all movies by date | Offscreen
4 March 2020
ABOUT ENDLESSNESS
Acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson ("A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence") presents us with a series of deadpan and sometimes absurd vignettes that convey both the tragicomedy of the human condition and the visual poetry of everyday existence. From a girl clasping the hand of her lover for the first time, to a father holding the body of his dead son in his arms, it’s a visionary experience that will touch the emotions as well as the intellect.
ABOUT ENDLESSNESS - SECOND SCREENING
Acclaimed Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson ("A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence") presents us with a series of deadpan and sometimes absurd vignettes that convey both the tragicomedy of the human condition and the visual poetry of everyday existence. From a girl clasping the hand of her lover for the first time, to a father holding the body of his dead son in his arms, it’s a visionary experience that will touch the emotions as well as the intellect.
5 March 2020
CREATURE FROM THE HAUNTED SEA
Legendary filmmaker Roger Corman, shooting on the cheap in Puerto Rico, mashes together mobsters, Cuban counter-revolutionaries and a sea creature resembling the Cookie Monster in this mad horror parody. Fun fact: Robert Towne, future Oscar-winning screenwriter of "Chinatown", plays the government agent.
Free entry.
SAMURAI MARATHON
In 1853, with a US fleet anchored off the coast of Japan, a local warlord responds to the threat of attack by ordering his men to get fit by running a marathon. The UK-born director of "Candyman" turns out a madly entertaining jidaigeki incorporating spies, swordplay and, less traditionally, music by Philip Glass.
THE TIME MACHINE
Rod Taylor travels into a future where the gentle Eloi are menaced by scary Morlocks in this classic adaptation of H.G. Wells’ seminal time travel novella. George Pal’s film waters down the author’s sociopolitical message but compensates with game-changing visuals.
RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY
Ricky is a superhumanly skilled martial artist whose revenge on the thug who caused his girlfriend’s death condemns him to jail, where he defends himself from psychotic inmates by punching people’s heads off amid insane levels of splatter and bad acting. "Braindead"-era Peter Jackson would have been proud.
6 March 2020
BEACH HORROR & PARTY NIGHT
American cult film specialist Mike Hunchback zips through the B-movie history of beach horror, sea monsters and scantily clad bathers via three features ("The Horror of Party Beach", "Shock Waves" and "Blood Beach") and a crazy cocktail of trailers and surprise acts. Get ready for a beach party at the Nova-Tikibar where Hawaiian Hula alternates with 60s surf & garage beats.
THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH
The "First Horror Monster Musical" has been hailed as one of the worst films ever made, but there’s never a dull moment as radioactive waste transforms skeletons into bug-eyed aquatic humanoid creatures that prey on the women on the coast of Connecticut, including a couple of dozen chicks at a slumber party.
SHOCK WAVES
Shipwrecked tourists find themselves stranded on an island off the coast of Florida, inhabited only by an SS commander (Peter Cushing) and an entire secret army of undead storm troopers, whose modus operandi runs more to drowning people than to eating them. The original underwater Nazi zombie movie!
BLOOD BEACH
"Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water… you can’t get to it." Nice old ladies, young hotties, beachcombers, would-be rapists and a fluffy dog all get sucked into the sand and chomped on by an unseen creature in this bonkers horror movie set on and around Venice Beach in Los Angeles.
7 March 2020
HEIßER SOMMER
Fresh-faced youngsters head for the popular holiday resort of Rügen Island in the Baltic Sea in this East German variation on the Cliff Richard classic "Summer Holiday". At first, the unruly boys threaten to spoil the fun for the girls, but soon the two groups learn to get along, with lots of singing and dancing.
EVER AFTER
Each time you think zombies are all played out, along comes another film to show there’s life in the undead yet. In this German graphic novel adaptation, a mostly female cast and crew stirs fairytale imagery, ecological motifs and folk-horror elements into a fresh spin on the obligatory flesh-ripping carnage.
This film will be introduced by the director.
THE TERMINATOR
A perfectly cast Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an unstoppable killer robot sent from the future to murder the waitress destined to give birth to humanity’s last best hope in James Cameron’s peerless SF thriller. Crammed with action and great quotes, including "I’ll be back."
