Festivals - Fantasia 2021 : Fantasia retro presents a pack of restoration premieres 

By Mulder, 21 july 2021

In addition to the aforementioned restoration of Stephen Sayadian’s Dr. Caligari (1989), Fantasia is proud to announce the following classics, resurrected in stunning new transfers. 

Uzumaki (Japan) (2000) (World Premiere of Toei's new 4K restoration)
Dir. Higuchinsky 
Higuchinsky’s elusive adaptation of Junji Ito’s cult classic Uzumaki (Spiral) returns to Fantasia after 20 years, screening in a brand new 4K restoration. Decadently stylized and as be-guiling as ever – practically dripping with blue-grey grime and oozing slime – the film stands out for its cosmic horror stylings and the ways it comes closest to the haunted tape at the centre of RINGU. The film itself now appears to us as cursed – full of shifty details and disturbing arte-facts – as it unfolds with an almost experimental slice-of-life logic. One of the more peculiar films in the J-horror canon. 

Tombs of the blind dead (La noche del terror ciego) (Spain) (1972) )World Premiere of Synapse Films’ new restoration)
Dir. Amando de Ossorio 
One of the most gloriously mythical, highly original zombie films ever made bursts from the grave, fully uncut in a striking new restoration from Synapse Films scanned from the original camera negative. The film re-envisions medieval Catholic military order the Templar Knights as satanic monks living under an occult curse, forced to walk the earth as eyeless undead in need of human flesh. In an imaginative twist, given their blindness, they are able to track the living by listening for their heartbeats. 

Mill of the stone women (Il mulino delle donne di pietra) (Italy) (1960) (World Premiere of Arrow Video’s new restoration)
Dir. Giorgio Ferroni 
The first Italian horror produced in colour, Ferroni’s landmark Italian Gothic boasts an impres-sive saturated signature, a style which was later picked up by Mario Bava when he made Blood and black lace (1964). As a result, much like the later features by Bava, the film stands out stylistically for its bold painterly qualities, in this case layered in gorgeous, dark, fairy tale artifice. Picking up the baton from Gothic romance-tinged mad science films, such as House of wax (1953), Mill of the stone women takes the staple ‘woman-into-wax’ trope into unconventional territory with strange experiments, weird vampirism, and the dead coming back to life. 

The unknown man of shandigor (L’Inonnu de Shandigor) Switzerland, 1967 – Dir. Jean-Louis Roy 
This long-lost mid-1960s Cold War super-spy thriller is a marvelous and surreal hall of mirrors– part Dr Strangelove, part Alphaville– with sly nods to British TV shows like The Avengers and Doctor Who. All mod sunglasses and bizarre architecture (including An-toni Gaudi’s famed La Pedrera/Casa Mila), the long-unavailable SHANDIGOR has been beauti-fully restored by the Cinematheque Suisse. Starring Marie-France Boyer, Daniel Emilfork, How-ard Vernon, and Serge Gainsbourg! North American Premiere of a new 4K restoration by the Cinematheque Suisse. Presented by Deaf Crocodile Films. 

Funky forest: the first contact (Japan) (2005 ) (World Premiere of Error 4444’s new HD restoration)
Dirs. Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, Shunichiro Miki If you look at them just right, the most mundane elements of daily life can seem utterly bizarre. That's the lunatic logic behind 2005’s fan-favourite cult classic Funky forest; a sprawling omnibus of the obvious and the oddball, the casual and the completely insane. Collaborating with hotshot advertisement directors Hajime Ishimine and Shinichiro Miki, director Katsuhito Ishii set them loose to confuse you, amuse you, repulse you, excite you, and just plain freak you out. 

The warped forest (Japan) (2011) (North American Premiere of Error 4444’s new HD restoration)
Dir. Shunichiro Miki 
We’re not out of the woods yet! Witness the wonders of time-warping and dream-tinkering! Giggle at bellybutton sex and pornographic fruit snacks! Squirm when the local baker sneaks out for an illicit encounter with a furry little nipple-sucker and so much more. Shunichiro Miki flies solo on The warped forest, an essential, long unavailable, work in the millennial new wave of radical, hallucinogenic Japanese comedies that blend deadpan humour, delirious dream logic, creeping paranoia and empathic, easygoing optimism into the strangest of cinematic brews. 

The festival passport is already on sale online and individual tickets, for both virtual and theatrical screenings, will go on sale Friday, July 23rd at 1PM EDT.

The 25th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival will be presented by Videotron in collaboration with Desjardins, and will be made possible thanks to the financial assistance of the Government of Quebec, SODEC, Telefilm Canada, the City of Montreal, the Conseil des arts of Montreal and Tourisme Montréal. A final wave of Fantasia 2021 titles will be announced in late July, with ticket sales commencing shortly afterwards. Mrs. Van Houten, a woman who seems to be losing touch with reality, and her treatment un-der Dr. Caligari, who diagnoses her with a "disease of the libido." 

For more information, visit us on the web at www.fantasiafestival.com

(Source : press release)