NEXT EDITION: 23-24-25 JUNE 2023 IN LAB111
CLUB IMAGINE
With Club Imagine in LAB111 we treat you twice a year, for three days, to the tasteful mix of Fantastic genre films, both old and new. Missed us after the festival in October? Then be sure to attend the next Club Imagine edition!
Club Imagine takes place in March and June and Imagine Fantastic Film Festival is back again in October.
After a gangster saves his life, Ghost Dog considers him his master. He is a hitman for the mafia, retreated above the city’s rooftops and receiving his assignments via carrier pigeon. When the mafia wants to get rid of him, there’s just one problem: no one knows where to find him.
After putting his own spin on the western with Dead Man in 1997, Jim Jarmusch turns the samurai genre inside out with this film. He mixes its conventions with the tropes of an Italian-American gangster film, aided by a hip-hop soundtrack by RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan. With a clever script and his famous deadpan humour, Jarmusch doesn’t just get away with this strange mix, he even manages to make it more than the sum of its parts. But Ghost Dog’s biggest asset is a phenomenal Forest Whitaker: loneliness, resignation and sadness come together in his imposing figure. Along with ruthlessness when war is declared on him.
- Director: Jim Jarmusch
- France, Germany, USA, Japan 1999 | 116m
- With: Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva, John Tormey
During the last days of World War II, elderly, lonely prospector Aatami stumbles upon a large artery in northern Finland. When the last remaining Nazis cross his path and want to steal his gold, unlimited powers are unleashed in this former commando.
Somewhere in the movie, Aatami is described as a one-man death squad and that’s not exaggerating. To get his gold back and drive out the hated Nazis is really nothing too much. The almost untranslatable term sisu means an unimaginable amount of courage and perseverance – embodied here by Aatami. Without much dialogue, director Jalmari Helander (Rare Exports, Big Game) focuses entirely on the extreme violence in the wild, empty landscape. Not since The Raid have we seen so many and such bloody ways to take on the enemy!
- Director: Jalmari Helander
- Finland 2022 | 91m
- With: Jorma Tommila, Aksel Hennie, Jack Doolan
‘Honour, pain and cuddles’ is written above the fence of the training camp where a group of teddy bears endures a gruelling training. A telling start to this pitch-black, but brightly animated anti-war fable.
Hateful preachers turn the gentle and loving animals into bloodthirsty monsters. We go from Full Metal Jacket to Apocalypse Now when the bears start searching an unfamiliar forest for their enemy; a journey disrupted by hallucinations and fever dreams. A gruesome but topical story by Goya Award-winning director Alberto Vázquez, known for the nihilistic coming-of-age film Birdboy: The Forgotten Children.
- Director: Alberto Vázquez
- Spain 2022 | 93m
- With: Jon Goiri, Jaione Insausti
The scariest film since The Wailing; have your mind blown by the first word-of-mouth horror hit of 2023!
What begins as a dangerous but thrilling party game, summoning spirits using an embalmed hand, turns into a fight for their lives when a group of kids gets hooked and unwittingly unleash supernatural forces that threaten the very fabric of their existence.
From the minds of the Australian YouTtube sensation RackaRacka comes a film that is so undeniably fresh and well-crafted that there’s no doubt the sibling duo are natural born filmmakers. Executed with verve AND nerve, and stuffed to the gills with the kind of scares us horror-hounds dream of, Talk to Me is a bold and brilliant burst of straight horror onto the genre scene. Channelling the best of the genre whilst remaining resolutely Australian, it’s a debut that is the promise of much, much more to come from this creative duo. Astonishing audiences everywhere from Melbourne to Sundance, it is now Amsterdam’s turn to encounter the sinister forces of the otherworld.
