the Qin Dynasty win back his throne, unaware of the larger than life opponents he will have to face. After having masterfully handled horror (I AM A HERO), the superhero film (INUYASHIKI), and many other genres, Shinsuke Sato (BLEACH) breathlessly takes us to China’s pre-imperial era of feuding warlords in KINGDOM (Canadian Premiere). This spectacular fantastic-historical epic bursts with gripping, carefully choreographed battles, while Sato mixes perfect amounts of action, humour, violence, and drama to create one of the best films of his career.
DREADOUT: THE VIDEO GAME ADAPTATION YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR
In an attempt to boost their online popularity, a group of friends obsessed with their social media exposure decide to broadcast their clandestine visit into an abandoned building that was last used by a cult, and end up opening a portal to an alternate dimension. Writer-director-producer Kimo Stamboel of the Mo Brothers (MACABRE) demonstrates impressive efficiency and creativity with his first solo feature DREADOUT (North American Premiere), adapted from the popular video game. If DETECTIVE PIKACHU gave gamers a cuteness overdose, DREADOUT is the remedy – an ample serving of the undead with a shot of demonic possession on the side.
THE CAMERA LUCIDA SECTION – DECICATED TO BOUNDARY-PUSHING, AUTEUR-DRIVEN GENRE WORKS – UNVEILS ITS FULL LINE-UP!
Blaise Harrison’s enigmatic LES PARTICULES – hot off its bow in the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes – joins the rich tradition of coming-of-age films tinged with the supernatural, mixing the tropes of science-fiction and adolescent drama to better insinuate the otherworldly. P.A., a shy teenager, finds his place with a tight-knit group of friends. One hundred metres below their feet, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) roars. A huge and spectacular machine with cosmic designs. As adolescence and life itself accelerates, one wonders: Is something strange happening… or is this simply what growing up is like?
Nao Yoshigai, one of the most exciting Japanese filmmakers to emerge in recent years, has steadfastly developed a unique, personal, and remarkably coherent universe. Trained as a choreographer and dancer, her films function as fantastical microcosms of mounting intensity, in which the often violent, daring and surprising impulses of the human body and the natural world provide many surprises. NAO YOSHIGAI X 4: OF BLOOMING FLOWERS AND DEAD SKIN – the first retrospective program of her work anywhere in the world – will showcase “Hottamaru Days” (International Premiere), “The Pear and the Fang” (International Premiere), “Stories Floating in the Wind” (Canadian Premiere), and “Grand Bouquet” (Canadian Premiere).
NIGHT GOD. Kazakhstan – Dir. Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Smothered in darkness, the world is slowly descending into chaos. Violent and absurd, crepuscular and hypnotizing, the acclaimed Kazakh auteur’s fifth feature is the assured vision of a waking nightmare. North American Premiere.
AND YOUR BIRD CAN SING. Japan – Dir. Sho Miyake. Tasuku Emoto, Shizuka Ishibashi, and Shota Sometani star in this breezy and languorous coming-of-age film, capturing the strange, uncertain beauty of sleepless nights and restless days in Hakodate, Japan. Canadian Premiere.
LETTERS TO PAUL MORRISSEY. Spain – Dirs. Armand Rovira and Saida Benzal. Five characters in crisis confide in avant-garde master Paul Morrissey, with each segment in this hypnotic collection of black-and-white 16mm filmic correspondences being wildly unique: from druggy and horrific to very intimate. Canadian Premiere.
KOKO-DI KOKO-DA. Sweden – Dir. Johannes Nyholm. What once was is now lost, and Elin and Tobias must relive the same nightmarish events, as that day and the horrors they experienced repeat themselves infinitely. As beautiful as it is horrible: the film portrays grief as a life of its own. Canadian Premiere.
JESSICA FOREVER. France – Dirs. Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel. In a dystopian Neverland, Jessica prepares her tribe of lost boys for love and death. Directors Poggi and Vinel, promising paragons of alternative French cinema, unleash a brutal and poised feature debut. Quebec Premiere.
Previously announced titles include Jesus Shows You The Way to the Highway (Spain/Ethiopia/Estonia), dir. Miguel Llanso; Knives and Skin (US), dir. Jennifer Reeder; Ode to Nothing (Philippines), dir. Dwein Ruedas Baltazar; and Maggie (South Korea), dir. Yi Okseop.
