He was spotted at the BIFFF early on in his career, first as a scriptwriter (SEXYKILLER, Audience Award 2009), then as a director (NEON FLESH in 2011) before being seduced by Hollywood where he directed Nicolas Cage and shot several episodes of our favorite series: PENNY DREADFUL, FEAR THE WALKING DEAD, AMERICAN GODS – in… Continue reading Adios
Section: Black Raven Competition
The Division
Rio de Janeiro, 1997. “Love me, love me, say that you love me” the Cardigans croon on the radio, but that’s of little comfort to the girl who’s listening. She’s being held hostage in a sleazy room and her captors demand ransom from her rich senator of a dad. She’s one of the 11 kidnappings… Continue reading The Division
Ropes
Elena suffers from tetraplegia and goes through life in a wheelchair. Her dad tries to cheer her up by getting her a cute doggie but when the latter bites an infected bat he turns… batshit insane! Cujo’s no match for him, but is Elena? She’s always been more of a cat person.
Beasts Clawing at Straws
The life of a Louis Vutton bag filled to the brim with money ain’t particularly easy: there’s the continuous moving around, being abandoned or even locked up, the ever-changing chain of owners… Tae-young wants to take care of the bag, but he’s being chased by a bunch of merciless mercenaries with a love for spliced… Continue reading Beasts Clawing at Straws
The Weasel’s Tale
Heh, four senile has-beens of Argentinean cinema in a humongous mansion: an easy target for two ruthless real estate agents, right? Well, it turns out the old-timers know a thing or two about scheming too… Sizzling dialogues and cynical humor from the director of THE SECRET IN THEIR EYES.
First Love
Maestro Maniac Takashi Miike is turning 60 this year, with double as many films to his name – yup, that’s 2 films a year since his birth! – but he’s not thinking of quitting: “I’ve got the feeling I’m going downhill physically so I have to keep on filming as long as I can. I… Continue reading First Love
Hitman: Agent Jun
Jun is the ultimate secret weapon of the Korean government, but all he dreams of is to be a comic book writer… In the mood for a feel-good movie? How about TRUE LIES boosted by manga intermezzo’s à la KILL BILL and with at least as much visceral violence as in THE RAID?
THE BLACK MINUTES
Gulf of Mexico, end of the 70’s. A town like an oil stain, where the pitch-black plumes of the refineries are but a pale projection of society’s crawling underbelly ripped open and spilled out all over the pavement. The kind of place where corpses showing up on your evening stroll isn’t anything out of the… Continue reading THE BLACK MINUTES
THE REPLACEMENT by Óscar Aibar
THE REPLACEMENT by Óscar Aibar (whose THE FOREST already delighted us at the BIFFF 2013) paints a desolately grim picture of Spain around the early 80’s. The odd poster bearing the likeness of recently instated King Juan Carlos may occasionally appear in the background. And once or twice there’s even mention of the peculiarly new… Continue reading THE REPLACEMENT by Óscar Aibar
BLAST
Ah, Paris, the city of love! Except for its drivers who daily have to wade through a traffic-jammed hell with seemingly endless streams of kamikaze Segways and equally suicidal Japanese tourists who – after the shock of discovering a city that has little in common with Woody’s wet dream MIDNIGHT IN PARIS – are considering… Continue reading BLAST
NIGHTRIDE
Who wouldn’t want to change jobs for a better life? It’s a rhetorical question and it’s exactly what Budge plans to do. Tomorrow he has an appointment with the bank to get a loan to start his own car shop with his partner. Except they ask for a down payment of 60 grand and let’s… Continue reading NIGHTRIDE
THE LAST CLIENT
Suzanne obviously has it all: an ideal husband, a perfect little girl and a job she excels at. As a renowned psychologist with an impressive string of bestsellers, she makes enough to afford all the finer things in life. All she has to do is listen to her tortured patients, all day long. Kind of… Continue reading THE LAST CLIENT
TOMB OF THE RIVER
For once, a Korean gangster picture takes us not to the message parlors, noodle bars or sinister parking garages of megacity Seoul, but to the modest coastal town of Gangneug. But don’t worry, the change in scenery doesn’t diminish the more than generous body count! The year is 2017 and the Olympic Winter Games are… Continue reading TOMB OF THE RIVER
