26th OPORTO INTERNATIONAL
FILM FESTIVALFANTASPORTO2006 February 24th till March 4th
The Oporto International Film Festival, now going to its 26th edition, specializes
in fantasy and science-fiction films in its Official Competitive section.
This Festival also includes the 16th New Directors Week with an Official Competition
and a Retrospective section. The Festival’s director, Mário Dorminsky,
is preparing, with the help of the Portuguese Film Institute, a program with Portuguese
Films for the benefit of the foreign guests in Fantasporto. The Festival
runs now in 4 theatres (2,600 seats altogether ) and screens nearly new 200 feature
films each year. The press coverage of the Festival is made by all the most important
Portuguese newspapers, radio stations and television networks and by foreign specialized
press. This allows press dossiers of about 8.000 clippings (!) every year and
represents a unique media coverage in Portugal for similar cultural events. Almost
110,000 entries, per year is the average of the Festival's past editions. Entry
forms are accepted till December 15th 2005. Shorts and Features, only in 35mm.
Please consult regulations in the site
PROGRAM
OUTLINE
The outline
includes, apart from the traditional competitive sections, FANTASY FILMS, DIRECTORS
WEEK, ORIENT EXPRESS, the new ANIMA-TE for animation films and LOVE CONNECTIONS
for love themed features, as well as a Retrospective sector.
In
the area of the Retrospectives, the programme will be prepared around the following-
CHINESE MAINLAND CINEMA, BOLLYWOOD FILMS, FRENCH DIRECTOR AND PRODUCER LUC BESSON
( a past winner of the Fantasporto Grand Prix with "Le Dernier Combat"),
THE GERMAN EXPRESSIONISTS and to be confirmed, a retrospective of AUSTRALIAN CINEMA
IN THE 21st CENTURY. The Shorts Programme, the Section PORTO EM CURTAS to
be included in the PANORAMA DO CINEMA PORTUGUÊS, will also include a retrospective
of the shorts of Belgian BRUNO & HELÈNE FORZANI and director CHRISTOPHE
VAN ROMPAEY, a retro of the CANADIAN CINEMA and a FRENCH FANTASY FILMS Retrospective.
The Section ANIMA-TE will give special attention to KOREAN ANIMATION FILMS.
Depending on the number of theatres involved, an ITALIAN RETROSPECTIVE is also
to be prepared. The PREMIÈRE AND PANORAMA sector will include a programme
of non- competitive previews of the most recent features.
The
26th edition has already as main private sponsor the beer Super-Bock and counts
with the high patronage of the Ministry of Culture through the Portuguese Film
Institute- ICAM, as well as the Oporto City Hall, all having signed protocols
with the festival. The festival takes place at the Main Auditorium of the
RIVOLI THEATRE which also has a smaller auditorium to complement the competition
and screen part of the retrospectives. The PASSOS MANUEL THEATRE and the AMC-
ARRABIDA 20 complete the screenings of the festival. The SÁ DA BANDEIRA
THEATRE is the location for the 2nd Music Festival- FANTAS SOUND, dedicated to
female voices, and the ideal setting for the closing BALL OF THE VAMPIRES. Other
complements will take place at the PRAÇA D. JOÃO I. Exibitions,
workshops, discussions, lectures, book and DVD launchings are also part of the
paralel programme.
ONE
OF A KIND
Going
now to its 26th edition, Fantasporto has brought to Portugal for the first time
the films of such names as John Hurt, Guillermo del Toro, Karen Bleck, Dario Argento,
Vincenzo Natali, David Cronenberg, André Tarkovsky, Brian de Palma, John
Carpenter, Alain Resnais, David Lynch, Pedro Almodovar, Andrzej Zulawski, Ridley
Scott, Luc Besson, Peter Greenaway, Neil Jordan, Jean-Jacques Beneix, Joel and
Ethan Cohen, Sam Raimi, Brian Yuzna, Peter Jackson, Hal Hartley, Anthony Minghella,
Quentin Tarantino, Roberto Rodriguez, Danny Boyle, Paul Anderson, David Fincher,
James Mangold, the Wachowski Brothers, Scott Hicks, Scott Reynolds and the Dutch
director and Oscar winner Mike Van Diem, among many others.
Situated
in the west corner of Europe, the World Heritage City of Porto hosts a one of
a kind film festival. Founded 25 years ago by a group of film fans and critics,
Fantasporto, as it is known, started as a haven for sci-fi and fantasy films ,
a then not too well seen genre. After a huge sucesss in the first two years, the
festival has broaden its horizons with thrillers and seven years later with a
New Directors competition. Although fantasy is still its trade mark, especially
for the Portuguese press, it is recognized as the biggest in Portugal one of the
25 leading festivals of the world according to "Variety".
Giving
space to big screen productions, to autheur films and to experimental projects
from all over the world, Fantasporto has created enthusiastic audiences, ranging
from cinephiles to more popular spectators, with an annual average of 110,000
film goers. In its 25th edition in February the festival reached 130,000 spectators
and 600,000 visitors, with 15,000 media references (both national and international).
Present in Oporto were circa 100 members of the foreign press and about 200 Portuguese
journalists and media representatives. In spite of being organized by a private
entity, the event is mostly State funded, with the Ministry of Culture leading
and the President of the Republic as head of the Honour Committee, and with private
sponsors backing strongly, responding to the festival's crowd appeal.
