Festivals And Events

NYAFF And KCCNY Present: A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN: HIT KOREAN BASEBALL MOVIES AT HOME For Free This Month!

Details for the 19th installment of the New York Asian Film Festival remain pending, but the organization is still upkeeping with its commitment to entertain the masses… This month, the organization is partnering up with the Korean Cultural Center of New York (KCCNY) to present a celebratory trio of hit baseball movies, in honor of the progress South Korea has made in sports and film entertainment – particularly with Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar win for Okja, and Korean baseball debuting on ESPN for the first time as of May. Thus, we have A League Of Their Own: Hit Korean Baseball Movies At Home. Details are listed in the gallery below for all three films which will stream for free at koreanmovienight.org from Thursday, July 16 through 26. Tap to enlarge the images below. If opened from Twitter, simply scroll down. FULL LINEUP: MR. GO ( Kim Yong-hwa, 2013, South Korea, 133m […]

Comic-Con @ Home Is This Geek’s Dream Come True

Christina Ortega

As I’ve stated many times over (it’s even in my bio), I am a huge geek. I am in so many fandoms, I am surprised my brain hasn’t exploded with all the random knowledge and trivia tidbits I know from each one. It can be hard to find one’s tribe sometimes because even though being a geek seems to have become the cool thing to be lately, there are still those who like to pick on or make fun of us geeks for liking superheroes, video games, role playing games (the pen and paper ones, get your mind out of the gutter), etc. For those like me who are looking for their people, a convention is the place to be. Even if you don’t talk to others in attendance, there is a sense of ease, like being home, being at a con and surrounded by people like you. I love […]

FANTASIA XXIV: CRAZY SAMURAI MUSASHI, FOR THE SAKE OF VICIOUS, MY PUNCH-DRUNK BOXER, ALONE, And Much More In The Second Wave!

Lee B. Golden III

The first wave is already online for the upcoming 24th installment of the Fantasia International Film Festival, and it’s packed with some delicious gems. I have to say though, I’m even more pulled in by the second wave that was announced on Thursday. It’s especially a big deal for director Yuji Shimomura, long since befriending self-proclaimed “graphic novel” actor Tak Sakaguchi, and growing a combined resume of credits that would go on to influence a generation of DVD hoarders and Asian cinema enthusiasts alike. Their latest film, Crazy Samurai Musashi, which is headed for Japanese theaters in August, is also making it’s North American premiere next to a raft of stand-out titles. John Hyams’ Alone looks like it’ll be another crowdpleaser, as does Ivo van Aart’s The Columnist, John Hsu’s Detention, Gabriel Carrer and Reese Eveneshen’s For The Sake Of Vicious, Jung Hyuk-ki’s My Punch-Drunk Boxer, and even Cho Kyung-hun’s […]

JAPAN CUTS XIV: Peep The Full Line-Up For Next Week’s Virtual Festival!

Lee B. Golden III

Japan Cuts is getting down to business this month as it ramps up a virtual medium for this year’s 14th film festival installment. The full line-up is available with tickets through the official website following their announcement in late May for Shinichiro Ueda’s Special Actors to serve as festival opener. Spearheaded by K. F. Watanabe, Amber Noé, and Joel Neville Anderson, Japan Society is partnering with Festival Scope and Shift72 for the festival’s virtual VOD format for audiences around the country, including and beyond New York City, stamping a two-week run set for July 17 through July 30. A raft of thirty feature films and shorts will stream, all geoblocked for their U.S. North American screenings. Sections will further include Documentary Focus and Experimental Spotlight, as well as live and pre-recorded virtual Q&As, discussion panels, and video greetings from filmmakers and programmers. The festival is also attributing dual Cut Above […]

FANTASIA XXIV: Neil Marshall’s THE RECKONING, Shinichiro Ueda’s SPECIAL ACTORS, Natasha Kermani’s LUCKY And More Lead The First Wave

Lee B. Golden III

This year’s 24th installment of the Fantasia International Film Festival is setting up a virtual presentation this August following announcements just a few months ago. Shinichiro Ueda’s Special Actors is certainly looking to make a mark on the festival scene this summer along with noted horror director Neil Marshall’s The Reckoning, as well as Tezuka’s Barbara which I’ve seen Ard Vijn tout quite a bit at Screen Anarchy, and even Natasha Kermani’s Lucky sounds like it’ll be a thrill. I’m looking forward to covering some of these this August when the festival kicks off, but this is just the first wave. A second wave of titles may further guarantee my involvement when it hits in July before the full line-up goes public in August. Read on! FANTASIA’S UPCOMING VIRTUAL EDITION ANNOUNCES FIRST WILD WAVE OF PROGRAMMING, WITH NEIL MARSHALL’S THE RECKONING TO OPEN FESTIVAL Nobuhiko Obayashi’s LABYRINTH OF CINEMA, Brea […]

