TWO EVOKATIVE FILMS PREMIERES AT FANTASIA - DOWN TERRACE AND DELIVER US FROM EVIL

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 collaborates to the festival since 2004, 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 the event to present two films to its public for the first time: DOWN TERRACE by Ben Wheatley will have its Canadian Premiere with the Director in town for the occasion; DELIVER US FROM EVIL will have its Quebec Premiere; and BLACK will be presented under the stars.

DOWN TERRACE
A life of crime is not an easy one. It’s even harder when your entire family are criminals living under one roof! Karl has just gotten out of jail and returns home to find a pregnant girlfriend and aching questions as to who might have snitched on him. His father, Bill, has also recently been released from the clink, and he shares his son’s obsession with finding an informer amongst their rogue’s gallery of law-smashing pals and hated family friends. Mum is no less on edge, with a hair-trigger temper and a penchant for paranoia that leaves no gravestone unturned. And now, company’s coming over. In this house, full of people who seem to suspect each other of just about everything, blood pressure continuously rises until blood itself begins to flow. And it’s not particularly thicker than water.

This new acquisition for Evokative (and first English film) will have its Canadian Premiere on July 10th at 7pm and July 12th at 5:30pm, both screenings hosted by Director Ben Wheatley, who was recently noticed for his direction of the BBC series THE WRONG DOOR. The film won the Next Wave Award at Austin’s Fantastic Fest, where it had its World Premiere, to then win the Best UK Feature Award at the Raindance Film Festival and the Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards. The film was programmed in many prestigious film festivals, such as Slamdance, Rotterdam, Glasgow, Seattle, LA Film Fest, Pifan and Melbourne. The film will be released at the end of the summer jointly with the American release by Magnolia Pictures.

DELIVER US FROM EVIL
Lars and Johannes are brothers with very little in common. Johannes is a high-powered lawyer with a beautiful wife and two children; Lars is a truck driver and a drunken brute who beats his girlfriend. Having returned to his hometown in the country, Johannes hopes for a less hectic, more genuine lifestyle. But trouble is underfoot when Lars runs over a woman with his truck. He sees only one way out: put the blame on Alain, a Bosnian refugee with impaired mental functions. But when Lars, the God-fearing husband of the victim, and his friends close in on the Bosnian, Johannes stands up for the man and shelters him. Undeterred, the violent, drunken horde makes their way to Johannes´ secluded house, where the family and Alain fear for their lives. When words no longer suffice to contain the madness, a siege begins, in which unchained anarchy dictates a scenario of terror…

This Danish social thriller by Ole Bornedal (NIGHTWATCH, THE SUBSTITUTE, JUST ANOTHER LOVE STORY) will have its Quebec premiere on July 25th at 7pm and on July 28th at 7:35pm. It won the Best Film in the Noves Visions section of the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, as well as a special award of the Jury at the Fantasporto International Film Festival, after having its World Premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival and being programmed in many film festival such as the Hamptons, Pusan, Tallin, Istanbul and right now at Philadelphia’s Danger After Dark.

FANTASIA UNDER THE STARS
From July 13th to the 24th, the Fantasia Under the Stars event will return to offer outdoors screenings at Peace Parc, located beside the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT). Evokative Films is proud to participate to this event once again by offering a free screening of one of last edition of Fantasia’s popular success, BLACK, on July 13th. The screening will begin at 9pm and will be preceded by live musical and visual performances by TAXI NOUVEAU & LIBERTY.

FANTASIA’S FILMS AT EVOKATIVE FILMS
Evokative’s programming is intrinsically linked to Fantasia’s. Last year, we presented BLACK by Pierre Laffargue (now on DVD), ROUGH CUT by Jang Hoon (DVD coming this fall), from whom the SECRET REUNION will be presented at the festival this year, and DAYTIME DRINKING by Noh Young-seok (now on DVD). The previous year had THE KILLER (LE TUEUR) by Cédric Anger, as well as ADRIFT IN TOKYO by Satoshi Miki. CRYING FIST and HAZARD are other titles released by Evokative which premiered at Fantasia in the past.

