Monster Fest is an annual genre film festival in Melbourne, Australia. Called “Australia's foremost celebration of international cult and horror cinema,”[1] as of 2017 it is the only genre film festival in Australia to be supported by the federal screen agency, Screen Australia.
2016 Keynote speaker Ted Kotcheff said of Monster Fest: “I loved the creative energy of Monster Fest, the great programming, the enthusiastic audiences. In the course of over half a century of filmmaking, I have attended almost every film festival there is and Monster Fest is one of the most interesting and enjoyable that I’ve experienced.”[2]
History
Monster Fest was established by Neil Foley and Grant Hardie in 2011 as the exhibition arm of Monster Pictures.[3] It was originally called the Fantastic Asia Film Festival (FAFF), as a vehicle for showcasing a selection of Asian films acquired by parent company Monster Pictures.[4] The original Fantastic Asia Film Festival took place November 10-13, 2011 at the Cinema Nova in the Carlton neighborhood of Melbourne, and was sponsored in part by online entertainment retailer YesAsia.[5] The festival lineup consisted of 20 features including Yoshihiro Nishimura’s Hell Driver, Takashi Miike’s Ninja Kids!, Na Hong-jin’s The Yellow Sea, Noboru Iguchi’s Karate-Robo Zaborgar, Kim Jee Won’s I Saw the Devil, Shinji Imaoka’s Underwater Love, Sion Sono’s Guilty of Romance and Jiang Wen’s Let the Bullets Fly.[6] Special guests of the 2011 festival included director Yoshihiro Nishimura and Marc Walkow, then-co-director of the New York Asian Film Festival.[7]
References
- ^ Wray, Tyson. "Monster Fest Reveal 2014 Program | Beat Magazine". www.beat.com.au. BEAT.
- ^ Kennedy, Meg. "Monster Fest announces 2017 dates after successful run in Melbourne | The Iris". iris.theaureview.com. The Iris. Retrieved 15 December 2016.
- ^ Karlovsky, Brian. "Monster Fest names Canadian Kier-La Janisse as festival director". if.com.au. IF Magazine. Retrieved 2 May 2016.
- ^ Hubble, Felix (20 November 2014). "Monster Fest – An Interview with Festival Director Neil Foley". 4:3. 4:3. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
- ^ http://jcc.jingsu.me/news/12896/yesasia-sponsors-the-fantastic-asia-film-festival-in-australia#.WHxOgX04J3w.
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(help) - ^ "Fantastic Asia Film Festival". WeekendNotes.com.
- ^ "The Fantastic Asia Film Festival comes to Melbourne". Heroic Cinema. Retrieved 21 October 2011.