Page 248 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

are so many interesting film countries out there. One of the most interesting from Asia at the moment
is definitely South Korea, so that's why we chose to have a special focus on that country.
Those people not familiar with the Festival might presume that it is dominated by horror movies. But
titles such as II Mare (aka Siworae, 2000) and The Price of Milk (2000) that you have shown in recent
years reveal the fantastic film as far wider than that. Would you agree?
Absolutely! Once again we want to show people the breadth of the term 'fantastic film'. It
doesn't have to just be horror or science fiction. It can also be a wonderful love story - with fantastic-
elements. In the case of The Price of Milk it just also happens to be surreal!
The Festival is always marked by the strong entries to its feature film award category. Canyon tell us about
some of the titles that particidarly interested you?
For the past four to five years, the most interesting genre films have come from the East. When
we here in the West seem to run dry on original ideas, they release a flood of very creative movies
from Asia. Mostly these are really scary films like Ringu (The Ring, 1988), Jian Gui (The Eye, 2002)
and Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters, 2003). However, Asia is also producing amazing sci-fi
films like 2009 - Lost Memories (2002) and wonderfully wacky stuff like Jigureul jikyeora! (Save the
Green Planet, 2003) - all these titles have been screened at FFF and all are very cool films.
One of the Festival's more controversial movies was Bizita Q (Visitor Q, 2001), which was awarded
a special prize by the jury in 2001. Were you surprised by this decision or do you think the film does have
its merits?
I wasn't surprised as I like the movie myself. It is a very hard and controversial film, but it is very
well made and it hopefully gets you to think a little bit about if something like 'the perfect family'
really does exist.
The Festival has a particular focus on short films. What interests you about this filmmaking format?
It is the perfect cinematic format. Many film ideas are not ideal for a feature length, so the short
film format up to 40 minutes is often perfect. One discovers a lot of new talent among the shott film
directors and producers. We have a very tough selection, just picking the absolute best shorts out of
the hundreds that are being submitted each year. Our short film programmes are very popular and
the screenings are usually sold out.
The Fantastisk Film Festival is a member of the European Fantastic Films Festival Federation. Could you
tell us something about this organisation?
The E F F F F was created in order to promote the production of genre films in Europe. We do this
by arranging a competition among the European fantastic films screened at the member festivals. It
is called the Silver Melies. Then once a year the silver winners compete for the Golden Melies as the
best fantastic film of the year. Through the Federation you also get a lot of very good contacts that
can help you to locate film prints and guests for your own festival. It's a great network for both festival
organisers and film producers/distributors that want to show and promote their film to the right tatget
group - the true film buffs!
Sweden is a country that has experienced some censorship problems in the past. How has this affected
the kind of movie that you are able to screen here?
Well, we don't have a censorship problem any more. We used to have one of the strictest film
censorships here until the mid-1990s (the last film being cut was Casino). Nowadays they just cut

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