All titles will compete for the AQCC-Camera Lucida prize, awarded by a jury of critics from the Québec’s Critics Association (AQCC), member of the FIPRESCI.
FANTASIA UNDERGROUND REVEALS FOUR AMAZING INDIE DISCOVERIES
Fantasia’s section dedicated to unconventional outsider visions returns with four left-field works that must be seen to be believed.
The shackles of grief are overwhelming in the dreamy DIY supernatural thriller THE DEEPER YOU DIG (World Premiere). The line between the living and the dead collapses for a mother, daughter, and stranger in the aftermath of a roadside accident. A family affair, the movie was written, directed, and produced by John Adams, Toby Poser, and their daughter, Zelda. They also star, shoot, and compose the film’s score. The intimacy of the production is felt in the immediacy of the performances and the depth of ideas. This journey into the underworld crawls under your skin and draws you into your deepest, darkest nightmares.
At a small New York theatre, an aging magician (Ronald Guttman) comes up with a devilish plan to save his piece of old New York by invoking real black magic. Harsh realities and fantastic illusions come together in BLACK MAGIC FOR WHITE BOYS (International Premiere), SUMMER OF BLOOD / CATFIGHT director Onur Tukel’s latest film is a bizarre comic adventure about gentrification, race, and bodily autonomy in The Big Apple. With over 50 minutes of new footage, Tukel has completely reworked a project initially presented in 2017 as a four-episode series at Tribeca into a gnarly and charmingly weird dark comedy, balancing edgy misanthropy with a strain of silly sweetness. Co-starring Leah Shore and Jamie Block, and shot by TOAD ROAD / FELT director Jason Banker.
Becca rushes to rescue her down-and-out, suicidal brother, Richard, only to find him… and an apartment full of corpses that look just like him. A fun and fearless microbudget feature debut from Montreal-based duo Chris Bavota and Lee Paula Springer (the 2017 short EVEN THE DARKNESS HAS ARMS) DEAD DICKS (World Premiere) is not what it seems. Beneath its gross outs and absurd humour, the film is a sincere reflection on familial drama, dependency, and mental health.
What if SpongeBob had been directed by Canadian experimental master Guy Maddin? The answer lies with director Ryland Brickson Cole Tews and his microbudget creature feature, LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER (International Premiere). Made with great inventiveness and a love for ’50s B-movies and monster flicks, this is everything indie cinema should be and more. With gritty black-and-white photography, special effects galore, hand-crafted sets and costumes, and jaw-dropping hallucinatory sequences, this charmer won awards for Best Cinematography, Best Ensemble in a Feature, and the Audience Award for Best Feature at 2019’s Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Film Festival.
WHAT DO FEARLESS PHOTOJOURNALISM, AL ADAMSON, AND THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS HAVE IN COMMON? DOCUMENTARIES FROM THE EDGE!
In addition to the previously announced World Premiere of PHANTOM OF WINNIPEG, Fantasia is proud to announce a trio of extraordinary new features for its Documentaries from the Edge section.
Since she first pointed her lens at the broken remains of a mob victim, Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia has been waging a decades-long battle with the mafia. An official selection at Sundance, Berlin, and Hot Docs, Kim Longinotto’s SHOOTING THE MAFIA (Quebec Premiere) is a moving and inspirational portrait of bravery and self-determination, the story of an ultimate outsider hero who never met a bully she wouldn’t stand up to and whose art remains a finely-honed weapon.
The hilarious history of the Church of the SubGenius, an early-’80s mock religion that challenged the mores and mendacities of its moment, and in no few ways predicted the existential insanity of our own, is explored in Sandy K. Boone’s J.R. “BOB” DOBBS AND THE CHURCH OF THE SUBGENIUS(Canadian Premiere). Featuring mad, mad vintage footage and ample contributions from founders Reverend Ivan Stang, Philo Drummond, and numerous SubGenius participants and devotees, including Richard Linklater, Nick Offerman, Penn Jillette, and Devo’s Gerald Casale.
