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the lineup
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DAY 1
GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE
When mysterious bird-like monsters besiege Tokyo, Gamera – a fire-breathing, Japan-loving, jet-propelled turtle – awakens to defend the city.
GAMERA: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE (1995)
The Projector Golden Mile
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Shusuke Kaneko
Japan
Action, Sci-Fi
97 mins
Japanese with English Subtitles
PG
Director Shusuke Kaneko
Country Japan
Genre Action, Sci-Fi
Runtime 97 mins
Language Japanese with English Subtitles
Rating PG
Awards/Nominations
• Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress & Best Technical for Special Effects (1996 Yokohama Film Festival)
• Winner – Best Director & Best Supporting Actress (1996 Blue Ribbon Awards)
Summary
Life in Tokyo is upset when a monstrous bird-like species, Gyaos, wreaks havoc on its citizens. The city investigates the threat, and as national defence protocols struggle, Gamera, a prehistoric turtle of Leviathan proportions, emerges to protect the city while possessing an inexplicable psychic link to a fifteen-year-old girl.
The Heisei-era reboot Gamera: Guardian of the Universe follows a 15-year hiatus since Gamera: Super Monster (1980), the franchise’s previous and widely lambasted Shōwa-era instalment. Where Super Monster recycled footage from previous films, Guardian of the Universe’s unique visual flavour and effects received critical acclaim, marking a revival of the franchise and a subsequent trilogy of films. Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko and special effects director Shinji Higuchi used suitmation to bring the kaiju (monster) battles to life. Suitmation was a technique in which actors wore realistic creature suits amid miniature sets, later augmented in post-production. The crew also used on-set photo techniques, where miniatures of the cityscape were shot with macro lenses and enhanced in post-production, amplifying the immense scale of destruction in the wake of the monsters’ epic showdown.
Guardian of the Universe launched Higuchi’s career as one of Japan’s most prominent special effects directors, and Higuchi went on to reboot many well-loved franchises: co-directing the critically acclaimed Shin Godzilla (2016), and later directing Shin Ultraman (2022). The legacies of the megabeast franchise and the visual spectacle of their battles naturally take centre stage in Guardian of the Universe, acting as a vehicle to subtly hint at relevant anxieties on post-war environmental destruction, reflecting on our strained relationship with the land.
DAY 2
JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME
A group of boys venture through prehistoric worlds to uncover the origins of life, encountering dinosaurs and ancient wonders along the way.
JOURNEY TO THE BEGINNING OF TIME (1955)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Karel Zeman
Czechoslovakia
Sci-Fi, Adventure
86 mins
Czech with English subtitles
PG
Director Karel Zeman
Country Czechoslovakia
Genre Sci-Fi, Adventure
Runtime 86 mins
Language Czech with English subtitles
Rating PG
Awards/Nominations
• Winner — Honourable Mention (1955 Edinburgh International Film Festival)
• Winner — Critics Prize of the Mannheim Press for the Best Scientific Film (1956 Mannheim Cultural and Documentary Film Week 1956)
Summary
After discovering a fossil in a cave, four boys embark on a curiosity-fueled odyssey for a living specimen. The motley crew rows down a mystical river and backward through time, encountering a vast array of extinct creatures across different prehistoric eras — mammoths, giant birds, and dinosaurs — before finally arriving at the primordial beginnings of life on Earth.
Journey marked a pivotal transition in Zeman’s career from animation to live-action. Breathing life into ancient creatures and landscapes through a seamless blend of live-action footage with stop-motion, miniatures, and mechanical puppets, Journey to the Beginning of Time marked the first out of six combining these methods, including Invention for Destruction (1958) and On the Comet (1970), amongst others.
Bringing together the fantastical and the natural in Journey, director Karel Zeman captures the grandeur of prehistory in his portrayal of charismatic megafauna, all while inviting viewers back into the familiar charm of child-like imagination. This playful lens sets the foundation for his continued fusion of live-action and animation techniques to create surrealist, hyper-stylised worlds, seen especially in The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962), leading some to dub him as the Czech Georges Méliès.
