Get Weird and Wonderful and Check Out the Effin’ Fantastic Film Festival Australia 2022 Line-Up

From naked screenings, cosmic queer sci-fi, gothic horror scares and razor-sharp satires, the Fantastic Film Festival Australia returns to Sydney (Ritz Cinema, Randwick) and Melbourne (Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn )with a selection of weird and wonderful cinematic offerings, from 21 April – 6 May 2022.

Australia’s premier event celebrating the cross-section of cult, genre and arthouse cinema have scoured the globe for this year’s lineup of films, presenting a selection of pioneering stories from auteurs unbounded by the limits of passion and imagination.

FFFA Artistic Director Hudson Sowada said, “We’re extremely excited to present this year’s program. FFFA offers a journey beyond any known map of convention and the films we’ve curated this year come from filmmakers at the cutting-edge of international storytelling.”

“We have also widened our scope beyond cinema to embrace more modes of creative expression. We’re proud to launch the inaugural Music Video Blind Date, an event celebrating the best of our local music and filmmaking talent; and Cinema 1 Nightclub, a unique blend of live music, visual art and cinema, featuring DJ Female Wizard. You can also expect to find nude screenings, in-cinema DJ performances, Dungeons and Dragons, Q&As and exceptional short form work,” said Sowada.

The Festival will open with the first screening of one of the most highly anticipated films of 2022, The Northman. From visionary Director Robert Eggars (The Witch, The Lighthouse), the action filled Viking epic features an all-star that includes Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe. In true FFFA style, this will be an opening night with a difference, with the film will screening midnight. Tickets include drinks and DJ performance starting at 11pm.

Sundance breakout We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is a truly terrifying psychological horror and coming-of-age story set in the backdrop of a digital landscape. Writer-director Jane Schoenbrun’s debut feature follows a teenage girl on a path of self-exploration through an online roleplaying game.

After the success of last year’s nude screening, FFFA will host a 25^th Anniversary screening of the award-winning comedy The Full Monty. Audiences are encouraged to embrace the spirit of the film and strip bare for a cinematic experience that won’t soon be forgotten.

Other highlights of the festival include the kaleidoscopic sci-fi western fantasy flick After Blue, about a mother and daughter hunting a killer through toxic forests in order to be accepted back into their community. Starring one of Japan’s most celebrated dancers, Bambi Naka, in her first leading role, Dreams on Fire is an electrifying journey through dance and underground culture, screening with a Q&A with Bambi and the film’s director on Monday 25 April. As well as a 4K restoration of the 1981 cult film Possession. Originally cut for the US market and banned in the UK for almost two decades, this restored edition showcases the film as the director intended.

Closing the Festival is New York Ninja. Originally shot in 1984 but not finished until 2021, the film chronicles the rise of John, a TV news sound technician turned vigilante. Abandoned during production by director and star John Liu, only the unedited camera negative remained. Painstakingly reconstructed and re-voiced in 2021, New York Ninja finally screens in all of its bombastic insanity, giving audiences long-anticipated access to an almost-lost treasure.

The full program of 22 feature films, 8 shorts and special events is on sale now at www.fantasticfilmfestival.com.au.