The
guests are mostly representative of the films in competition (126 this year),
having increased in number over the years due mostly to word of mouth. They are
lodged in 5 star hotels and enjoy a full programme of tours in a city that was
the European Capital of Culture in 2001.
The films arrive from both from
major companies such as Warner, Columbia, UIP or Fox, producers as Miramax, New
Line or Summit or from top companies all over the world. The festival is fertile
ground for the discovery of new cinematographies, for "sneak previews"
or for launching "difficult" films like "One Missed Call",
"Vinzent", "Nothing" or "Primer" (which had their
European premières at Oporto). Distributors also frequently test the possible
theatrical impact of their new films in Fantasporto as it was the case with "South
Park" (Warner), "Heaven" and "Dogma ( both Miramax) or "Bats"
(Columbia). The Fantas awards are usually used in the promotion of the films in
the national market. The success of Fantasporto is also measurable by the increasing
number of offers coming directly from the producers, with United Artists and Columbia
sending directly their films such as "Audition", "Plots With a
View" and Soderbergh´s "Solaris".
Not
really an organised market, still deals are made, or new productions (mostly European)
are agreed upon in the festival restaurants or in the Rivoli Theatre lobbies,
the heart of Fantasporto, a beautiful renewed cinema of the 40's, right in the
commercial centre of the city, with the Atlantic Ocean, the River Douro and the
port wine cellars close by.
The
organizers, the Cooperativa Cinema Novo, has been writing about, programming and
promoting films as well as publishing books since 1978. In recent years they have
also become involved in the acquisition of theatrical and video rights for Portugal.
The process started with Peter Jackson's "Braindead", Fantasporto Best
Film Award in 83, and went on with Jane Campion "An Angel at My Table",
Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" or most recently Wonderful Days"
among others.
The
Cinema Novo Collection is going on 100 titles, the great majority already with
theatrical release, exploiting a niche which has remained untouched by national
distributors, and thus increasing the diversity in Portuguese screens as the multiplex
AMC Cinemas have understood and given support.
It
is always pleasant to remember the birth and the development of the Oporto International
Film Festival, since its launching in 1981, still as a non-competitive event,
till adulthood in the 1993 edition.
Considered
by the professional international magazine "Variety" as one of the 25
top film festivals of the world, and the best as far as the fantasy genre is considered,
Fantasporto has become the most talked about film and culture event in Portugal.
Since
the very beginning, Fantasporto had as goal the creation of a dynamic forum of
all arts, with a strong tendency to show the best of fantasy films and the diversity
of the film world. The Festival has also tried to bring to its programme a group
of sidebars as art exhibitions,theatre plays, puppet presentations, lectures,
seminars, poster competitions, comics and amateur film-making, as well as the
publishing of several film related material.
It
was this combination of several art forms which gave Fantasporto the appeal it
still has today, at the top of all film festivities in Portugal, gathering an
enthusiastic crowd and the support of official and governmental authorities, local
entities and private companies.
Through
these 25 years we have presented in competition over 5,300 films (new feature
length and short films), never before released theatrically in Portugal.
The
Festival brought to Portugal, in an obvious promotion of national tourism an important
group of film-makers, producers, actors, screenplay writers, film critics and
journalists.
Danny
Boyle, Brian Yuzna, Elias Mehrige, Julian Temple, Bill Plympton, Júlio
Bressane, Richard Elfman, David Lynch, Ben Kinskey, Mariano Baino, Robert Golden,
Ray Brady, Luc Besson, Karel Zeman, Andrzej Zulawski, Francis Leroi, Wolf Gremm,
Carl Schenkel, René Laloux, Mansur Madavi, Monique Enckell, Oldrich Lipsky,
Harry Kumel, Vicente Aranda, Juan Luis Bunuel, Roy Ward Baker, Ivan Cardoso, Piotr
Szulkin, Mike Hodges, Jesus Garay, Alex Cox, Carlos Saura, Rauol Servais, André
Delvaux, Pim by la Parra, George Sluizer, Imanol Uribe, Jean Claude Carrière,
Serguei Paradjanov, Danny Elfman, John Hurt, Karen Black, Guillermo Del Toro,
Vincenzo Natali, Doug Bradley, not forgetting the presence of the Portuguese film-makers
such as António Macedo, Victor Silva, Ana Luisa Guimarães, Cristina
Hauser ou Margarida Gil, Fernando Vendrell, Fernando Lopes, Joaquim Leitão,
Tino Navarro, Paulo Branco, Manuel Costa e Silva, who have honoured us with their
presence.
The
promotion of European and Portuguese films was permanent as a counterpoint to
the north- american film industry.
The
Teatro Municipal Rivoli has become the centre of the Festival in 1998.
Fantasporto
has created and consolidated a trade mark of congeniality and warm welcoming,
together with an accurate and proficient organization which make the difference
from other festivals.
We
are proud of having contributed, in twenty five years, to the international projection
of the city of Oporto, the Northern region and Portugal, promoting the cinema
and above all, giving to the spectators the will and joy of watching movies.
Filmmakers who wish to submit
their work can get all the details from the online
entry form
FESTIVAL