NIGHT TIDE
Young Dennis Hopper plays a sailor who falls in love with a carnival mermaid in this eerie low-budget debut by Curtis Harrington ("What’s the Matter With Helen?"), filmed on and around the boardwalks of Santa Monica. But will he meet the same fate as her previous boyfriends, who have all come to watery ends?
8 March 2020
MATINEE: BLUE HAWAII
It’s Hawaiian shirts and leis galore as Elvis Presley plays beach-loving ex-G.I. Chad, who gets work as a tour guide even though his mom (Angela Lansbury, in real life only 10 years older than Elvis) wants him to carry on the family fruit business. Songs include "Can’t Help Falling in Love" and "Rock-A-Hula Baby".
BACK TO THE FUTURE
The comic fantasy that put time travel on the mainstream map stars Michael J. Fox as young Marty McFly, who is zapped back into smalltown America of the 50s by his mad scientist friend’s time-travelling DeLorean. Stuffed with smart gags, Oedipal complications, and a nail-biting race against the clock.
NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND
The love between Anna and Hugh is so strong that even his sudden death can’t stop him coming back to her. But his return is not without complications. An atmospheric romantic tragedy, adapted from a novel by British newscaster Gordon Honeycombe, and filmed on beautiful beach locations in the Channel Islands.
THE NAVIGATOR: A MEDIEVAL ODYSSEY
Villagers from 14th century Cumbria fend off the Black Death by casting a holy cross and digging a tunnel – only to emerge into a terrifying big city in 20th century New Zealand. Vincent Ward’s blend of medieval fantasy and time travel confirmed his status as one of cinema’s most visionary directors.
SWALLOW
Get your gag reflex ready as a young wife (Haley Bennett) rebels against her controlling husband and his rich family by swallowing a variety of small household items. The struggle against psychological abuse and suffocatingly tasteful décor makes for disturbing and audacious body horror with a feminist slant.
A DAY WITHOUT POLICEMAN
This movie has been replaced with a screening of "The Seeding of a Ghost".
A cop (Simon Yam) with an AK-47 phobia gets caught in the middle when a Chinese fisherman repatriates his gang to avenge the rape and murder of his wife – and the AK-47s come out! This metaphor for the relationship between Hong Kong and China is packed with action, humour, gore and amorality.
9 March 2020
INTERSTELLAR
With Earth becoming uninhabitable, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) bids a bittersweet farewell to his children and leads a team of astronauts through a wormhole to a distant galaxy in search of new planets to colonise. But time works in mysterious ways in this ambitious SF spectacular from the director of “Inception”.
10 March 2020
TIMECRIMES
Hector spots a woman undressing in the woods behind his house in Nacho Vigalondo’s superb debut, a low-budget SF thriller with no flashy effects but a meticulously worked-out screenplay involving doppelgangers, murder and intersecting timelines. Guaranteed to tax your brain in all the right ways.
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
TRIANGLE
Survivors from a capsized yacht seek refuge on an apparently derelict ocean liner, which is when the nightmare really begins in this brilliant SF chiller with a devastating pay-off. Melissa George is superb as a single mother who was trying to take a day off from the stress of caring for her autistic son.
11 March 2020
PRIMER
In an ingenious and engrossing lo-tech debut, writer-director-producer-editor-designer-composer Shane Carruth plays one of two nerds confronted by temporal paradoxes and mounting paranoia after they accidentally invent a time-machine in the garage. Scientifically rigorous and extremely mind-boggling.
THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT
In 1943, a US Navy experiment to render its fleet invisible to enemy radar goes pear-shaped, hurling two sailors 41 years into the future. Nancy Allen helps one of them (80s dreamboat Michael Paré) evade the authorities, sort out his "drifting molecules" and save the planet.
SWALLOW - SECOND SCREENING
Get your gag reflex ready as a young wife (Haley Bennett) rebels against her controlling husband and his rich family by swallowing a variety of small household items. The struggle against psychological abuse and suffocatingly tasteful décor makes for disturbing and audacious body horror with a feminist slant.