Years in the making, BLOOD & FLESH: THE REEL LIFE AND GHASTLY DEATH OF AL ADAMSON (World Premiere), by Severin Films founder and filmmaker David Gregory (LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU), goes beyond detailing the uncommon life and unthinkable murder of the legendary no-budget exploitation filmmaker. It beautifully captures the worlds of outsider moviemaking communities that existed in California in the ’70s, and the weird ways they intersected with Hollywood mainstream and union indies. On Adamson shoots, regular Orson Welles crew and cinematographers like Gary Graver, Vilmos Szigmond, and Lazlo Kovaks worked alongside John Carradine, Bud Cardos – and at one point – Charles Manson! This is the story of a resourceful band of outsiders, creatives, and hustlers during a unique period of filmmaking opportunity.
ANIME IN ABUNDANCE IN FANTASIA’S AXIS SECTION THIS SUMMER!
It’s a bumper-crop year for eye-catching anime features from Japan, and Fantasia’s Axis is proud to be presenting many of the very best, most for the first time on North American shores!
From the lively, liberated imagination of Masaaki Yuasa (LU OVER THE WALL, Netflix’s DEVILMAN CRYBABY, the masterful MIND GAME) comes RIDE YOUR WAVE, a film about losing love, leaning on friends, and learning how to find oneself. Yuasa plays with the very elements here: fire, and especially water, are fluid and amorphous… and almost alive. North American Premiere.
Teenager Akane and her daffy aunt Chii step down into the basement — and out of this world! — in THE WONDERLAND, a fantastical anime adventure bursting with imagination, from Keiichi Hara, award-winning director of COLORFUL and MISS HOKUSAI. North American Premiere.
Teenage romance, ontological science fiction, and fierce, acrobatic mecha battles collide in THE RELATIVE WORLDS, the dazzlengly intense feature-film rebuild of his own successful web animation series by digital animator Yuhei Sakuragi (the INGRESS anime, NEON GENESIS IMPACTS). North American Premiere.
Overseen by Katsuyuki Motohiro, a veteran of the FLCL and PSYCHO-PASS franchises, and directed by Fuminori Kizaki (AFRO SAMURAI), HUMAN LOSTis a gripping cyberpunk anime thriller, packed with political intrigue, philosophical challenges, savage techno-horror, and exciting action! Canadian Premiere.
Ten years after Atsuya Uki’s amazing half-hour short CENCOROLL World Premiered at Fantasia 2009, the idiosyncratic, surrealist sci-fi teen drama is back with a sequel, making up the feature-length bundle CENCOROLL CONNECT. Casually uncanny and uncommonly cool, this is a true event for fans of offbeat and original anime. Canadian Premiere.
Imbuing the prosaic with something a bit like magic, Yutaka Yamamoto’s crowdfunded indie teen-romance mini-feature TWILIGHT is a postcard from Fukushima Prefecture, with love, laughs, tears, and the occasional perfect moment. International Premiere.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE EAST ASSEMBLES SPOOKY ASIAN ANIMATED SHORTS!
Fill your pockets with pujok, omamori, and fu talismans for THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE EAST! It’s Fantasia’s shivery short-film showcase, eleven Asian animated tales of spooks, spirits, monsters, and mystery — a mixed bag of the magical and macabre created through a multitude of techniques, from Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. World Premieres include SHISHIGARI, a calling card (with music by the legendary Kenji Kawai) for the new, independent Studio Durian of Japan’s Kiyotaka Oshiyama.
AN INTERNATIONAL PREMIERE AND MASTER CLASS WITH TOKUSATSU ICON KEITA AMEMIYA
Since the 1980s, Keita Amemiya (ZEIRAM, TWEENY WITCHES) has left his mark in countless corners of the universe of tokusatsu — Japanese science-fantasy cinema and TV. Amemiya-san visits Fantasia this summer to present GARO – UNDER THE MOONBOW, the latest entry his ongoing chronicle of otherworldly conflict. International Premiere.
A prolific director, Amemiya is equally celebrated as a renowned designer of uncanny characters, creatures, and costumes, never lacking for surprising innovation and a self-aware flair that stands out in his field. For his special Fantasia Master Class, Keita Amemiya takes a look at the masks, monsters, and marvels of his imagination!