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen
A quirky astronaut befriends an audacious German nobleman as they pursue a dazzling princess.
THE FABULOUS BARON MUNCHAUSEN (1962)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Karel Zeman
Czechoslovakia
Adventure, Fantasy
85 mins
Czech with English subtitles
PG13 (Brief Nudity)
Director Karel Zeman
Country Czechoslovakia
Genre Adventure, Fantasy
Runtime 85 mins
Language Czech with English subtitles
Rating PG13 (Brief Nudity)
Awards/Nominations
• Winner – Silver Sail (1962 Locarno International Film Festival)
Summary
The Fabulous Baron Munchausen whisks an intrepid astronaut and the legendary Baron Munchausen into a whimsical fantasyland, traversing lunar landscapes and plunging into playful underwater kingdoms — worlds where being swallowed by whales and hitching rides on cannonballs are everyday occurrences.
Boasting a litany of visual effects — intricately hand-drawn sets, cutouts, miniatures, puppetry, stop-motion, and matte backdrops — Zeman transforms the film’s landscapes into playgrounds of make-believe. Combining miniatures and camera techniques, Zeman moved cut-outs past a multiplane camera, creating the illusion of depth, and transporting audiences through rich halls, past ornate minarets, and even down the gullet of a colossal sea creature.
Zeman was also liberal with colours: vivid film tinting accentuated the zany charm of its hand-drawn backgrounds, while experimental shots of billowing red ink were composited over thrilling sequences, saturating scenes with a sense of drama.
Taking inspiration from Rudolf Eric Raspe’s 1785 novel, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, the film centres on a real-life German nobleman known for his outlandish stories of his military exploits. Echoing the Baron’s imaginative legacy, Zeman’s playful adaptation reveals his ever-expanding toolset, moving past naturalistic recreations in Journey to the Beginning of Time, into the realm of surrealist escapades.
Fairytale
A quartet of notorious political figures embark on a walking tour of Purgatory.
FAIRYTALE (2022)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Alexander Sokurov
Russia
Fantasy
78 Mins
Various languages with English subtitles
NC16 (Some Mature Content)
Director Alexander Sokurov
Country Russia
Genre Fantasy
Runtime 78 Mins
Language Various languages with English subtitles
Rating NC16 (Some Mature Content)
Awards/Nominations
• Nominee – Best Film (2022 Locarno International Film Festival)
Summary
In purgatory, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Churchill, meander around ruined wastelands in Beckett-like fashion. As they await judgement before the gates of Heaven, they still strangely maintain their pomp and pride, lapsing into juvenile banter amidst the wake of destruction around them.
In his final feature film and his first feature in seven years, Russian director Alexander Sokurov uses deepfake technology to animate four prominent politicians of WW2. Cinematic uses of deepfake technology are still novel, primarily used to deage actors in Martin Scorcese’s The Irishman (2019); in Robert Zemeckis’s upcoming Here; and most recently in Patryk Vega’s Putin (2024) biopic that premiered at Cannes this year. Sokurov instead takes on a more experimental approach with deepfake, using it to artfully assemble and animate archival footage, alongside visuals figured after Gustave Doré’s illustrations of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Through its uncanny and absurdist sensibilities (almost titled Laughter And Tears at one stage), Fairytale through its use of deepfakes, explores themes of historiography and representation – re-figuring our understanding of these figures when removed from their positions of power.
Fairytale exists as the capstone to Sokurov’s “Tetralogy of Power” biopic series, which examines the nature of power through infamous historical figures: Hitler, Lenin, Emperor Hirohito, as well as the German legend of Faust. Sokurov’s critically acclaimed Russian Ark (2002) – known for being one of the longest single take, full-length feature films – was also screened at Perspectives in 2010 (programmed by our current festival advisor ET!), and screening his swan song Fairytale this year aptly caps off and pays tribute to his rich oeuvre.
The Invisible Man
A scientist transformed in monstrous proportions tries desperately to reclaim his humanity amid his newfound power.
THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
James Whale
USA
Sci-Fi, Horror
71 mins
English
TBA
Director James Whale
Country USA
Genre Sci-Fi, Horror
Runtime 71 Mins
Language English
Rating TBA
Awards/Nominations
• Winner – Special Recommendation (1934 Venice Film Festival)
Summary
The peace of an English village is rudely intruded upon by the arrival of a mysterious masked man. The stranger, scientist Dr. Jack Griffin, grapples with the monstrous consequences of his experiments that have rendered him invisible. When attempts to reverse his invisibility prove futile, Griffin embraces it, descending entirely into megalomania as mischief, property damage, and conspiracies of world domination ensue.
A testament to the mastery of special effects artist John P. Fulton, The Invisible Man portrays an invisible yet corporeal character through ingenious practical and post-production techniques – including mattes and wirework – long before the inventions of green-screens or CGI. Working with visual effects and cinematography departments, Fulton dressed the titular character entirely in black and filmed against a black set. Individual mattes of these negatives were meticulously hand-treated to block out the actor, then composited over backgrounds to create the illusion of an invisible man.
Adapted from H. G. Wells’s 1897 novel, The Invisible Man stands as director James Whale’s contribution to the Universal Classic Monsters cinematic canon: adaptations of literary horror icons such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1913), Dracula (1931), and Frankenstein (1931). Occasionally comedic in its absurdity, The Invisible Man stands as a provocative rumination on transgressive bodies, power, and corruption. Griffin’s virtual omnipresence – granted by his invisibility – embodies ideas of surveillance, plays upon fears of transgressing public-private boundaries, and explores the forces of paranoia and hysteria, themes which still hold remarkable weight in today’s digital era.
DAY 3
Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain
In Jin-dynasty China, a momentary reprieve from civil war leads army scout Dik on a supernatural journey of friendship and sacrifices, questioning what it means to be a good person.
ZU: WARRIORS FROM THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN (1983)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Tsui Hark
Hong Kong
Fantasy, Action
99 mins
Cantonese with English and Chinese Subtitles
PG (Some Violence)
Director Tsui Hark
Country Hong Kong
Genre Fantasy, Action
Runtime 99 mins
Language Cantonese with English and Chinese Subtitles
Rating PG (Some Violence)
Awards/Nominations
• Nominated – Best Action Choreography for Corey Yuen, Best Actress for Brigitte Lin, Best Art Direction for William Chang, Best Film Editing for Peter Cheung, and Best Picture (3rd Hong Kong Film Awards)
Summary
Amidst civil war, intrepid army scout Dik escapes from his contingent, heading to the ominous Zu Mountain. His bold getaway ironically brings him into more peril. Dik encounters a medley of supernatural beings: demons, gods, Celestial warriors, and ultimately the antagonist Blood Devil. The Devil’s rampage intensifies, and as egotistical superiors refuse to cooperate with one another, Dik takes matters into his own hands.
Based on the wuxia novel Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu, Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain enthrals viewers with its visuals. Hong Kong director Tsui Hark consulted Western special effects experts for the production of Zu, with the likes of Peter Kuran (The Thing, 1982) and Robert Blalack (Star Wars, 1977). Packed with energetic flight scenes driven by wire-fu—a synthesis of kung-fu with practical wireworks—the characters perform impressive martial arts while careening through the air. The extensive visual effects, explosions, and hurling boulders were then realised through a careful combination of compositing, puppetry and pyrotechnics.
Tsui—alongside names like Ann Hui and Patrick Tam—was part of the first Hong Kong ‘New Wave’ movement, radically experimenting with form and style. Following his seminal debut The Butterfly Murders (1979), Zu is one of many films that distinguishes Tsui as a major figure in Hong Kong cinema and a pioneer in the special effects industry, inspiring other filmmakers like John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China (1986). Modernising the traditional Chinese wuxia genre with Hollywood’s digital effects, Tsui’s repackaging of Chinese mythology with Western elements paved the way for future films in exploring how these two distinct cultures complement each other.
November
Amid a desolate winter, frostbitten inhabitants of a rural Estonian village face a menagerie of folkloric creatures and supernatural events.
