Fantasia: Evokative Films's favorite event of the year!

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, North-America’s largest genre film festival, is an absolute must for Evokative Films. Attended since its first years by its founder, Stephanie Trepanier, who also collaborated to three recent editions, Fantasia is at the roots of the distribution company, the essence of it passion and inspiration. Evokative Films was founded so that the Fantasia audience could see the films they love, year-round.

We are thus extremely happy to benefit from a marked presence amongst the programming of this 13th edition of the Fantasia Festival: BLACK by Pierre Laffargue will be presented as a Canadian Premiere; ROUGH CUT by JANG Hoon will also be presented as a Canadian Premiere; DAYTIME DRINKING by NOH Young-seok will be presented as a Montreal Premiere; ADRIFT IN TOKYO will be presented at Fantasia Under the Stars; and Evokative will participate in a conference of the festival.

BLACK
Black, a Senegalese bank-robber born and raised in France, is getting over a disastrous heist in which he lost nearly all of his men. He’s seriously thinking of going straight when his cousin Lamine calls him from Dakar: a briefcase full of contraband diamonds has just been deposited in the bank where he works. Thinking this will be an unbelievably easy coup, Black assembles a new gang and quickly flies to Africa, where he’s never set foot. What they haven’t planned, however, is that they are far from being the only ones interested in that briefcase. The corrupt director of the bank, an arm dealer suffering from suppurating psoriasis, a gang of mercenaries from Chechnya and an Interpol agent are also set to get their hands on those diamonds.

BLACK will have its Canadian Premiere on July 22nd at 7pm in the Hall Theatre, with the lead actor and French rapper MC Jean Gab’1, the director Pierre Laffargue and the producer Lauranne Bourrachot attending. After its World Premiere in the Fantastic Fest section of the SXSW Film Festival, this heist film filled with action, peppered with comedy and mysticism and paced to a funky soundtrack seduced both the audience and critics. Following its upcoming French release on July 15th, BLACK will see Canadian theatres from July 31st.

ROUGH CUT
Gang-pae is a mobster who dreams of becoming an actor. Soo-ta is a star actor who tends to have a bit of a bad attitude, especially with his co-stars, who keep getting beaten up on the set. Now nobody wants to work with him and it's threatening his current film's production. A chance encounter brings the two together and Soo-ta convinces Gang-pae to come and play the role of, well, a mobster. Gang-pae agrees with the condition that the film's fight scenes have to be real, no pretend bullshit.

Co-written and co-produced by the brilliant KIM Ki-duk, ROUGH CUT is directed by his protégé JANG Hoon. Last week the actor SO Ji-Seob was honored with the Rising Star Asia Award at the New York Asian Film Festival, where the film had its North-American Premiere. This film-within-a-film that gets reality and fiction muddled-up, delivers great characters and packs the punches was one of the great successes at the Korean box-office in 2008. Evokative Films acquired the film just recently at the Cannes Film Market and plans to release it theatrically in the winter of 2010, following its Canadian Premiere on July 25th at 6:30pm in the Hall Theatre.

DAYTIME DRINKING
On a drunken night out with his friends, a broken-hearted young man gets swayed into going to the countryside for a group getaway. But when he gets there, he finds that not only have none of the friends have showed up, but the tiny seaside town is shuttered - no shops are open, no tourists are around, the beach is freezing, and there’s no cell phone signal. Unable (and reluctant) to return to Seoul, he finds himself in the company of some very unusual locals and, subject to the rigid rules of Korean drinking culture, on an increasingly strange odyssey nursing a never-ending hangover.

This humorous road-movie, filmed on a micro-budget where the Korean director NOH Young-seok assumed most production duties, distinguished itself in more than 20 International film festivals over the last year. Montrealers will finally have the chance to see this cinematic feat on July 10th at 5pm in the Hall theatre and on July 28th at 3pm in the J.A. DeSève Theatre.

FANTASIA UNDER THE STARS
From July 13th to the 18th, the Fantasia Under the Stars event will offer outdoors screenings at Peace Parc, located beside the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Evokative Films is proud to participate to this event by offering a free screening of one of last edition of Fantasia’s leading popular and critical success, ADRIFT IN TOKYO, on July 18th. The screening will begin at 9pm and will be preceded by live musical and visual performances.

