Friday, the 28th of June in Zagreb the third edition of the only fantastic film festival in region opens. The festival will take place in three locations in Croatia’s capital city of Zagreb. At the Tuškanac Summer Stage and in cinema Europa and in cinema CineStar Branimir Centre a wide range of genre films will be screened until July 6th.
In nine days of the Festival, fans of fantasy and related genres – science fiction, horror, thriller, mystery, experimental etc., will get to watch a number of intriguing and interesting films from both new and acknowledged authors.
Beside the festival’s already known sections (Panorama, Orient Express and Midnight Madness) last year were introduced two new categories: American Nightmares and Visions.
American Nightmares is dedicated to the new wave of young American authors and vibrant American indie scene, as well as known veterans like Francis Ford Coppola and William Friedkin. In contrast, Visions is dedicated to more avant-garde, experimental, loony and bizarre films that are usually struggling to reach wide audiences but are usually festival favorites. This year even more categories are introduced : Nordic Nights, Special Screenings, Cult Classics and Short Programme.
Fantastic Zagreb opens with two films, one Asian-American, the other European. The first one, on at 20:30 at cinema Europa, iks the sequel to the successful Swedish thriller “Easy Money”, titled “Easy Money 2″.
Trailer “Easy Money 2″ : http://youtu.be/gPlqifuVxes
The other one, “Stoker”, is the first Hollywood film of the renown Asian filmmaker Park Chan-wook, written by “Prison Break” star Wenthoworth Miller whom fans of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” remember as the swimmer turned seacrature in the episode “Go, Fish !”. The last film to ever be produced by Tony Scott with Nicole Kidman as one of the leads has all the makings of a very interesting film.
Trailer: http://youtu.be/JNpDG4WR_74
Fantastic Zagreb first announced itself at SFeraKon 2011 and the “zero edition” of the festival was held from 2nd to 9th July, 2011. Screenings took place at two outdoor locations: the plateau beside Saint Catherine Church (at Gradec) and the plateau above Tuškanac garage as well as in Cinema Europa, the cinema where Animafest is held. This edition of the festival was modest, but interesting: within six programs titles from Japan, Korea, France, United Kingdom, Spain and former Yugoslavia were screened.
In 2012 the festival had a bigger presence, both in the city and with more film titles on offer. The long forgotten Tuškanac summer stage which had been closed for over 40 years was open and used for festival screening. The venue situated in a a woody patch in the middle of the centre of Zagreb provided a mystic atmosphere ideal for a festival of genre films.
This year’s edition Fantastic Zagreb brings a number of European recent film gems, while the hometown audience is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to see classics such as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Soylent Green” on the big screen.
[...] Meanwhile in my home town the very same weekend marked the beginning of another event: Fantastic Zagreb Film Festival opened. One of Croatian fandom’s own is involved with it: artist, writer, editor and SFera’s resident film expert Aleksandar Žiljak. It occurred to me that this Festival would be a great opportunity for any GUFF delegate from Down Under to get acquainted with non-English speaking European genre film. So I wrote a bit about it here. [...]