12 March 2020
MONOS
A squad of teenage soldiers is put through its paces in the mountains of a nameless Latin American country. Between drills, they tend to a cow, guard their American hostage, and have tentative sex. But events spiral out of their control in this often surreal allegory, enhanced by Mica Levi’s unsettling score.
ROBOTRIX
A mortally wounded lady cop is revived as one third of a crimefighting cyborg trio with cleavage in the first Cat III film to feature martial arts. They try to stop a rapey killer robot in this delirious hybrid of "Robocop" and "Terminator" with sex scenes. Also includes decapitation by wicker suitcase.
NIGHT TIDE
Young Dennis Hopper plays a sailor who falls in love with a carnival mermaid in this eerie low-budget debut by Curtis Harrington ("What’s the Matter With Helen?"), filmed on and around the boardwalks of Santa Monica. But will he meet the same fate as her previous boyfriends, who have all come to watery ends?
IDIOCRACY
When a military experiment goes awry, an average Joe (Luke Wilson) wakes up 500 years in the future to find himself the smartest man in a dumbed-down dystopia. Mike Judge’s SF satire looks more like a documentary every day: big-ass fries, garbage mountains, "Ow, My Balls!" on TV, and a world run by imbeciles.
This movie will be introduced by American cult film specialist Mike Hunchback.
SONATINE
In Kitano’s breakthrough film, the cult actor-director plays a yakuza enforcer sent by his Tokyo boss to Okinawa. After an ambush, he and fellow survivors seek refuge at the beach, where they play children’s games. Genre thrills evolve into the alternately lyrical and brutal character study of a damned soul.
TRANCERS
"Jack Deth is back… and he’s never even been here before." Square-jawed Tim Thomerson stars in this smashing B-movie as a future cop who pursues a time-tampering villain back to 80s Los Angeles, where he’s turning folk into zombielike "trancers". Future Oscar-winner Helen Hunt shows Deth the 80s ropes.
13 March 2020
KOKO-DI KOKO-DA
A bereaved couple tries to patch up their ailing relationship by going on a camping trip into the forest, only to fall victim to a trio of nightmarish carnival characters in this Swedish folk-horror fantasy. Sinister nursery rhymes, shadow puppets and children’s toys add up to the grimmest of fairytales.
This film will be introduced by the director and preceded by his short film "Dreams From the Woods".
TRANCERS
"Jack Deth is back… and he’s never even been here before." Square-jawed Tim Thomerson stars in this smashing B-movie as a future cop who pursues a time-tampering villain back to 80s Los Angeles, where he’s turning folk into zombielike "trancers". Future Oscar-winner Helen Hunt shows Deth the 80s ropes.
THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA
An evil sorcerer wreaks grisly vengeance on the men he deems responsible for the death of his sister, but before he can finish the job he gets distracted by his last target’s lovely fiancée. This horror comedy has it all: duelling wizards, ghost kids, sex magic, spectral rape - and a literal dickhead.
THE UNTOLD STORY
Anthony Wong won Best Actor at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his performance as a restaurant owner who becomes chief murder suspect after severed limbs are washed up on a Macau beach. This creepy cult classic, inspired by a real news item, ends with one of the most shocking scenes in film history.
14 March 2020
HONG KONG CATEGORY III: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
French critic Julien Sévéon will explore the taboo breaking aspects of Category III films that has made them such a cultish draw for so many. Examining films before and after the handover of Hong Kong to China, Dr Calum Waddell (University of Lincoln) will interrogate the ways in which these films seem to foreshadow the current political crisis in Hong Kong. We will also be joined by Dr Victor Fan (King’s College, London) who will turn his wide-ranging expertise in Chinese cinema and politics on to the crazy, bizarre and confrontational world of Category III. The conference, which will be held in English, will start with the documentary "Category III: The Untold Story of Hong Kong Exploitation Cinema" by Calum Waddell, and will conclude with a panel discussion.
JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME
A suicidal man agrees to take part in a time travel experiment, only for a technical glitch to leave him ping-ponging hopelessly around in his own memories. Alain Resnais’ SF conundrum, filmed in Belgium, is as haunting and enigmatic as you’d expect from the director from "Last Year at Marienbad".
TOMORROW I'LL WAKE UP AND SCALD MYSELF WITH TEA
Delightful Czech comedy set in a future that looks exactly like 1977, but with commercialised time travel, anti-ageing pills and an aerosol that turns faces green. Some neo-Nazis decide to go back in time and give Hitler the H-bomb, but their scheme is complicated by identical twins and temporal paradoxes.
TAXI HUNTER
When his pregnant wife gets her dress caught in a cab door and is accidentally dragged to her death, a mild-mannered insurance salesman (Anthony Wong) flips out and wreaks revenge on bad taxi drivers. Vigilante madness, peppered with dark humour and references to "Taxi Driver".
JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY
Two CIA agents get more than they bargain for when they plug their brains into social media to combat a Russian computer virus called "Stalin". Miguel Llansó’s lo-tech retro-SF action-comedy is a glorious multi-level mindfuck of Philip K. Dick, Afrofuturism and giant houseflies; filmed in Ethiopia, Estonia, and Spain.
This film will be introduced by the director.
SONATINE
In Kitano’s breakthrough film, the cult actor-director plays a yakuza enforcer sent by his Tokyo boss to Okinawa. After an ambush, he and fellow survivors seek refuge at the beach, where they play children’s games. Genre thrills evolve into the alternately lyrical and brutal character study of a damned soul.
BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter play metalheads who use a time machine to bring historical personages (Socrates, Napoleon et al) to present-day California so they can ace their school history test. Also includes air guitar, complicated interaction with future selves, and the great George Carlin.
This film will be introduced by American cult film specialist Mike Hunchback.
SEX AND ZEN
A scholar is obsessed with seducing women, leading to slapstick comedy, tragic irony and plenty of softcore lubriciousness in this sensuous adaptation of a 17th century Chinese erotic novel. Highlights include a horse penis transplant, letter-writing by vagina, and a flute co-opted as a lesbian sex-aid.
15 March 2020
CINEKETJE
This year, Cineketje chimes in with one of the themes of the festival: beach movies! This selection of short films will give you a nice foretaste of the sunny days to come. But the beach isn't just a place to enjoy the sunshine and build sand castles: you can get lost and find your way back, make new friends, discover new things, go on an adventure... A veritable place to play and to live.
BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II
Marty McFly and Doc Brown travel 30 years into the future, muck up their present (1985), and then have to zip back to 1955 to set things straight in this mind-bending sequel. All this, while avoiding their past selves and ensuring that nothing happens to change the plot of the original "Back to the Future"!
MOPE
Two losers calling themselves "The Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker of Porn" try to make it in Hollywood’s adult entertainment industry. This controversial dramatisation of real-life events starts out as a laugh-out-loud guide to the porn business, but the second half turns tragic.
TIMESCAPE
Widower Jeff Daniels and his daughter are bemused when a bunch of weird tourists insist on staying in their half-built guest house on the outskirts of a small American town. But where are they from, and why are their passports stamped with April 18, 1906 – the date of the San Francisco earthquake?
BLIND SPOT
Jean-Christophe Folly gives a fearless (and often fearlessly naked) performance as a troubled Parisian in a dead-end job who can become invisible, but keeps his ability a secret - until, one day, he finds he can no longer control it. This affecting social realist fable explores the downside of having a superpower.
This film will be introduced by the directors.
DEVIL'S WOMAN
Still traumatised after being hit in the face by a foetus blasted out of a pregnant hostage’s womb, a cop (Cat III favourite Elvis Tsui) hunts for a sexy female assassin. The poor guy also has to struggle against a spell that makes him want to rape his therapist. Campy but action-packed sex-horror romp.
16 March 2020
PREDESTINATION
The Spierig Brothers ("Daybreakers") tackle Robert A. Heinlein’s story "All You Zombies", with results that will make your head explode. The ultimate time travelling paradox is brought to life thanks to great performances from Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook, currently killing it in HBO’s "Succession".
