THE KILLER starts its theatrical run on November 14th!

THE KILLER (LE TUEUR) starts it theatrical run in Montreal on November 14th with a French-only copy at the Ex-Centris and an English-subtitled copy at the AMC Forum!

Posted in Theatrical Releases

A first Taiwanese title for Evokative: PARKING

Evokative Films now visits another Asian country on its cinematic tour of the world: Taiwan! PARKING (TING CHE), a black comedy by Mong-Hong Chung, first played in Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section and was seen at Montreal’s World Film Festival this september. It was just recently part of the Tigers and Dragons section of the Vancouver International Film Festival and the A Window on Asian Cinema section of the Pusan International Film Festival. It is also part of the programming of the upcoming Thessaloniki International Film Festival and Stockholm International Film Festival.

Rita Chuang from Good Films was met here in Pusan and sold us the Canadian distribution rights for all media. The film will see a limited theatrical release before being released on DVD next summer.

The film stars Chang Chen (BREATH, SILK, 2046, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, HAPPY TOGETHER), as well as Lu-Mei Kwai (SECRET, THE MOST DISTANT COURSE), Leon Dai (THE PASSAGE), Chapman To (ISABELLA), Jack Kao (A CHANCE TO DIE) and the model Peggy Tseng in her first movie role.

On Mother’s Day in Taipei, Chen-Mo makes a dinner date with his wife, hoping to bring their estranged relationship back together. While buying a cake on his way home, a car double-parks next to his car, preventing his exit. For the entire night, Chen-Mo searches for the owner of the car and encounters a succession of strange events and eccentric characters: an old couple living with their precocious granddaughter who have lost their only son; a one-armed barbershop owner cooking fish-head soup; a mainland Chinese prostitute trying to escape her pimp’s cruel clutches; and a Hong-Kong tailer embroiled in debt and captured by underground loan sharks. With the rich flavors of comedy, melodrama and noir film, PARKING interweaves themes of family, sex and money to create a moving and darkly funny story.

The film already got great reviews from Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Screen Daily and Twitchfilm. You may see the trailer and a picture gallery on our Facebook page.

Posted in Acquisitions

Sion Sono’s HAZARD finally coming to Canada!

A trip to New York by a Japanese university student seeking “hazard” is now added to the Evokative Films road-map. We are most pleased to announce that Sion Sono’s HAZARD will finally be distributed in Canada. Filmed on location in New York in 2002 and only released in Japan in 2005, the film has not previously been distributed in North America. This anarchic adventure, depicting pre-Guiliani New-York from the eyes of a naive Japanese student, was filmed with a very small budget but stayed with me since I saw it at the Fantasia Festival in 2007, when Sion Sono also came to present EXTE: HAIR EXTENSIONS.

While at the Asian Film Market of the Pusan International Film Festival, I had the pleasure of meeting with Ko Mori and Kana Aida from Elevent Arts and make the deal for a Canadian DVD release of the film. Filmed with the then little-known but now big Japanese star Jo Odagiri (ADRIFT IN TOKYO), HAZARD also stars Jai West (BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A) and Motoki Fukami (CROWS: EPISODE 0).

Shin is a Japanese university student living a boring and meaningless life. One day, he spots a book titled Dangerous Ways to Walk the World, in which he finds a page written about hazards in New-York. Eager to get out, he jets off to New-York to find this inspiration. He quickly does find out the hazards of the city when he is mugged and left with no money or clothes. By chance, he meets Lee and Takeda, two Japanese-American punks who take him in. With Lee and Takeda, Shin’s days in New-York are now full of excitement and danger. When they need a ride, they threaten people and take their cars. When they are hungry, they rob the deli for food. But their trouble-seeking ways eventually gets them chased by the police, which kills a friend and imprisons the other. Shin ultimately goes back to Japan with a new thirst for life.

You may see the film’s Fantasia International Film Festival write-up here and Twitchfilm’s review here. The acquisition news already got covered by Twitchfilm and the Toronto J-Film Pow-wow. You may also see the trailer and a picture gallery on our Facebook page.

Posted in Acquisitions

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

EVOKATIVE Acquires HANSEL AND GRETEL!

A mysterious South-Korean forest is the new destination taken by Evokative Films. We are enchanted to announce our acquisition of the South-Korean dark fantasy HANSEL AND GRETEL. Written by Pil-Sung Yim (ANTARTIC JOURNAL), the films starts Jeong-myeong Cheon and the young actors Sim Eun-kyung, Yeong-Nam Jang and Ji-hee Jin. A stellar crew contributed to the films, including Production Designer Seong-hie Ryu (THE HOST, A BITTERSWEET LIFE, OLDBOY, MEMORIES OF MURDER), Cinematographer Ji-yong Kim (A BITTERSWEET LIFE) and Composer Byung-woo Lee (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 AND GRETEL started its festival career at the Cannes Film Market in May and at the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival in July, where it won a special mention from the European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals Jury. It will be the closing film of the Dragons and Tigers section of the Vancouver International Film Festival (where the director will be in attendance to present its film) and will be part of the programming of the upcoming Sitges International Fantasy Film Festival. Its participation to other films festivals will be confirmed shortly.

Posted in Acquisitions, In the Press

A third title for Evokative: BLACK

After Paris and Tokyo, Dakar is the new destination visited by Evokative Films. The new Canadian distributor of International films is very happy to announce its third acquisition: BLACK, a film written and directed by Pierre Laffargue. This action film, taking place in Paris and Dakar, stars the French rapper MC Jean Gab’1, Carole Karemera, François Levantal and Anton Yakovlev.

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. With a funky soundtrack, BLACK delivers a heist film filled with action and peppered with comedy and mysticism.

Evokative Films closed this distribution deal with Anaïs Canet from Wide Management, its world sales agent. The film was produced by Chic Films and will be distributed in France by Ocean Films. BLACK will be released in theatres in France by the end of the year and in Canada shortly thereafter.

Evokative Films’ acquisition of the Canadian rights of BLACK was reported in Variety today. Check it out here: ‘Black’ goes Wide via Evokative

Posted in Acquisitions

Evokative dans le Hollywood @ la maison

Evokative Films était le sujet de l’éditorial “Du côté du Québec” de Denise Roy dans la dernière édition du Hollywood @ la maison.

Pour ceux qui ne sont pas familier avec cette publication, c’est un “trade” qui s’adresse principalement aux professionels du marché du DVD.

Suivez ce lien pour consulter l’article! Editorial Evokative Hollywood @ la maison

Posted in In the Press