AV: THE HUNT: Catch The Trailer For Emre Akay’s Feminist Survival Thriller

Lee B. Golden III

This year’s twentieth Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival is ramping things up in the next few weeks to head off a week-long virtual festival beginning July 3. The festival recently rolled out its eight first titles, one of which includes Turkish filmmaker Emre Akay’s third feature endeavor, AV: The Hunt. Six years in the making, project was originally campaigned on Indiegogo away from the state-funded film circuit, and billed as “a hard-boiled, fast-paced thriller set in patriarchal Turkey”. The film stars actress Billur Melis Koç, and actors Ahmet Rıfat Şungar and Yağızcan Konyalı, from a script by Akay and co-scribe Deniz Cuylan, and is produced by Tolga Topçu of JaguarProjects, Diloy Gûlün of Karma Films. REVENGE meets MIDNIGHT EXPRESS in this survival tale of an adulterous woman is hunted by her own relatives to wash the family honor.A young couple makes love when a cop barges in. Young and athletic […]

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Shinichiro Ueda’s SPECIAL ACTORS To Head Virtual Kick Off For Japan Cuts 2020 In July

Lee B. Golden III

Director Shinichiro Ueda’s hit zombie romp, One Cut Of The Dead, has seen scores of upward reviews and buzz quotes since becoming a landmark low budget hit last year. That film gets a Steelbook release from Image Entertainment/Shudder on June 2, and so with the 14th annual installment of Japan Cuts making headway this summer, Ueda is bringing his latest Rotterdam selection, Special Actors, to the festival’s inaugural day as the official opening selection for 2020. Taking a turn to VOD for its presentation, the festival’s organizers at Japan Society will partner with Festival Scope and Shift72 for its restructuring in light of the ongoing situation with Covid-19. The move marks the first time the festival will be made available to audiences around the country, including and beyond New York City, and with limited number of tickets will soon be made available for online festival attendees as the event stamps […]

FANTASIA XXIV Goes Virtual This August

Lee B. Golden III

Last year was one of the best and finest years writing and film critiquing thanks to the 23rd Fantasia International Film Festival. My own coverage was local though as I didn’t manage to travel to Montreal, and thus, I fully understand the sadness of not getting to share the on-site experience with festival organizations forced to recalibrate their goings-on amidst the fallout of Covid-19. As such, Fantasia 2020 has since postponed its July start. The good news however, is that some festivals will be going virtual, and that especially goes for Fantasia’s 24th installment. The festival is partnering with Festival Scope and SHIFT72 to make it all happen, and so the first wave of titles is expected to arrive at the end of May, which I absolutely look forward to covering by then. Read the announcement below! Given the continuing uncertainty related to physical cinema spaces and large gatherings which […]

Boston Underground Film Festival 2020: IT COMES, IT CUTS DEEP, JESUS SHOWS YOU THE WAY TO THE HIGHWAY, THE PASSION OF DARKLY NOON, And More!

Lee B. Golden III

The 22nd Annual Boston Underground Film Festival is set to kick off its five-day event at Brattle Theater at Harvard Square from March 25. The official line-up is out now touting what they’re describing as “two world premieres, a whole lot of unholy obsession, objectophilia, WTF thrillers, genre-spinning slashers, familial dysfunction, queer clairvoyance, and more!” We have a gallery which you can check out below that includes most of the titles listed; The only one without an image we can share is for David Kleiler Jr.’s forthcoming documentary, Films In The Living Room, which is set to have a Work-In-Progress screening for the festival. Limited BUFF passes are avaialble through the festival’s Kickstarter until Friday, March 13. Tickets go on sale Monday, March 9, and you can snag them here and here. Check out the gallery or feel free to read on just beneath! BUFF is proud to host the […]

C2E2 2020: Farewell To Arrow Panel Did Not Fail Its Fans

Christina Ortega

When it comes to being a geek, depending on when you grew up, it used to be lonely. It used to be something that was made fun of, a reason to be bullied. And even though it’s gotten to be a bit better, within the geek community there is still separation and distance. You may do it, too, without even realizing it. For example, if someone is a Harry Potter fan, you may ask what house they are in. If someone is a Lord of the Rings or Hobbit fan, you may ask if they read the books. If someone is a comic book/comic book movie fan, you may ask if they like Marvel or DC. Marvel or DC. Should it matter? Events like C2E2 work to bridge the gap between geeks, embracing all levels of fandom, all shades of geek from the curious to hardcore. This is not to […]