FANTASIA UNVEILS ITS INCREDIBLE 2019 LIVE EVENTS – FEATURING TALKS, TOURS, CONCERTS, AND MORE!
In addition to its incredible film lineup, Fantasia 2019 is proud to host a number of cinema-centric live events, headlined by a special appearance from legendary film critic and horror host Joe Bob Briggs, a conversation with producer Edward R. Pressman, a bus tour of Montreal’s horror film history, and much more!
Previously announced was a special event by Montreal’s Orchestre à Vents de Musiques de Films, performing a live orchestral concert celebrating music from a wide variety of Studio Ghibli classics.
Joe Bob Briggs, who currently hosts The Last Drive-In, will blow the roof of Fantasia’s trailer park with Shudder Presents Joe Bob Briggs Live: How Rednecks Saved Hollywood: an energetic live performance which rockets audiences through decades of gory, sleazy, and just plain awesome exploitation cinema via rapid-fire photos, video clips, and hilarious, informative commentary from America’s favourite horror host.
Iconic producer Edward R. Pressman, who’s created incredible films with everyone from Terrence Malick and Sam Raimi to Zhang Yimou and Brian De Palma, will take part in Edward R. Pressman: Live in Conversation, an intimate onstage interview with critic and professor Donato Totaro, chronicling his career – from CONAN THE BARBARIAN to BAD LIEUTENANT, and everything in-between!
By popular demand, House of Psychotic Women author Kier-La Janisse and Fangoria’s Michael Gingold will host Spectacular Optical and The Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies’ Horror Express: The Fantasia Edition: an epic afternoon bus tour of Montreal’s most famous and infamous horror film locations, stopping at ten incredible locales around the city. Expect a day of unforgettable photo ops and amazing horror history from two of the genre’s most brilliant minds.
Gingold, whose Ad Nauseum presentation as last year’s Fantasia was one of the festival’s hottest live events, will also host the book launch for his latest tome, Ad Astra: 20 Years of Newspaper Ads for Sci-Fi & Fantasy Films. Join the journalist that Guillermo del Toro called “the torch carrier for the original spirit of a generation of horror, fantasy, and science fiction aficionados” as he takes you through the history of 1980s and ’90s sci-fi and fantasy – with the book for sale immediately following the presentation.
Join David Gregory (Severin Films), Nora Mehenni (Arrow Video) and Joe Rubin (Vinegar Syndrome) for Returning Life to the Departed: Adventures in Genre Cinema Restoration, a very special discussion about the trials, thrills, and rewards of digitally restoring everything from obscure treasures to cinematic holy grails – and what it takes to create a film’s definitive home video release.
FANTASIA RETRO UNVEILS GENRE CLASSICS ON THE BIG SCREEN
Fantasia is proud to present a new section in its lineup, dedicated to special screenings of major genre film restorations, in addition to showings of rare 35mm and 16mm prints.
Restoration Premieres to include:
DECODER (Germany, 1984) – Dir: MuschaNew 2K Restoration from Vinegar Syndrome. World Premiere.
DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN (USA, 1971) – Dir: Al AdamsonNew Restoration by Severin Films. World Premiere.
THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE (Spain, 1974) – Dir: Jorge GrauNew 4K Restoration by Synapse Films. World Premiere.
SATAN’S SLAVE (Indonesia, 1982) – Dir: Sisworo Gautama PutraNew 2K Restoration by Severin Films. International Premiere.
SON OF THE WHITE MARE (Hungary, 1981) – Dir: Marcell Jankovics New 4K Restoration by Arbelos Films. World Premiere.
LEGEND OF THE STARDUST BROTHERS (Japan, 1981) – Dir. Makoto TezukaNew 2K Restoration from Third Window Films. Canadian Premiere.
A 35mm showing of the Shaw Bros classic THE BOXER’S OMEN (Hong Kong, 1983) – Dir. Kuei Chih-Hung.
The Montreal Film Society will present a special 16mm screening of Sam O’Steen’s made-for-television sequel LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENED TO ROSEMARY’S BABY (USA, 1976), hosted by actor Stephen McHattie.
Further, the Action! Lineup will be showing a rare 35mm print of Ringo Lam’s FULL CONTACT (Hong Kong, 1992) and StudioCanal’s recent restoration of Ted Kotcheff’s legendary, dramatic first chapter in the Rambo franchise, FIRST BLOOD (USA, 1982).