SPECIAL DELIVERY
If you need to deliver an urgent package, you’ve got the postal office. If you need to run an urgent errand, you’ve got cabs. But what if you have to run an urgent errand with a not-so-legal package that potentially puts your life at risk? That might turn out to be difficult. Luckily, there’s a… Continue reading SPECIAL DELIVERY
LIMBO by Soi Cheang
Cham Lau is a lone wolf, a cop who almost went off the deep end after he lost his family in a car crash, and he’s on the hunt. A serial killer has been spreading chaos and panic in Hong Kong’s underworld. He has the nasty habit of sawing off the left hand of his… Continue reading LIMBO by Soi Cheang
DIABOLIK
Clerville, kind of like an Italian Gotham City, is in the grip of a masked scoundrel that has a nasty tendency to pull off the most yolo heists. This scoundrel’s name? Diabolik. A lawless criminal, an anti-hero who doesn’t care about defending the weak and the poor and who has a black belt in the… Continue reading DIABOLIK
THE GRANDSON
Rudi is the perfect example of a goody-goody. Always polite, on the straight path, never a disagreeable word, discrete and efficient at work. A man with manners and the pride of his grandpa, with whom he has a very strong bond. But one evening Grandpa receives a phone call from the police telling him Rudi… Continue reading THE GRANDSON
EMERGENCY DECLARATION
Always frustrating to see your colleagues enjoying life to the fullest while you’re stuck at work. Like agent In-ho, who has to stay in watching countless terrorist threat videos online and decide whether to put the country in Defcon 2 or fine the parents of a 14-year-old troll. All the while the misses is off… Continue reading EMERGENCY DECLARATION
LOST & FOUND
Mario is the boss of a huge warehouse dedicated to lost objects. He spends his time fixing what is brought to him and playing detective in his spare time. He loves it, finding the owners to give them these little lost pieces of their lives. One day, Helena, his police friend who regularly throws him… Continue reading LOST & FOUND
DECIBEL
One year after he saved half of his crew after a torpedo humped their submarine, ex-commander Kang Do-young is still venerated as a war hero and loved by the media, the population and the army. Yet, he’s brutally going to find out that not everyone shares the same sentiment. An anonymous caller announces that he’s… Continue reading DECIBEL
SATURN BOWLING
The red light of the club ‘Le Cargo’ pierces through a cold, drizzling autumn night. Armand, the bouncer, escorts a group of girls back to their car, holding an umbrella over their heads like a true gentleman. The girls never lay eyes on him, but his own eyes constantly drift to their miniskirts. After they… Continue reading SATURN BOWLING
THE OTHER SHAPE
In the near future, humanity has built an artificial square paradise on the surface of the Moon. You can only reach it if you have the appearance and the way of thinking of a square. To achieve this goal, people use “square-ism machines”: presses, corrective devices and cosmetic surgeries that mold their bodies like cubes… Continue reading THE OTHER SHAPE
DETECTIVE VS SLEUTHS
Hong Kong suffers from a wave of murders that are equally brutal and unexplainable. Determined to put an end to the bloodshed, the police assemble a special team that discover several things. One, that all the murders seem connected to one another, since every victim was a suspect in an unsolved case. Two, that the… Continue reading DETECTIVE VS SLEUTHS
CYBER HEIST
When we think about cyber-attacks, we can’t help picturing epic STAR WARS-y battles between the forces of good and evil fighting it off with lightsabers, miniscule TIE fighters crashing into the motherboard and whatnot… even though we’re well aware that it’s just a dude typing behind a computer screen. It helps when that dude is… Continue reading CYBER HEIST
FEROCIOUS WOLF
Inspector Alonso is perhaps getting too old for all this shit. As a law enforcer he has seen his fair share of atrocities that usually leave him cold. But child murder, that’s a different thing… He’s got a suspect. A former religious studies teacher who looks maddeningly normal. Not the kind of face you’d associate… Continue reading FEROCIOUS WOLF