This movie will be introduced by American cult film specialist Mike Hunchback.
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
17 March 2020
MILLENNIUM
Kris Kristofferson plays a plane crash investigator perplexed by weird anomalies in the deaths of hundreds of airline passengers. Could it have something to do with Cheryl Ladd as a chainsmoking punk-haired chick from the future? Timequakes galore in this daft but diverting adaptation of John Varley’s novel.
18 March 2020
SHORTSCREEN
For the annual Shortscreen program, Offscreen and website Kortfilm.be present a selection of recent short films that fit the Offscreen criteria: original, unusual, bizarre, and surprising. The films will be introduced by the filmmakers.
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
The modern aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is sucked through a time tunnel to December 1941, just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. Should Captain Kirk Douglas warn the US forces and use his superior weapons against the enemy fleet? Or will that trigger a temporal paradox?
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
CINEMA BIS BELGE: LES DEMONIAQUES
Two women make a pact with the devil to avenge their rape and murder in this erotic thriller by the legendary Jean Rollin, who infuses it with his customary dreamlike imagery and pastel coloured chiffon. Co-produced by Brussels-based Général Films; atmospheric Belgian locations include the ruined Abbaye de Villers.
19 March 2020
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
In the presence of the crew.
JE T'AIME, JE T'AIME
A suicidal man agrees to take part in a time travel experiment, only for a technical glitch to leave him ping-ponging hopelessly around in his own memories. Alain Resnais’ SF conundrum, filmed in Belgium, is as haunting and enigmatic as you’d expect from the director from "Last Year at Marienbad".
JUST BEFORE DAWN
Young urban folk visit a cabin in the backwoods of Oregon, but their jaunt goes horribly wrong. This superior "Deliverance"-style hillbilly slasher pic benefits from spectacular scenery, the iconic presence of George Kennedy as a forest ranger uttering ineffectual warnings, and an extraordinary Final Girl moment.
This film will be introduced by the director.
20 March 2020
IDAHO TRANSFER
After an ecological catastrophe, youngsters are sent via a time machine into the future to rebuild civilisation in this prescient SF fable with a hippy-ish vibe and a devastating ending. Fonda’s second film as director, shot in spectacular volcanic landscapes, is a genuine rarity, not to be missed!
JALLIKATTU
An escaped buffalo wreaks havoc in an Indian village, stirring up primal instincts in the menfolk as they compete to catch the beast. This study of toxic testosterone at its most unhinged pelts you with astonishing music and imagery on its way towards an unforgettably hellish climax.
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
SQUIRM
The killer worms in this Nature Bites Back classic aren’t even giant ones; they’re common earthworms that begin to devour the inhabitants of a small Georgia town after getting a shot of electricity from a fallen power line. From then on it’s worms a-go-go, oozing out of taps, burrowing into faces…
This film will be introduced by the director.
JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY
Two CIA agents get more than they bargain for when they plug their brains into social media to combat a Russian computer virus called "Stalin". Miguel Llansó’s lo-tech retro-SF action-comedy is a glorious multi-level mindfuck of Philip K. Dick, Afrofuturism and giant houseflies; filmed in Ethiopia, Estonia, and Spain.
REMOTE CONTROL
"Why did they pick home videos to destroy mankind?" Kevin Dillon ("The Blob") plays a video store clerk who stumbles across an alien plot to distribute a hokey old 50s SF film that brainwashes viewers into killing each other. The 80s-tastic action also features aerobics, futuristic lamé costumes, and disco carnage!
In the presence of director Jeff Lieberman.
21 March 2020
THE TIME ZONE: TIME TRAVEL CONFERENCE & PANEL DISCUSSION
This international conference will addresses cinema’s relationship to time travel, the feasability of the science depicted on screen, and the narrative deployment of relativity, causality, paradoxes, loops and wormholes. Also on the menu are the short films "The Late Philip J. Fry" and "La jetée".