C2E2 2020: A Weekend Of Escapist Fandom Delight

Christina Ortega

This past weekend, the McCormick Place in Chicago hosted the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo. For those who don’t know, this event, more affectionately known as C2E2, has been around since 2010. I myself have gone several years since its start and let me tell you, it keeps getting better each year. If you’re not from the area, this convention is dedicated to all things that make geeks like me happy: comics, pop culture, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television. Each year the show floor is full of vendors selling everything from stickers to shirts to collectibles, there are artists, entertainment guests, and panels. The Yard was the latest addition to the show floor, which ended up being my favorite spot this year because it gave my group a place to chill and not miss the action as there was live music and trivia along with […]

DISRUPTED: Catch The Trailer For Andre Welsh’s World Premiere For Cinequest In March!

Lee B. Golden III

Realization Films is making headway this Spring with the Cinequest premiere of Andre Welsh’s feature directing debut, Disrupted. A limited theatrical and digital release is expected to follow in the summer, and host to a cast that includes Ron Kaell, Geoffrey Lower and Chioke Jelani Clanton. Voted as the Best Film Festival by USA Today readers, Disrupted is described as “a singular journey about the weight of one’s past and the impossible challenge to do right by it in the present, bound into a tight-knit psychological suspense crime thriller that festers in the collateral damage of gentrification and race-related tensions rooted in modern day Oakland.” For longtime Oakland resident, Pete, survival is an endless struggle in a gentrified, tech-driven world that’s left him in its dust. But he’s clean and sober, has rectified a relationship with his daughter, and the memories of his wife’s unsolved murder from decades ago rarely […]

SUNSET ON THE RIVER STYX Unveils Official Trailer Ahead Of Cinequest World Premiere

Lee B. Golden III

The 30th Cinequest Film Festival is set to kick off on March 3 in San Jose, California. The twelve-day event will also mark the world premiere for writer and director Aaron Pagniano’s feature debut, Sunset On The River Styx, screening on March 7. In a swampy Florida city, a metro bus driver named Will lives a repetitive and purposeless life. His routines are interrupted by Ashe, whose bleak existential rhetoric engages him and introduces him to a strange world of the undead. Will follows Ashe into a death cult, led by a charismatic vampire. But he panics, disrupting a ritual before transformation is completed, and Will and Ashe find themselves trapped in the no-man’s-land between life and death, detached from conventional time and space. Will and Ashe must escape this fragmented landscape of past and present demons before it’s too late. Actor Phillip Andre Botello returns back to the big […]

PENINSULA: Yeon Sang-Ho’s ‘Train To Busan’ Successor Lands At Well Go USA Amid Massive Sales In Berlin

Lee B. Golden III

Psychokinesis helmer Yeon Sang-ho’s forthcoming zombie follow-up, Peninsula, was acquired in Berlin by Well Go USA according to Screendaily‘s EFM coverage. The film, currently in post-production, serves as a shared-universe successor to his 2016 hit zombie opus, Train To Busan, and its corresponding animated Cannes trailblazer, Seoul Station. Produced by Redpeter Films and set four years after Train To Busan with twice that film’s budget, Peninsula stars Gang Dong-won and Lee Jung-hyun in the story of a former soldier who finds himself on a mission back into the ravaged country where there are still survivors. Contents Panda is repping the film in Berlin whose sales extend to well over a dozen territories globally outside the U.S., with Next Entertainment World (NEW) reportedly planning a post-Cannes summer release in Korea. Esther Yeung, general manager, head of Sales & Distribution at Edko Films, said: “We’re thrilled to be joining again Yeon Sang-ho’s […]

Japan Society Wraps Akio Jissoji Program This Saturday

Lee B. Golden III

Japan Society is currently wrapping up its Akio Jissoji programme presenting some of his post-Ultraman works. These include his celebrated Buddhist Trilogy (courtesy of Arrow Films) from the 1960s, with screenings starting as if last Friday, and rounding out the series this Saturday on February 22. After making a name for himself in the late sixties as a boundary-pushing writer and director for the sci-fi television series Ultraman, Akio Jissoji went on to emerge as an equally innovative independent filmmaker. These four highly experimental and visually daring narrative features—all of which were released through the Art Theater Guild and scripted by Toshiro Ishido—offer transgressive interpretations of Buddhist philosophy and the existential problem of impermanence. Long unavailable on home video outside of Japan, the complete Buddhist Trilogy (1970-72) alongside It Was a Faint Dream (1974) make their overdue debut at Japan Society with brand-new digital remasters. More info on the trilogy […]