FANTASIA TO BESTOW ITS INAUGRAL CANADIAN TRAILBLAZER AWARD TO DIRECTOR TED KOTCHEFF“I am not the judge of my characters. I am their best witness.” – Ted KotcheffFantasia will bestow its inaugural Canadian Trailblazer Award to director Ted Kotcheff, a singular filmmaker who has worked across genres and mediums to tell bold, vivid stories with strong points-of-view. Born in Toronto in 1931, he began directing at the CBC at age 24 and was, at the time, the youngest director ever at the station. His filmography includes the Outback thriller WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971), the quintessentiel Montreal film THE APPRENTICEHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ (1974), WHO IS KILLING THE GREAT CHEFS OF EUROPE? (1978), NORTH DALLAS FORTY (1979), the Stallone-starring blockbuster FIRST BLOOD (1982), UNCOMMON VALOUR (1983), JOSHUA THEN AND NOW (1985), ‘80s comedy staple WEEKEND AT BERNIE’S (1989), and THE SHOOTER (1995).
Mr Kotcheff will be presented his award at a special screening of the Canadian Film Centre’s restoration of THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ.
Fantasia will also be screening StudioCanal’s recent restoration of FIRST BLOOD, with Kotcheff in attendance, as part of the festival’s Action! Section lineup.
ADDITIONAL 2019 PREMIERE TITLES INCLUDE:
ALIEN CRYSTAL PALACE. France – Dir. Arielle Dombasle.A crazy scientist is on a quest to create a new, immaculate, androgynous being. Parisian nightlife icon Arielle Dombasle has made a psychotronic big-screen erotic fantasy, a kitsch and camp kaleidoscope, generous, absurd, and genuinely endearing. Co-starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Asia Argento. North American Premiere.
THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE. USA – Dir: Riley StearnsAfter being mugged, meek accountant Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) joins a karate school — and his life takes a strange and dark turn. FAULTS director Riley Stearns’ sophomore feature is a twisted tale of the dangers of toxic masculinity. Co-starring Imogen Poots. Official Selection: SXSW 2019. Quebec Premiere.
BLISS. USA – Dir: Joe BegosA drug-fueled night out in LA transforms a young artist into something otherworldly, but is it due to the vampiric ménage à trois she took part in or the cocaine-like “bliss” she’s been snorting? ALMOST HUMAN/THE MIND’S EYE director Joe Begos deliver a stunning heavy metal head-trip that’s equal parts blissful euphoria and horrifying bloodbath. Official Selection: Tribeca Film Festival 2019, Overlook Film Festival 2019, Cinepocalypse 2019. Canadian Premiere.
CULTURE SHOCK. USA – Dir: Gigi Saul GuerreroBlumhouse’s Into the Dark delivers its most impressive film to date, with Gigi Saul Guerrero’s scathing takedown of The United States’ treatment of Mexican dreamers, where “The Land of the Free” is far from the truth. Featuring Martha Higareda, Shawn Ashmore, and a spine-tingling performance from Fantasia fave Barbara Crampton. Official Selection: Cinepocalypse 2019, Etheria Film Night 2019. International Premiere.
DANCE WITH ME. Japan – Dir. Shinobu YaguchiHave you ever imagined a musical number spontaneously occurring in real life? Ambitious financier Shizuka has accidentally been hypnotized. Now, a ringing phone or radio jingle will set her off on a Gene Kelly-like rampage… A sassy send-up of musical comedies from Shinobu Yaguchi (SWING GIRLS, ROBO-G) with genuinely catchy, impressive song-and-dance numbers! Official Selection: Shanghai International Film Festival 2019, NY Japan Cuts 2019. Quebec Premiere.
DANIEL ISN’T REAL. USA – Dir: Adam Egypt MortimerA childhood friend reappearing after a decade seems like it should be cause for celebration… but what happens if it’s a troublemaking – and possibly deadly – imaginary friend? This is the conundrum in Adam Egypt Mortimer’s clever, violent thriller, whose title isn’t as cut and dry as one might first think. Official Selection: South by Southwest 2019, Sydney International Film Festival 2019, Overlook Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
DARE TO STOP US. Japan – Dir. Kazuya ShiraishiThe surprising and utterly unexpected biopic of a legend of Japanese countercultural cinema: Koji Wakamatsu! A film that takes the pulse of a transgressive cinematographic heritage in which sex, violence and revolutionary thought rubbed shoulders on screen. Canadian Premiere.