STAR TREK: ALL OUR YESTERDAYS & THE CITY ON THE EDGE OF FOREVER
In "All Our Yesterdays", Captain Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy find themselves in a library full of portals to a doomed planet’s past, and in "The City on the Edge of Forever," (officially scripted by Harlan Ellison but rewritten by Gene Roddenberry, and often cited as one of the best "Star Trek" episodes of all time), Kirk and Spock travel back to Depression-era New York City, with heartbreaking results.
LES PARTICULES
The Large Hadron Collider wields eerie influence over Pierre-André and his classmates in a small town on the Franco-Swiss border. And then one of them vanishes… In Blaise Harrison’s feature debut, credibly aimless teenagers wrestle with the mysteries of science, ominous landscape and a sense of foreboding.
This film will be introduced by Colin Lévêque (DOP) and Élg (original soundtrack).
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
BLUE SUNSHINE
Californians lose their hair and turn into psychokillers in this 70s horror classic. Could it be connected to the politician now running for Congress? Zalman King (later to direct softcore cheese like "Wild Orchid") plays the hapless hero, caught at so many murder scenes the cops naturally assume he’s the killer.
In the presence of the director.
VIVARIUM
Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots play a young couple whose encounter with an unnaturally cheerful realtor leaves them trapped in a perfect suburban housing estate. And there’s worse to come. "The Twilight Zone" meets Samuel Beckett in this pastel-coloured nightmare anchored by a terrific performance from Poots.
IT COMES
Hideki presents himself on his blog as a perfect family man, but the reality will blow your mind in Tetsuya Nakashima’s demented supernatural thriller. Poltergeist action, a sneaky demon, gratuitous dismemberment and a full quota of jaw-dropping moments lead to the most spectacular exorcism you’ve ever seen.
TWELVE MONKEYS
Bruce Willis plays a psychiatric patient who claims he has been sent back from the year 2035 to save mankind from being wiped out by a virus. Terry Gilliam’s ambitious epic stirs "La Jetée" and "Vertigo" into an intoxicating brew of time travel, romance, red herrings and derring-do.
DOGS DON'T WEAR PANTS
A cardiologist, emotionally paralysed since the tragic death of his wife, strays into the orbit of a dominatrix, whose extreme BDSM skills help him come to terms with his bereavement. Deadpan Finnish humour and genuine emotions help make the sometimes wince-making consensual torture go down a treat.
IT COMES
Hideki presents himself on his blog as a perfect family man, but the reality will blow your mind in Tetsuya Nakashima’s demented supernatural thriller. Poltergeist action, a sneaky demon, gratuitous dismemberment and a full quota of jaw-dropping moments lead to the most spectacular exorcism you’ve ever seen.
22 March 2020
BACK TO THE FUTURE PART III
Marty has to travel even further back in time – to the Old West of 1885, where he has to channel his inner Clint Eastwood to save Doc from being shot dead by an ancestor of the tyrannical Biff. And how can they get the DeLorean back to the future when gasoline has yet to be invented?
IT COMES
Hideki presents himself on his blog as a perfect family man, but the reality will blow your mind in Tetsuya Nakashima’s demented supernatural thriller. Poltergeist action, a sneaky demon, gratuitous dismemberment and a full quota of jaw-dropping moments lead to the most spectacular exorcism you’ve ever seen.
24 March 2020
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Will Rogers, famously from Oklahoma rather than Connecticut, plays a radio repairman who gets a bump on the head, propelling him back through time to the court of King Arthur, where he uses his knowledge of modern technology to convince everyone he is a magician. This Pre-Code adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel also features Myrna Loy as evil Morgana Le Fay.
SONATINE
In Kitano’s breakthrough film, the cult actor-director plays a yakuza enforcer sent by his Tokyo boss to Okinawa. After an ambush, he and fellow survivors seek refuge at the beach, where they play children’s games. Genre thrills evolve into the alternately lyrical and brutal character study of a damned soul.
25 March 2020
PLANET OF THE APES
"Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" Classic SF adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s novel, starring Charlton Heston as an American space pilot whose ship crashlands on a strange planet, where he learns there’s no such thing as human rights in a world ruled by talking simians.
