Manuel de Layet [Film Festival 11.22.11] news



Dear obstinate readers, let me introduce to you all the latest addition to Paris humongous stable of festivals. This one will be right up your alley, it’s called the PIFFF. Yes, I know, this sounds like some childish onomatopoeia, there’s a limit to the use of acronyms that’s clearly reached in this case. Behind the 5 letters lurks something far more interesting than the sound they produce: the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival. It’s also a mouthful. Can’t have everything.

Now that I’ve made the obligatory remark my system was nudging me with since I first heard the word I can, at last, be professional for this introduction.
This first year is what you could call a beta version. And frankly, I’d love to see more beta-products of this quality.

Sixteen movies, a truck load of shorts, and the obligatory competition with a dream team as a jury.

Yeah I said dream team, managing to get Cristophe Ganz, Roger Avary, Jaume Balaguero and Innocence’s director Lucile Hadzihalilovic together on their first edition is something.

Concerning the screenings, I’m afraid to say that most of you readers will have already seen or in a way purloined the movies, since it’s mostly the French premieres. That kind of thing always has me wondering if I’m living in the backwatery inbred part of the known world.

Still the whole selection is of such notable interest they deserve to be seen on the big screen. All of them. From what I am reading right know of the lineup, there’s nothing you should miss if you intend to be there.

To point some of the out of the whole, there’s Abel Ferrara’s latest: 4.44 Last day on earth. The End of Days with a couple of New York artists as protagonist… Not enough to sell it? Come on “End of Day” and Abel Ferrara, what do you want more? Oh I forgot there’s Willem Dafoe in it also.

Keeping in line with the End of Days theme, there’s also Bellflower. This one is about getting ready for the nuclear apocalypse, and it’s Australian. I don’t know if there’ll be mutant kangaroos in it, but there are in Kangootomik, one of the shorts in competition.

To stay in warm climate in this cold cold November there’s also the underrated little gem The Dead, a hopeless and bleak zombie-survival in Africa. Think of a Resident Evil 5 made by Lucio Fulci and you won’t be far from the truth.

And because I can’t talk about each and every film featured here’s the full lineup :
Mientras duernes
A Lonely Place To Die
Blind Alley
Extraterrestre
Retreat
The Dead
The Innkeepers
The Ward
Cassadaga
The Violent Kind
Ray Harryhausen - le Titan des Effets Spéciaux
Masks
Bellflower
4.44 Last Day on Earth
Detention

Now I’m just going to point you to their website (http://www.pifff.fr/) so you can see for yourself and maybe grab some tickets before there’re all gone. That’s the only drawback of the festival, I’d say, there won’t be enough seats for everyone.

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(7 years ago) Reply

Bellflower is not Australian but american

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