DAY AND NIGHT. Japan – Dir. Michihito FujiiWhen Koji, son of a whistleblower driven to suicide, steps outside the law in his quest for justice, the thin line that separates good from evil begins to fray. A suspenseful drama about the tragic fate reserved to whistleblowers that offers a necessary reflection on justice. Official Selection: Japan Filmfest Hamburg 2019. Canadian Premiere.
THE DUDE IN ME. South Korea – Dir. Kang Hyo-jinAfter an overweight teenager literally falls on him, a gangster realizes to his great dismay that they have swapped bodies. Packed with outlandish twists and turns, this fantasy comedy skilfully juggles gags, action, and emotion! Official Selection: Hawaii International Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
FREAKS. Canada – Dirs: Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. SteinBruce Dern, Emile Hirsch, and Amanda Crew headline this mind-bending mystery box of a thriller about a young girl (newcomer Lexy Kolker) whose father has convinced her that leaving their suburban home will spell her doom… and when she finally does step outside, she discovers a world unlike anything she – or this film’s viewers – would ever believe. Official Selection: Toronto International Film Festival 2018. WINNER: Prix Public, Best Feature, Les Utopiales 2018, Audience Award, Best Film, What the Fest…?! 2019. Quebec Premiere.
GINTAMA 2: RULES ARE MADE TO BE BROKEN. Japan – Dir. Yuichi FukudaThe silver-haired samurai Gintoki and his odd-job agency associates are back for this second manga adaptation, with no less loopy lunacy, swashbuckling swordfights, gratuitous anime references, and costume design to die for. Official Selection: Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival 2019. North American Premiere.
HARD-CORE. Japan – Dir. Nobuhiro YamashitaUkon and Ushiyama discover a discarded robot, unaware of the extent of its potential, in this bizarre science-fiction comedy drama. If you are looking for unusual cinema that makes you laugh without knowing why, you’ve just found it. Never before has the concept of WTF seemed so natural. Official Selection: Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival 2019, Udine Far East Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
HARPOON. Canada – Dir: Rob GrantWhen a troubled trio of young friends find themselves marooned on a yacht in the middle of the ocean, suspicions and anger bubble to the surface as their faith in each other sinks like a shipwreck. Writer/director Rob Grant returns to Fantasia with thrilling, seafaring suspense film that takes absolutely no prisoners. Starring TURBO KID’s Munro Chambers. Official Selection: Rotterdam International Film Festival 2019, Chattanooga Film Festival 2019, Calgary Underground Film Festival 2019, Fantaspoa 2019, BIFAN 2019. Quebec Premiere.
HIS BAD BLOOD. Japan – Dir. Koichiro OyamaA despicable con artist left the tightly knitted village the day his wife gave birth. 30 years later, his traumatized son is chased because of him. They both end up sheltering in a church, knowing nothing about each other. HIS BAD BLOOD is proof that independent Japanese cinema remains creatively fertile. WINNER: Audience Award, Yubari Fantastic Film Festival 2019. International Premiere.
IT COMES. Japan – Dir. Tetsuya NakashimaConvinced that a supernatural force is threatening his family, Hideki reaches out to a writer specializing in the occult, and his clairvoyant girlfriend to rid himself of the entity. To tell you anything more about this completely bonkers horror tale would ruin the many surprises waiting within. Official Selection: Hawaii International Film Festival 2019, Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
JUDY AND PUNCH. Australia – Dir: Mirrah FoulkesVillage puppeteers Judy (Mia Wasikowska) and Punch (Damon Herriman) are at the eye of this whirlwind of black comedy, filled with slapstick violence and, amid the theatricality of the marionette show, gripping drama. An old morality play with a modern twist. Official Selection: Sundance 2019. Canadian Premiere.
