This year marks the lucky thirteenth annual edition of the Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival and it’s the biggest one yet. As usual, I’ll be at the Broadway Theatre for at least part of the festivities and will defiantly be catching Project Wolf Hunting and Cold Wind Blowing. And if I can make my schedule work, Scare Package II and Coupez! as well. The details and full list of films and showtimes are below.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 3, 2022
The 13th Annual Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival is the Largest Ever
Saskatoon – November 3, 2022 – The Saskatoon Fantastic Film Festival, Saskatchewan’s largest feature film festival, returns for its 13th edition at the Broadway Theatre on November 18-26, and will bring the best in international independent cinema to Saskatoon.
“This year is our largest festival ever. We’re showing more than 50 feature-length and short films over nine days at the Broadway Theatre,” said festival director and founder John Allison.
In addition to a wide variety of new films from around the world, this year’s festival will feature a Midnight Mayhem screening, a short film block that will be free to the public, a Drunken Cinema, a Cartoon Party, and live and virtual Q&As with filmmakers throughout the week.
“Yes, the Cartoon Party is back,” adds Allison. “This year it is Halloween themed, so on Saturday morning November 26, you can put your Halloween costume back on and watch retro cartoons in the theatre. For the party crowd, we’re hosting THE LOST BOYS as a Drunken Cinema on Friday, November 18. It’s an interactive drinking game played along with the movie. We’ve held those before, and they are a lot of fun.
On Saturday, November 19 at 11 am, join us for the Saskatchewan theatrical premiere of COLD WIND BLOWING, a film shot in Southern Saskatchewan, and director/writer Dionne Copland and producer/editor/cinemaphotographer Louise Weard will be in attendance for a Q&A. And all of that is just in addition to the creative documentaries, dark comedies, horror films, and sci-fi movies we have throughout the festival.”
This year’s festival truly has an international flair with films from Norway, Argentina, Italy, Spain, France, Peru, Mexico, the Philippines, the USA, and Canada. For information on the full film lineup and festival passes, visit www.skfilmfest.com
2022 Festival Lineup
A short film precedes each feature film.
Friday, November 18
7 pm: DEADSTREAM
Shawn, a disgraced internet personality attempts to win back his followers by livestreaming as he spends one night alone in the most haunted house in the area.
9:30 pm: Drunken Cinema – THE LOST BOYS
Drunken Cinema invites you all to Santa Clara (a.k.a. The Broadway) to take part in an interactive movie game in celebration of the 80’s vampire movie, THE LOST BOYS.
Midnight: PROJECT WOLF HUNTING
Hardcore gangsters and criminals are being taken back to Korea on makeshift prison transport, a freighter usually meant for high-seas cartage.
Saturday, November 19
11 am: COLD WIND BLOWING
Friends celebrate the holiday season in an isolated cabin, but as past betrayals bring rise to conflicts, the group must learn to survive the night.
1:30 pm: PAT ROCCO DARED
This documentary covers the life, activism, and gay erotic films of Pat Rocco.
3:30 pm: SICK OF MYSELF
Signe and Thomas are in an unhealthy, competitive relationship that takes a vicious turn when Thomas suddenly breaks through as a contemporary artist.
7 pm: FOLLOW HER
An up-and-coming live streamer learns the price of what can happen when you push past the boundaries of consent.
9:30 pm: GLORIOUS
Wes ends up at a remote rest stop after a breakup and finds himself locked inside the bathroom. When a mysterious figure begins speaking from an adjacent stall, Wes soon realizes he’s involved in a situation more terrible than he could ever imagine.
Midnight: PUSSYCAKE
An all-girl rock band just got the gig of their dreams, playing in a small town in front of people from the record labels, except when they show up the town is deserted.
Sunday, November 20
1 pm: THE GUEST ROOM
During a thunderstorm, Stella has lost her will to live but before she can jump out her window, a stranger unexpectedly knocks at her door.
3:30 pm: SHADOWS
Alma and Alex live deep in the woods with their mother, a strict, over-protective woman who has sheltered them from ominous presences, the Shadows, which live in the daylight and infest the world beyond the river.
7 pm: POLARIS
Set in 2144 against the harsh backdrop of a frozen wasteland, Sumi, a human child raised by Mama Polar Bear narrowly escapes capture from a brutal Morad hunting party and sets out across the vast winter landscape.
9:30 pm HUESERA
A pregnant woman finds herself threatened by occult forces.
Monday, November 21
7 pm: THE ANTARES PARADOX
Alexandra has dedicated her career to working for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence and tonight is no different than any other night at the lab, until she receives a signal.
9:30 pm: VESPER
Welcome to The New Dark Age. Humanity’s clumsy attempts to stave off environmental collapse through genetic engineering have only succeeded in the complete collapse of the Earth’s ecosystem.
Tuesday, November 22
7 pm: COUPEZ! (FINAL CUT)
Things go badly for a small film crew shooting a low-budget zombie movie when they are attacked by real zombies.
9:30 pm: SWALLOWED
Benjamin has decided to leave rural Maine and Dom has a plan to send him off with a pocketful of easy cash. All they have to do is deliver a package across the border. What could go wrong?
Wednesday, November 23
6:15 pm: Shorts Block – DRAWN FROM AROUND THE WORLD 2
Nine, short, animated tales span the intimacies of the bedroom to the far reaches of the universe.
8 pm: RRR
Legendary Indian director S.S. Rajamouli tells us an epic story about two legendary revolutionaries and their journey away from home before they started fighting for their country in the 1920s.
Thursday, November 24
7 pm: MAL DE OJO (EVIL EYE)
What starts out as generational differences descends into hysteria, fear, and paranoia as the young Nala suspects that her grandmother has evil intentions towards her ailing baby sister.
9:30 pm SKINAMARINK
Two children wake up in the middle of the night to find their father is missing, and all the windows and doors in their home have vanished.
Friday, November 25
7 pm: SMOKING CAUSES COUGHING
The Tobacco Force, a team of five Power-Rangers-meet-Daft-Punk superheroes known individually as Benzene, Nicotine, Methanol, Mercury, and Ammonia spend a mandatory week-long retreat in the woods to rebuild their team spirit.
9:30 SPOONFUL OF SUGAR
A disturbed babysitter experiences a sexual awakening while using LSD to treat a seemingly sick child from a family with dark secrets.
Midnight: ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS
A group of people get hooked on earthworms that have hallucinogenic effects whenever they are ingested or snorted.
Saturday, November 26
9 am: HALLOWEEN THEMED SATURDAY MORNING CARTOON PARTY
Kids of all ages are encouraged to dress up in costume for a trick-or-treat experience in the theatre while watching classic Saturday morning cartoons from the 50s through the 90s along with vintage commercials.
1 pm: THE PEZ OUTLAW
This documentary follows the adventures of Steve Glew, a small-town Michigan man who embarks on a risky and lucrative venture: smuggling rare Pez dispensers into the United States.
3:30 pm LEONAR WILL NEVER DIE
Fiction and reality blur when Leonor, a retired filmmaker, falls into a coma after a television lands on her head, compelling her to become the action hero of her unfinished screenplay.
7 pm: SORRY ABOUT THE DEMON
A young man struggling with a broken heart learns that his new place is full of restless spirits.
9:30 pm: SCARE PACKAGE II: RAD CHAD’S REVENGE
This horror-comedy anthology bases its stories around horror guru Rad Chad Buckley’s funeral.
Midnight: Midnight Mayhem series: VOYAGE OF THE ROCK ALIENS
Aliens land in the town of “Speelburgh” searching for the source of rock and roll, and find trouble with Dee Dee, Frankie, and the pack.