AIM FOR THE BEST: SPORTS IN JAPANESE CINEMA Launches At New York City’s Japan Society In April

Lee B. Golden III

The Tokyo Summer Games aren’t until July. For the good folks over at Japan Society, this week was still a perfect occasion to announce their Spring program, Aim for the Best: Sports in Japanese Cinema, enlisting a hearty round of more than a dozen titles. Like cinema, sports have been integral to the development of modern Japan since the late 19th century when the country opened its borders to the West. Intersecting these two major cultural forces is the multifaceted and ubiquitous sports film, a fluid genre that offers fascinating insight into issues related to Japanese national identity, gender roles and the clash between tradition and modernity. Organized in anticipation of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games, Aim for the Best: Sports in Japanese Cinema celebrates the Japanese sports film in its myriad iterations—covering a wide range of athletic disciplines and filmmaking styles, from wartime Japan to the present—including classics, documentaries, […]

FINAL GIRLS Short Film Reviews: ‘…Some Things Are Only Good For Eating’ [UPDATED]

Lee B. Golden III

2/15/20: Updated with a review of Alexandra Serio’s TINGLE MONSTERS What you just read in the title is a line that I felt was perfect for the collection of titles I chose for this piece. I’m not saying from where, provided you get to see the actual shortfilm, but if it grabbed your attention enough to get you here then…well, I thank you dearly. Christina and I spent our weekend covering titles via online, all which screened over at this year’s installment of the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival. We each took in our share of shorts and features from different blocks; While normally horror is more or less Christina’s field of play, I decided to jump in and expand my horizons with some shortfilm review content of my own. My feature reviews will come seperately, and you can catch Christina’s shortfilm review batch by clicking here. (Special thanks to […]

FINAL GIRLS 2020: TINGLE MONSTERS, DRUM WAVE, LAST SEEN And More For An Eclectic Experience In Horror Shorts

Christina Ortega

The 2020 Final Girls Berlin Film Festival ran from February 6 through 9 and we here at Film Combat Syndicate were lucky enough to have remote access to some of the feature films and shorts. If you haven’t already, be sure to read our reviews of feature films such as Dark Whispers and Rock, Paper, Scissors to give you an idea of what was offered at this year’s festival.On February 7th, in the Social Ills Short Block, Alexandra Serio’s film Tingle Monsters debuted. What, you may be asking, is a ‘tingle monster’? If you’re asking that question then you, like me, may not know what ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) is either. I had to read some of the information provided by Serio herself. In Tingle Monsters, An ASMR vlogger with a devoted fan base returns from an extended absence with a live stream that spirals out of control.The concept […]

Your Next Viewing: ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS (Final Girls Berlin 2020)

Christina Ortega

The 2020 Final Girls Berlin Film Festival ran from February 6 through 9 and we here at Film Combat Syndicate were lucky enough to have remote access to some of the feature films and shorts. One of the ideas guiding this year’s film festival was best described by co-director Sara Neidorf when she said, “Horror is a very elastic term and we’re excited to discover films that make us question and expand our conceptions of what horror can be, both in ways that are distant from and uncannily near our own realities.” The Argentinian film Rock, Paper, Scissors fits this above thought perfectly. Horror is not always an escaped mental patient, the teenage girl being stalked by what appears to be a superhuman, nor is it the monsters hiding under the bed. Sometimes horror is just not knowing who to trust. In Rock, Paper, Scissors directors Macarena García Lenzi and […]

Your Next Viewing: DARK WHISPERS (Final Girls Berlin 2020)

Christina Ortega

The 2020 Final Girls Berlin Film Festival runs from February 6 through 9 and we here at Film Combat Syndicate were lucky enough to have remote access to some of the feature films and shorts. My first film to view for the Film Fest was the Australian film Dark Whispers. This one was unique as there was an overall story that moved forward in between short tales. Here is the official synopsis: When Clara discovers her deceased mother’s revered Book of Dark Whispers, she can’t stop reading the strange stories within its mystical pages. Each weird tale reveals a new facet of the twisted human psyche…or, in this case, the not-so-human. From the horror of grief to roommate living disasters, from existential dread to right-swiping vampires, there’s something for all tastes. The horror anthology is brought to you by eleven female directors from across Australia. Each of the strange stories […]