NOVEMBER (2017)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Rainer Sarnet
Estonia
Fantasy, Horror
115 mins
Estonian, German & Italian with English subtitles
M18 (Nudity)
Director Rainer Sarnet
Country Estonia
Genre Fantasy, Horror
Runtime 115 mins
Language Estonian, German & Italian with English subtitles
Rating M18 (Nudity)
Awards/Nominations
• Winner – Jury Award for Best Cinematography in an International Narrative Feature (2017 Tribeca Film Festival)
• Winner – Special Jury Prize and Best Cinematography (2018 Fantasporto International Fantasy Film Award)
Summary
As a bitter winter beats down on a rural Estonian village, the impoverished peasantry barter and steal from one another’s paltry belongings to survive. A story of unrequited love develops between villagers Liina, Hans, and the German baroness of the nearby castle, who go to great lengths to ensure their feelings are reciprocated. While the love triangle rests at the centre of the film, even more enchanting are its peripheral stories: animist rituals are performed; the local pastor is afflicted by voodoo; the Devil is deceived by wily villagers; and the village is visited by a personified Plague.
Cinematographer Mart Taniel captures disquieting and haunting landscapes, shooting in high-contrast black and white, and a wide array of formats, including infrared cameras that render green as white, which allowed production to occur in the summer. November combines practical and visual effects: the folkloric kratt creatures—scarecrow-like automatons made of household tools—were physically animated with strings and levers. In a clever bit of superimposition in the style of Escher’s Three Worlds, Taniel also imagines a dreamlike vision of a gondola on a lake, the surface of the water melding into the wintry sky of the forest.
Inspired by regional Estonian folktales, November stands as Estonian director Rainer Sarnet’s gothic rendition of Andrus Kivirähk’s novel Rehepapp ehk November (Old Barny or November), breathing life into obscure cultural myths and folklore. Citing visual influences of Chinese ghost stories and Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1995), through the medium of folklore, Sarnet explores ideas of class, motifs of greed and desire, and human nature, the latter of which perhaps mirrored by the perpetual darkness that pervades the film.
Starship Troopers
In a desperate face-off against relentless swarms of insect-like aliens, young, elite combatants must do their part in ensuring humanity’s survival.
Starship Troopers (1997)
The Projector Cineleisure
Director
Country
Genre
Runtime
Language
Rating
Paul Verhoeven
USA
Sci-Fi, Action
130 mins
English
M18 (Violence)
Director Paul Verhoeven
Country USA
Genre Sci-Fi, Action
Runtime 130 mins
Language English
Rating M18 (Violence)
Awards/Nominations
• Nominee – Best Visual Effects for Phil Tippett, Scott E. Anderson, Alec Gillis, and John Richardson (1998 70th Academy Awards)
Summary
In a distant, post-democratic future, humanity survives under a repressive military regime, where citizenship is only granted through undying loyalty and unquestioning federal service. Mankind has advanced enough to conduct interstellar colonising missions, and its forays into space have provoked the retaliation of an insect-like alien race called “Arachnids”. Amidst sacrifice, duplicity, and general chaos, Rico and his comrades enlist as recruits to defend Earth in the high-stakes war against the Arachnids.
Starship Troopers was created under the expertise of visual effects artist Phil Tippett. Initially working primarily with stop-motion, Tippett translated his experience in creature design into modern digital effects techniques during his work on Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993). Synthesising both practical and digital effects, Starship Troopers combined animatronics and miniature sets with computer-generated imagery (CGI), to bring to life the vast hordes of Arachnids and imposing space fleets. The rigid and near-mechanical movements of the creatures echo the unfeeling quality of real-world military vehicles; war’s coldness and indifference to the lives it claims.
Director Paul Verhoeven puts a spin on Robert A. Heinlein’s original 1959 novel Starship Troopers by infusing the military science-fiction classic with a razor-sharp satirical edge. Originally condemned for its pro-fascist and authoritarian narratives, the film is a satirical critique of militarism, offering an absurdist and extremist imagining of a hyper-colonial, uber-militant society. This confrontational approach captivated (and alienated) audiences. Starship Troopers’s prescient quality cemented its position as a cult classic; its concerns still relevant throughout the globe.