The Fantasia International Film Festival will take place from July 8th to the 28th. Its programming includes more than 120 feature films and 250 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

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

A return on the world premiere of BLACK @ SXSW

It’s bad, I’ve been back in the office from my trip in Austin, Texas for SXSW for a few days and I only get to do a recap now. Things are very busy in the office you see, in-between HANSEL & GRETEL starting its run in Toronto on Friday, the Crying Fist DVD getting in its final stages of production and ADRIFT IN TOKYO to come out in theatres soon. Amongst many other things! Tim League and the Fantastic Fest folks were nice enough to program BLACK in their SXSW Presents Fantastic Fest programming, which got us all very excited to have BLACK’s World Premiere there. Both March 14th and March 18th screenings were at the South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse Theatre, to sold-out audiences that seemed very eager to see this new genre of French action flick with Blaxploitation influences starring MC Jean Gab’1.


The sold-out house on the 1st screening.


Lauranne Bourrachot, one of the producer of the film, and Pierre Laffargue, the director.

 
The Q&A session after the first screening. A video of it will be posted soon on YouTube.

 
The presentation of the second screening.

Great reviews got posted on blogs following the screenings. You can read them right here:
A first Ain’t It Cool Review
A second Ain’t It Cool Review
A review on Cinematical
A review on HitFix
A review on RowThree
And finally an interview with Pierre Laffargue on eFilmCritic

BLACK will be released in France in July and in Canada in August. There is no American distributor yet for the film but we wouldn’t be surprised that one is signed on soon following all this great buzz!

Posted in In the Press, Special Screenings

BLACK @ SXSW!

I was very happy to learn last night that BLACK was one of the six titles programmed by Fantastic Fest for the 2009 SXSW (South by Southwest) Film Festival and Conference in Austin, Texas!

 I believe this festival will be the perfect platform for BLACK’s World Premiere, which the fest nicely describes as “A nouveau-blacksploitation adventure awash in black magic, African Mysticism, mutant arms dealers, gargantuan machete-wielding mercenary armies and a truckload of knuckle-sandwiches.”

Other selected titles include much buzzed-about Ong Bak 2, The Horseman, Lesbian Vampire Killers, the Haunting in Connecticut and Pontypool. Now I want to go to Austin too!

Twitchfilm.net dedicated a post just for this news, which you can read at Twitchfilm.net. You may also want to visit the SXSW Film and Conference website at SXSW.com and the Fantastic Fest at FantasticFest.com.

Special thanks for Wide Management for working on the festival booking, and the Fantastic Fest team, helmed by Tim League, for selecting the film!

Posted in Special Screenings

THE KILLER (LE TUEUR) in Vancouver for the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois et francophone

THE KILLER (LE TUEUR) will finally get to play in Vancouver at the 15th edition of the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois et francophone on February 6th, 2009 at 9:30pm, at the Pacific Cinematheque.

SPARE CHANGE, from Ryan Larkin and Laurie Gordon, will play beforehand.

This will be the only chance for those in the Vancouver area to see the film on the big screen before its DVD release in March, so make the most of it! You may see the Facebook event here.

Posted in Special Screenings

ADRIFT IN TOKYO and HANSEL AND GRETEL at the Toronto Reel Asian Films Festival!

ADRIFT IN TOKYO will have its Toronto Premiere at the Toronto Reel Asian Film Festival on Nov. 16th, where it will have the honour of being the fest’s closing film!

HANSEL AND GRETEL will also have its Toronto Premiere at the fest on Nov. 13th. For more info:
HANSEL AND GRETEL’s page on the Reel Asian website
ADRIFT IN TOKYO’s page on the Reel Asian website
HANSEL AND GRETEL’s event page on Facebook (become a fan of Evokative while you’re at it!)
ADRIFT IN TOKYO’s event page on Facebook

Posted in Special Screenings

Director YIM Phil-sung at the Vancouver International Fim Festival!

HANSEL AND GRETEL Director Phil-sung YIM arrived in Vancouver not too long ago to have the pleasure of introducing his film to the Vancouver International Film Festival audience.

The screenings will take place on Thursday, October 2nd at 6:30 pm in the Visa Screening Room at the Empire Granville Theatre 7, as well as on Friday, October 3rd at 1:30 pm at the Empire Granville Theatre 2.

On both occasions Director YIM will answer the audience’s questions following the screenings.


Director YIM Phil-sung


I had the pleasure of meeting Director YIM in Seoul last sunday, prior to his departure for Vancouver.

Posted in Special Screenings