CONFERENCES OF THE FANTASTIC WEEKEND OF QUEBEC SHORTS
As part of this second edition of the Fantastic Weekend of Quebec Shorts, the Fantasia Festival will offer a series of four conferences intended for budding directors, newcomers trying to breakthrough in the entertainment industry and anyone interested in the creative arts. On July 26th at 1pm in the J.A. DeSève Theatre, Stephanie Trepanier will participate in the Conference on Movie and DVD Distribution in Quebec, along with Andrew Noble (Filmoption International), Izabel Grondin (director and distributor), a representative for the Régie du Cinéma du Québec, Michel Garceau (Superclub Vidéotron) and a representative for Magra Multimédia. The conference is free and will be followed by a cocktail.

FANTASIA’S FILMS AT EVOKATIVE FILMS
Evokative’s programming is intrinsically linked to Fantasia’s. Last year, we presented THE KILLER (LE TUEUR) by Cédric Anger, with the actor Grégoire Colin attending (DVD now available), as well as ADRIFT IN TOKYO by Satoshi Miki (DVD available in august), from whom the latest quirky comedy INSTANT SWAMP will be presented at the festival this year. CRYING FIST, which was presented by RYOO Seung-wan at Fantasia in 2005, is now available on DVD. HAZARD, presented by the Japanese cinema provocateur Sion Sono in 2007, will be available on DVD on July 14th. His most recent opus, LOVE EXPOSURE, will have its Canadian Premiere this year at Fantasia. Finally, a second acquisition at the Cannes Film Market, I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK by PARK Chan-wook, precedes THIRST in the director’s filmography, which will have its North-American Premiere during Fantasia’s opening weekend.

The Fantasia International Film Festival will take place from July 9th to the 29th. Its programming includes more than 115 feature films and 200 shorts. We are looking forward to attend this 3-weeks movie marathon every day, to see favourites from this year’s festival circuit again along with the always-enthusiastic Fantasia audience, and discover new cinematic gems and oddities!

Posted in Events, Special Screenings

HANSEL & GRETEL on DVD from June 9th!

The South-Korean dark fantasy HANSEL & GRETEL, the 3rd DVD title of the Evokative Collection, will finally reach Canadian lovers of Asian genre films on June 9th. Written and directed by YIM Phil-Sung (ANTARTIC JOURNAL), the film stars CHEON Jeong-myeong and the young actors SIM Eun-kyung, JANG Yeong-Nam and JIN Ji-hee. A stellar crew contributed to the film, including Production Designer RYU Seong-hie (THE HOST, A BITTERSWEET LIFE, OLDBOY, MEMORIES OF MURDER), Cinematographer KIM Ji-yong (A BITTERSWEET LIFE) and Composer LEE Byung-woo (THE HOST, A TALE OF TWO SISTERS).

When Eun-soo crashes his car on a country road, he meets a young girl who leads him to her beautiful house in the middle of the forest, where he is welcomed by her parents and two young siblings, who appear to be the picture of the perfect family. The morning after, when he tries to get back to his car, the forest seems never-ending and inevitably leads back to the house. Soon Eun-soo realizes he’s trapped in the kids’ gloomy fairy-tale alternate reality, a world no other adult has managed to escape alive before him.

HANSEL & GRETEL got attention on the International film festival circuit after being winning a Special Mention at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan) and more recently winning the Best Film Award of the Orient Express section, as well as a Special Prize in the Fantasy Competition of the Fantasporto International Film Festival. The film also played at the Seattle International Film Festival, the London Film Festival and the Gerardmer Fantastic Film Festival, amongst many others. In Canada, HANSEL & GRETEL had the honour of being chosen as the Closing Film of the Dragons and Tigers section at the Vancouver International Film Festival, to follow with the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival and the Calgary Underground Film Festival. The film was released theatrically through the months of March and April in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

In accordance with the innovative vocation of Evokative, the DVD packaging is an environmentally-friendly and elegant digipack made of 100% recycled materials and wrapped in a 100% biodegradable cellophane. The packaging includes a booklet with an exclusive Director’s note and a foreword by Calum Wadell, Contributing Writer at Fangoria and SFX Magazine. The DVD features English and French subtitles, a Making-of, Interviews with the Director and Cast, a Behind the scenes featurette, a look at the set design, Recommendations from other Korean Directors, the Original Korean Trailer and TV Spots, as well as Two shorts from YIM Phil-sung: BRUSHING and BABY.

Posted in DVD Releases