THE LODGE. UK/USA – Dirs: Veronika Franz and Severin FialaHailed at Sundance as “the next great horror film,” this nerve-shredding story of inexplicable, terrifying things happening to a snowed-in family stars Riley Keough, Richard Armitage, and Alicia Silverstone. This is a film whose horrors are both intellectual and deeply visceral, with imagery that will have your heart in your throat. From the makers of GOODNIGHT MOMMY. Official Selection: Sundance 2019, Karlovy Vary 2019, Overlook Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
MIRACLE OF THE SARGASSO SEA. Greece/Germany/Netherlands/Switzerland – Dir: Syllas TzoumerkasAfter a shocking death rocks a sun-bleached village, two women’s destinies interlock and their grip on reality start to slip. This work of New Weird Greek Wave cinema, starring Angeliki Papoulia (DOGTOOTH, ALPS), blends the blood-spattered real world and the troubling nightmares of legend. Official Selection: Berlin International Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
MISS AND MRS. COPS.South Korea – Dir. Jung Da-wonThere are a lot of badass lady cops in Seoul, and they’re all ready to prove their worth and kick some scumbag ass! Remember the buddy cop movie? Writer-director Jung Da-won has magically resurrected it in fantastic fashion. Quebec Premiere.
MISSBEHAVIOR. Hong Kong – Dir. Pang Ho-CheungA terrible mistake reunites a gang of estranged drama queens in search of human breast milk throughout Hong Kong! An utterly ridiculous, hilarious, and politically incorrect comedy caper from Pang Ho-Cheung (VULGARIA, DREAM HOME). Official Selection: Osaka Asian Film Festival 2019. Quebec Premiere.
THE ODD FAMILY: ZOMBIE ON SALE. South Korea – Dir. Lee Min-jaeThe eccentric Park family captures Zzongbie, a harmless living corpse who also happens to be a walking dose of Viagra. This South Korean Zom-com has a ball reanimating the done-to-death conventions of the zombie flick. Official Selection: Udine Far East Film Festival 2019, New York Asian Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
PARADISE HILLS. Spain – Dir: Alice WaddingtonAmid rapturous production design, Emma Roberts, Awkwafina, Eiza González, and Danielle Macdonald gather under the cold eye of headmistress Milla Jovovich in this genre-bending allegory about femininity and social norms. With shades of PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK and THE HANDMAID’S TALE, this soft and beguiling nightmare is about the cost of living the life you choose, rather than the life that is expected. Official Selection: Sundance 2019. Canadian Premiere.
PORNO. USA – Dir: Keola RacelaTrapped in a cinema late at night, five sex-starved religious teens are easy prey for a succubus with lust and murder in mind, but these Bible-thumpers won’t give up without a fight… even when this ‘90s-set retro riot has their balls literally to the wall. Official Selection: South by Southwest 2019, Overlook Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
THE PURITY OF VENGEANCE. Denmark – Dir: Christoffer BoePacked with crime, sex, and revenge – as well as being the highest-grossing film in Danish cinema history – this uber-blockbuster based on the book by Jussi Adler-Olsen finds two detectives trying to unravel a violent, decades-old murder mystery as they struggle with their own fraught relationship. From the director of BEAST and OFFSCREEN. Official Selection: Sitges 2018, Transylvania International Film Festival 2019, Palm Springs International Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
SWALLOW. USA – Dir: Carlo Mirabella-DavisMeek housewife Hunter (an utterly terrific Haley Bennett) struggles to find purpose and meaning – until she begins swallowing a variety of household objects. A film that will pique anxieties and turn stomachs, this is a surprisingly tender look at the echoes of abuse. See this one at all costs or miss one of the most potent works of the year. Official Selection: Tribeca Film Festival 2019, Neuchâtel International Film Festival 2019. Canadian Premiere.
TOKYO GHOUL ‘S’. Japan – Dir. Kazuhiko HiramakiAnother round of blood and black leather on the midnight streets of Tokyo’s Ward 20! Moody intrigue and twisted terror take hold again in the second live-action adaptation of the immensely popular urban-horror manga. Official Selection: Los Angeles Anime Expo 2019. Canadian Premiere.