26 March 2020
TWELVE MONKEYS
Bruce Willis plays a psychiatric patient who claims he has been sent back from the year 2035 to save mankind from being wiped out by a virus. Terry Gilliam’s ambitious epic stirs "La Jetée" and "Vertigo" into an intoxicating brew of time travel, romance, red herrings and derring-do.
27 March 2020
YOR, THE HUNTER FROM THE FUTURE
Yor, a prehistoric warrior with shaggy blond hair, tackles zombies, dinosaurs and sexy cave dwellers before discovering the shattering truth about himself and his world. This rip-off of cult pics like "Conan the Barbarian” is such a hoot it ended up becoming a cult favourite itself.
TIMECOP
See The Muscles from Brussels doing the splits on his kitchen worktop! Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a cop whose job is to travel back through time to arrest any time-travellers who try to alter history. But can he stop an evil Senator from tampering with the past to make himself President in the present?
28 March 2020
PORTRAIT OF JENNIE
An impoverished painter’s encounters with an ethereal young girl in Central Park inspire his art, but their relationship takes on tragic dimensions as he discovers they are separated by time. Dieterle’s haunting romance was shot in black and white, but bursts into colour at the end.
29 March 2020
CINEKETJE
This year, Cineketje chimes in with one of the themes of the festival: beach movies! This selection of short films will give you a nice foretaste of the sunny days to come. But the beach isn't just a place to enjoy the sunshine and build sand castles: you can get lost and find your way back, make new friends, discover new things, go on an adventure... A veritable place to play and to live.
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED
Coppola’s time-slip movie, named after a Buddy Holly song, showcases Kathleen Turner on peak form as an unhappily married mother who is transported back to high school in 1960, where she has to confront her life choices all over again. Also featuring a Nicolas Cage performance which is eccentric even by Cage standards.
DOUBLE BILL: BLOOD BEACH & RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY
In "Blood Beach", nice old ladies, young hotties, beachcombers, would-be rapists and a fluffy dog all get sucked into the sand and chomped on by an unseen creature. And in "Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky", a superhumanly skilled martial artist defends himself from psychotic inmates by punching people’s heads off amid insane levels of splatter and bad acting.
30 March 2020
BLUE SUNSHINE (+ TRIBUTE TO JEFF LIEBERMAN)
Californians lose their hair and turn into psychokillers in this 70s horror classic. Could it be connected to the politician now running for Congress? Zalman King (later to direct softcore cheese like "Wild Orchid") plays the hapless hero, caught at so many murder scenes the cops naturally assume he’s the killer.
SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE
Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time", flung around between old age and childhood, marriage and fatherhood, life on the alien planet of Tralfamadore, and the firebombing of Dresden. This adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s cult novel features a Bach soundtrack played by the legendary Glenn Gould.
31 March 2020
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE
Will Rogers, famously from Oklahoma rather than Connecticut, plays a radio repairman who gets a bump on the head, propelling him back through time to the court of King Arthur, where he uses his knowledge of modern technology to convince everyone he is a magician. This Pre-Code adaptation of Mark Twain’s novel also features Myrna Loy as evil Morgana Le Fay.
1 April 2020
IDIOCRACY
When a military experiment goes awry, an average Joe (Luke Wilson) wakes up 500 years in the future to find himself the smartest man in a dumbed-down dystopia. Mike Judge’s SF satire looks more like a documentary every day: big-ass fries, garbage mountains, "Ow, My Balls!" on TV, and a world run by imbeciles.
LES VISITEURS
Jean Reno and Christian Clavier play a medieval squire and his servant transported by a bungling wizard into the 20th century, where they wreak slapstick havoc. One of the highest-grossing French films ever made – unlike the 2001 Hollywood remake ("Just Visiting"), in which Reno and Clavier reprised their roles in English.
3 April 2020
DONNIE DARKO
Jake Gyllenhaal plays a sleepwalking high school student who has visions of a giant demonic rabbit telling him the world will end in 29 days. Kelly’s directing debut is a twisted, darkly humorous teen movie with a uniquely ominous mood. Tears For Fears’ "Mad World" will never sound the same again.
