The Canary Islands Fantastic Film Festival - Isla Calavera raises the curtain on its second edition, which will be held in Tenerife from November 19 to 25 and will feature as featured guests American filmmaker Mick Garris, British actress Caroline Munro and Italian director, screenwriter and actor Enzo G. Castellari, who will receive the 2018 Isla Calavera de Honor Award in recognition of their careers.
Mick Garris will collect his award at the Official Opening Gala, which will take place on Wednesday night, the 21st, at the Festival's official headquarters (Multicines Tenerife). In addition, his last film will be screened next Friday in the Official Competition of Feature Films. In Nightmare Cinema, five strangers meet in a haunted cinema owned by the Projectionist, played by Mickey Rourke. Once in the theater, the audience will attend a series of screenings that will bring to light their deepest fears and darkest secrets through five stories. Producer of the film, Mick Garris has also directed one of his stories, the supernatural tale Dead.
Born in Santa Monica (California), Mick Garris is a writer, screenwriter, producer and film director, known mainly for his adaptations of Stephen King stories. He directed the TV miniseries 'Apocalypse' (1994), 'The Shining' (1997) and 'The Curse of Dark Lake' (2011), and the feature films 'Journey into Darkness' (2004), based on the novel 'Riding the Bullet', and 'Despair' (2006). Years before, he made 'Sleepwalkers' (1992), with an original script written by Stephen King expressly for film. His filmography includes other fantastic and horror genre titles, such as 'Critters 2' (1988) and 'Psycho IV: The Beginning' (1994). He was also the creator of the series 'Masters of Horror' and directed two of its episodes.
The Canary Islands Fantastic Film Festival will also pay tribute to actress Caroline Munro, muse of horror film producer Hammer in the 70s and Bond girl in 'The Spy Who Loved Me' (1977). The Festival program includes the fantasy adventure film 'The Fantastic Voyage of Sinbad' (Gordon Hessler, 1973). Caroline Munro will present the screening of the film in which she starred as Margiana, a beautiful slave girl who accompanies the legendary Sinbad on his expedition across the seas to solve the enigma of a golden map that Prince Koura, a dark magician, is trying to snatch from them. The actress will also take part in a discussion open to the public about this film, whose visual effects, made in stop motion, are the work of Ray Harryhausen.
The Festival will also award the Honorary Skull Island Award to the Italian filmmaker, mentor of Quentin Tarantino, Enzo G. Castellari in recognition of his career linked to the fantastic genre. The program includes the screening of his film '1990: The Bronx Warriors' (1982), in the Fantastic Classics section. It is an action thriller set in a post-apocalyptic future in which street gangs have turned New York City into a dangerous battlefield.
Castellari is a referent of Italian fantasy, with titles framed in the giallo, such as 'The Cold Eyes of Fear' (1971), the horror film 'L'ultimo squalo' (1981), or the science fiction film 'The New Barbarians' (1983). He is also one of the most important directors of the spaghetti western, the western cinema produced in Europe that had its heyday in the 60s and 70s, with titles like 'I go... I kill him and come back' (1967), the mythical 'Keoma' (1976), with Franco Nero, or 'That damn armored train' (1978), set in World War II, a title that inspired Quentin Tarantino for his film 'Inglourious Basterds'.
The new Isla Calavera de Honor Award statuette has been designed by special effects master Colin Arthur ('The Neverending Story'), who received the same award in the first edition of the event.
In addition, the Festival has other guests from the national scene, who will participate in various activities of the program: Sevillian director and screenwriter Paco Cabezas ('Fear the Walking dead', 'El Alienista'), multifaceted actor, singer and cartoonist Carlos Areces, screenwriter Eduardo Zaramella ('Noctem'), Canarian director and screenwriter Elio Quiroga ('Fotos', 'La Hora fría'), writer, screenwriter and director Víctor Matellano ('Wax', 'Vampyres'), and film director, screenwriter and journalist Santiago Tabernero, among others.
The program of the II Festival de Cine Fantástico de Canarias - Isla Calavera includes the competition screening of 15 feature films and 13 short films, sessions dedicated to classics of the genre and several parallel activities.
Between November 19 and 25, the Isla Calavera Festival will offer titles that are part of the best genre cinema of the moment in an Official Selection where the names of Lars Von Trier ('The House that Jack built'), Mick Garris ('Nightmare Cinema'), Pascal Laugier ('Ghostland'), Pascal Laugier ('Ghostland'), Issa López 'Vuelven (Tigers are not afraid)', Mamoru Hosoda ('Mirai, my little sister'), Nicolas Pesce ('Piercing') and the trio of directors formed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell ('Summer of 84'). The Feature Film Competition is completed with the films 'What keeps you alive', 'Lost in Apocalypse', 'Framed', 'Aterrados', 'Mimesis Nosferatu', 'The Night sitter', 'The night eats the world', and the Canary Islands production 'Apocalipsis Voodoo'.
Co-directed by Daniel Fumero and Ramón González Trujillo, the Festival de Cine Fantástico de Canarias - Isla Calavera is an initiative of the Asociación Cultural Isla Calavera, the Asociación Cultural Charlas de Cine, the specialized publication TumbaAbierta and Multicines Tenerife, with the sponsorship of the Tenerife 2030 Area of the Cabildo Insular, Sociedad de Desarrollo del Ayuntamiento de Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Gobierno de Canarias, Universidad de La Laguna, Santander Universidades, Cerveza Dorada, Coca-Cola, Factoría de Cohesión Ciudad y Puerto y Puertos de Tenerife. Collaborators: SGAE Foundation, Tenerife Film Commission, Aula de Cine de la ULL, Reel One Entertainment, Grupo Fly Luxury, Fundación Cine + Cómics, Ksa Mario, Juan Antonio Ribas. Subtítulos y Ediciones digitales, Wehbe, Sandos Hotels & Resorts, La Recova, Canary Pictures Vehicles and Fundación Diario de Avisos and Dark channel, the only one in Spain dedicated entirely to horror, as media partners.