- Director: Danny Philippou, Michael Philippou
- Australia 2022 | 94m
- With: Sophie Wilde, Joe Bird, Alexandra Jensen
In Naked Lunch, David Cronenberg takes us on a surreal ride into the twisted psyche of a writer named Bill Lee. Trapped in a world of drugs and grotesque insectoid creatures after a life-changing accident, Lee struggles with his own sanity, confronting the dark corners of his mind in a desperate quest for meaning and redemption.
Naked Lunch is a masterpiece of surrealism, a film that defies categorisation or explanation. Directed by David Cronenberg in 1991, the movie is a surreal and darkly comedic exploration of addiction, creativity, and the nature of reality itself. Cronenberg’s distinctive visual style, combined with William S. Burroughs’ source material, creates a hallucinatory dreamscape that is both alluring and terrifying. At its core, Naked Lunch is a meditation on the creative process, on the role of art in our lives, and on the human psyche’s darkest corners. Whether you’re a fan of Cronenberg’s work or simply looking for a mind-bending cinematic experience, Naked Lunch is a must-see film that will leave you both mesmerized and haunted.
- Director: David Cronenberg
- Canada, UK, Japan 1991 | 115m
- With: Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, Roy Scheider
A thrilling, cerebral Danish film that surprises its viewer at every turn with twists.
Stine, Teit and their son Nemo leave Copenhagen for an isolated forest in Sweden, recording their efforts to exist as a self-sufficient unit cut off from the rest of civilization. Everything, at first, seems idyllic but their environment starts to suggest that they may not be alone. Something is afoot.
Starting off with a tense tale of terror and slowly unravelling into deep, rich and unexplored territory, Superposition is a science-fiction thriller for people who’ve enjoyed mind-melts such as Coherence (Black Tulip winner at Imagine 2015) or had the pleasure of reading The Man Who Folded Himself – a film that rewards the audience long after the screen has faded.
- Director: Karoline Lyngbye
- Denmark 2023 | 105m
- With: Marie Bach Hansen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Mihlo Olsen
Do not read anything about this film. Do not watch a trailer, consult the press, or gaze upon a synopsis or any reviews of any kind. You should know nothing ahead of time. Get on board, blindfolded, sit down, unfold, and get ready for a thrilling ride into the ultimate American nightmare, slowly and softly immersed by a delicate yet thrilling uninterrupted single take.
World premiering at SXSW in March 2022, Soft & Quiet has taken its audience by surprise, a complete shock. With its outstanding cast, led by the mesmerizing Stefanie Estes, Beth de Araújo’s debut feature delves into her Brazilian and Chinese-American experience. Her hand-held camera brings rawness and brutality to a level that’s rarely been shown on the big screen to that extent. You won’t be able to blink, breath or move. Soft & Quiet will pull you down within the very core of pure terror, within the tragedy of the current state of the USA.
- Director: Beth de Araújo
- USA 2022 | 91m
- With: Stefanie Estes, Olivia Luccardi, Dana Millican
An occult trip into the heart of a mysterious disapperance, ‘From Black’ will thrill those brave enough to venture into its dark heart.
Cora, an ex-junkie single mother, lives with the crushing guilt of having her only son gone missing whilst she was high – a chance encounter with a kindred man at a recovery group will present her with the chance to find out exactly what happened that fateful day: but can she bear the heavy and exacting price?
Thomas Marchese’s unusual supernatural horror film deftly blends several genres utilizing a layered narrative structure to explore the past, present and future of Cora – a flawed but deelpy human character. Set within the fringes of American society, in a town that could be anywhere and is literally nowhere, ‘From Black’ looks at the cost of destructive human behaviour whilst never taking its eye off the scares. Moody and disquieting, the film plays out like a cross-over between ‘The Vanishing’ and ‘A Dark Song’ bringing together the mystery of what happened to Cora’s son into a world of occult magick with the twitchy Abel playing uneasy guide to Cora whose desperation is blinding to all that surrounds her. An understated, uneasy trip into the darkness that surrounds us.
- Director: Thomas Marchese
- VS 2023 | 100m
- With: Anna Camp, John Ales, Travis Hammer