4 April 2020
TIME BANDITS
Young Kevin falls in with a bunch of delinquent dwarves who have stolen a spacetime map, and skips through history with them in the first of what the filmmaker has called his "Trilogy of Imagination". Anarchic, subversive mischief from the director of "12 Monkeys", with John Cleese as Robin Hood and Sean Connery as Agamemnon.
7 April 2020
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER
Of the three low-budget SF films shot by B-movie maestro Edgar G. Ulmer at the end of his career, this is the grimmest. A military test pilot is catapulted from 1960 into 2024 and discovers an underground dystopia where almost the entire population has been rendered deaf-mute and infertile by a cosmic plague.
9 April 2020
TIME AFTER TIME
To escape capture in 1893, Jack the Ripper (David Warner) steals H.G. Wells’ time machine. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) pursues him to modern San Francisco in an effort to stop the killer’s continuing atrocities and bring him to justice. Clever, beguiling time travel thriller with a lovely romantic subplot.
12 April 2020
MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Every midnight, an American writer, on a visit to Paris with his fiancée, is whisked back to the Left Bank of the 20s, where he hobnobs with Hemingway, Scott and Zelda, Gertrude Stein and other expat legends. A partial return to form for Allen, with plenty of shameless intellectual name-dropping, but also a few barbs lurking amid the cosy nostalgia.
SOMEWHERE IN TIME
Christopher Reeve plays a playwright who becomes obsessed by the actress in a vintage photograph, and hypnotises himself into travelling back through time to 1912 so he can meet her. Classic time travel weepie, adapted from a novel by Richard Matheson and featuring an exquisite John Barry score.
14 April 2020
THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT
Not the lighthearted teen movie you might expect with Kutcher topping the bill, but a surprisingly dark time travel yarn in which a college student stumbles across an almost Proustian method of travelling back in time – he reads his old diaries. Problem is, each time he tinkers with the past to try and fix the future for himself and his friends, he only succeeds in making things worse. Much worse.
16 April 2020
LOOPER
In the future, the mob disposes of victims by sending them back through time to be shot dead by "loopers". Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a looper who one day finds himself required to kill his own future self (Bruce Willis). The writer-director of "Knives Out" juggles multiple timelines in this enthralling SF thriller.
17 April 2020
BEYOND THE TIME BARRIER
Of the three low-budget SF films shot by B-movie maestro Edgar G. Ulmer at the end of his career, this is the grimmest. A military test pilot is catapulted from 1960 into 2024 and discovers an underground dystopia where almost the entire population has been rendered deaf-mute and infertile by a cosmic plague.
20 April 2020
SOMEWHERE IN TIME
Christopher Reeve plays a playwright who becomes obsessed by the actress in a vintage photograph, and hypnotises himself into travelling back through time to 1912 so he can meet her. Classic time travel weepie, adapted from a novel by Richard Matheson and featuring an exquisite John Barry score.
22 April 2020
THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE
Erica Bana and Rachel McAdams play Chicago librarians who meet, fall in love, and marry – though not necessarily in that order, since the romantic relationship at the heart of this adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller is complicated by a time-travelling disorder that makes him appear and disappear at random. A bittersweet time-travel weepie in the tradition of "Somewhere in Time".
27 April 2020
QUARTIER LOINTAIN
A middle-aged man is transported back through time to relive the pivotal moments of his teenage years – first love, the loss of his father - in this poignant, affecting adaptation of Jirô Taniguchi’s acclaimed manga about youth, memory and nostalgia, filmed in France and Luxembourg.
30 April 2020
THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE
Erica Bana and Rachel McAdams play Chicago librarians who meet, fall in love, and marry – though not necessarily in that order, since the romantic relationship at the heart of this adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestseller is complicated by a time-travelling disorder that makes him appear and disappear at random. A bittersweet time-travel weepie in the tradition of "Somewhere in Time".
5 May 2020
QUARTIER LOINTAIN
A middle-aged man is transported back through time to relive the pivotal moments of his teenage years – first love, the loss of his father - in this poignant, affecting adaptation of Jirô Taniguchi’s acclaimed manga about youth, memory and nostalgia, filmed in France and Luxembourg.