WHY DON’T YOU JUST DIE!. Russia – Dir: Kirill SokolovAll holy household hell breaks loose in a single, ever-more-battle-scarred Moscow apartment. Kirill Sokolov’s attention-grabbing debut feature is a sure-footed synthesis of suspense, dark comedy, and deranged, detail-oriented ultraviolence. Sokolov is ruthlessly deliberate in his decisions, be it the pressure-cooker dialogue, the cunning camera work, or the piquant colour scheme. Official Selection: Tallinn Black Nights 2018, What the Fest…?! 2019, Cinepocalypse 2019. Canadian Premiere.
THE WRATH. South Korea – Dir. Yoo Young-seonA powerful family’s lineage is threatened by the spirit of a wailing woman haunting their lands. This straight-up horror film set in medieval Korea recalls the glory days of VHS, dishing out enough jump scares to rouse the dead. Canadian Premiere.
2019 CHEVAL NOIR COMPETITION TITLES AND JURIES ARE ANNOUNCED
Fantasia is pleased to announce the 2019 Cheval Noir competition titles:
8. South Africa – Dir. Harold Holscher
ALMOST A MIRACLE. Japan – Dir. Yuya Ishii
ANOTHER CHILD. South Korea – Dir. Kim Yoon-seok
BLOOD ON HER NAME. USA – Dir. Matthew Pope
THE FATHER’S SHADOW. Brazil – Dir. Gabriela Amaral Almeida
IDOL. South Korea –– Dir. Lee Su-jin
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WKND. Spain – Dir. Jon Mikel Caballero
IT COMES. Japan – Dir.Tetsuya Nakashima
KINGDOM. Japan – Dir. Shinsuke Sato
THE LODGE. UK/USA – Dirs. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala
MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT. The Philippines – Dir. Adolfo Alix Jr.
SWALLOW. USA – Dir. Carlo Mirabella-Davis
WE ARE LITTLE ZOMBIES. Japan – Dir. Makoto Nagahisa
THE WRETCHED. USA – Dirs. Brett and Drew Pierce
The following industry professionals make up the Fantasia 2019 juries:
CHEVAL NOIRJury President: Annick Mahnert – Producer, Festival Programmer (Fantastic Fest, Sitges)Shaked Berenson – Producer, Member of the IFTA Board of DirectorsAmy Darling – Producer, Festival Organizer (Calgary Underground Film Festival)Miles Fineburg – Director of Acquisitions (Samuel Goldwyn Films)Maurizio Guarini – Composer (Goblin)
NEW FLESH COMPETITION FOR BEST FIRST FEATUREJury President: Onur Tukel – Director, Screenwriter, Actor, PainterJonathan Barkan – Editor-in-Chief (Dread Central)Susan Curran – COO (A71 Entertainment)Ariel Fisher – Critic (Atom Insider, Rue Morgue Magazine, Fangoria), Editor, PodcasterKyle Greenberg – Director of Theatrical Marketing and Distribution (Gunpowder & Sky)
INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM COMPETITIONJury President: Frederic Temps – Musician, Critic, Festival Director (Les Utopiales), Founder of L’Étrange FestivalKerensa Cadenas – Writer, Film Editor (Entertainment Weekly)Chelsea Lupkin – Director, Cinematographer, Producer, Senior Programmer and Writer (Short of the Week)Justin Timms – Co-Founder (Yellow Veil Pictures), Co-Festival Director (Brooklyn Horror Film Festival, North Bend Film Festival)
AQCC – CAMERA LUCIDA Andrew Todd – Writer (Birth. Movies. Death., Slashfilm), filmmaker, composerDonato Totaro – Professor, editor-in-chief (Offscreen)Elijah Baron – Film critic (24 Images), translator
THE SATOSHI KON AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN ANIMATIONJury President: Diana Tapia Munguia – Production Assistant (Cinesite Studios), Marketing and PR Chair (Women in Animation Montreal)Alaska B – Drummer and Leader (Yamantaka // Sonic Titan)Julien Deragon – 3D Animator (RodeoFX)
ACTION! Jean-Philippe Bernier – Cinematographer, Composer (Le Matos)Andy Bélanger – Comic Artist, IllustratorJF Lachapelle – Stuntman, Stunt Coordinator
VIRTUAL REALITYJury President: Erik Canuel – DirectorMartin Girard – Screenwriter, Critic (Le Devoir)RKSS – Directors, Screenwriters
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