http://www.fantasiafest.com/pre2012/en/film_market/

The Fantasia Industry Rendez-Vous

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, widely acclaimed as one of the largest and most influential genre film festivals in the world, is embarking on its 16th edition with a major new industry-driven venture: The Fantasia Industry Rendez-Vous.

The Industry Rendez-Vous will feature the new Frontières International Co-Production Market. Frontières is the first international co-production market to connect North-American with Europe and Australasia, in an environment focused specifically on genre film production.

It will also include the Fantasia Film Market, making its official debut in 2012 to support the sales efforts of the features that will be part of the festival’s programming.

The Industry Rendez-Vous will be held from July 26th to the 29th 2012, within the 3-week body of the Fantasia Festival. Over the course of these four days, a Frontières pitch session, various meeting sessions and networking cocktails will be held, and a series of conferences will be organized to assemble the participants around current industry topics. These events will be coupled with the regular Fantasia schedule of public screenings and parties.

Frontières: The Fantasia International Co-Production Market

The projects to be presented in the market have now been chosen and feature an exciting array of filmmakers, from gifted newcomers to world-renowned maestros, as well as numerous established international producers. The selection of the first edition of Frontières will consist of the following 14 projects:

BLOOD BORNE (Australia) Director / Writer: Fin Edquist / Producer: David Rapsey (Rogue Production)

DARK HOLLOW (New Zealand) Director: Paul Campion / Writers: Paul Campion & Paul Finch, based on a book by Brian Keene / Producer: Daniel Warwick (Chameleon Pictures)

KEEP QUIET (Mexico) Director /Writer: Jorge Michel Grau / Producer: Mayra Espinosa Castro
M (Australia) Director: Jon Hewitt / Writers: Jon Hewitt & Belinda McClory / Producer: Lizzette Atkins (Unicorn Films), Executive Producer: Richard Stewart
PANDEMONIUM (France) Director: Abel Ferry / Writer: Eric Rondeaux / Producer: Pierre-Emmanuel Fleurantin (Paprika Films)
PERISH (UK) Directors / Writers: Catherine Linstrum & David-John Newman / Producer: Brian Coffey (Sigma Films)
PONTYPOOL CHANGES (Canada) Director: Bruce McDonald / Writer: Tony Burgess / Producer: Ambrose Roche (Shadow Shows)
PORK CHOP (Canada) Director: Sid Zanforlin / Writers: Chris Bavota & Sid Zanforlin / Producer: Philippe Chabot
PURGATORY (USA) Director / Producer: Stuart Gordon / Writer: Richard Mancuso
RADIUS (Canada) Directors / Writers: Caroline Labrèche & Steeve Léonard
SÈVE (France) Director: Fabrice Blin/ Writers: Fabrice Blin & David Uystpruyst / Producer: Fabrice Lambot (Metaluna Productions)
STRATA (USA) Directors: Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead / Writer: Justin Benson / Producer: Justin Benson & David Lawson
THE WITHERING (UK) Directors / Writers: Robert Morgan & Sam Walker / Producer: Karen Smyth (La Belle Allée)
TURBO KID (Canada) Directors / Writers: François Simard, Anouk Whissell & Yoann–Karl Whissell / Producer: Ant Timpson, Executive Producer: Jason Eisener

CANADA AND QUEBEC:
Four of the 14 projects hail from Canada and Quebec: Adored maverick trail-blazer Bruce McDonald (HARD CORE LOGO 1 & 2, THIS MOVIE IS BROKEN, HIGHWAY 61) graces us with a hotly-anticipated sequel to his cult masterpiece PONTYPOOL.

Sid Zanforlin presents his first feature PORK CHOP and the filmmaking duo of Caroline Labrèche and Steeve Léonard second their no-budget effort SANS DESSEIN with RADIUS.

After becoming the most popular submission to Drafthouse Films’ THE ABCS OF DEATH’s short film contest with T IS FOR TURBO, the Roadkill Superstar collective (François Simard, Anouk Whissell & Yoann–Karl Whissell) is now presenting its follow-up in feature form, TURBO KID, to be produced by New Zealand’s Ant Timpson (THE DEVIL DARED ME TO, also founder of Incredibly Strange) and executive produced by none other than Jason Eisener (HOBO WTH A SHOTGUN, TREEVENGE).

USA:
From the USA, genre film legend Stuart Gordon (RE-ANIMATOR, FROM BEYOND, STUCK, EDMOND) brings us PURGATORY.

Fresh from their wildly acclaimed premiere of RESOLUTION at the Tribeca film festival just the other week, where the film made many critics’ best-of-fest lists, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are presenting their new project STRATA.

EUROPE:
On the European side, the UK and France are featured. After winning the Best Animation Short Film award at last year’s Fantasia with his world premiere screening of BOBBY YEAH (which went on to standout showings at Sundance, Rotterdam and Sitges, as well as being nominated for a BAFTA, and winning a special jury prize at Clermont-Ferrand) and getting a spotlight on his work in 2006, Robert Morgan returns to Fantasia with THE WITHERING, a live-action debut project to be co-directed with Sam Walker (TEA BREAK) and to be produced by Karen Smyth, co-producer of Nicolas Winding-Refn’s VALHALLA RISING.

After the Midnight Audience Award-winning premiere of CITADEL at SXSW, producer Brian Coffey brings us PERISH by BAFTA-winner Catherine Linstrum and David-John Newman.

Fabrice Blin makes his feature debut with SÈVE, and following up the critically lauded HIGH LANE (VERTIGE), Abel Ferry comes to present PANDEMONIUM.

NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA:
After last year’s North American premiere of THE DEVIL’S ROCK, New Zealand director Paul Campion returns to Fantasia with DARK HOLLOW, based on a novel by best-selling author Brian Keene.

From Australia, producer David Rapsey (LAKE MUNGO) delivers the feature debut by Fin Edquist, BLOOD BORNE, and Jon Hewitt (X, ACOLYTES) comes to present M.

MEXICO: Finally, Mexican director Jorge Michel Grau follows-up the celebrated WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (SOMOS LO QUE HAY – Cannes Directors Fortnight 2010 and a hit at Fantasia, where the film had its North American premiere) with KEEP QUIET.

For more information:
Stephanie Trepanier
Market Director
Fantasia International Film Festival
514-815-1542
stephanie@fantasiafestival.com

http://www.thisishorror.co.uk/interviews/paul-finch-part-i

We continue our in-depth interview with Paul Finch. This time Paul speaks about UK police drama, The Bill, Brian Keene’s Dark Hollow and cult favourite, Spirit Trap: http://www.thisishorror.co.uk/interviews/paul-finch-part-ii/

Welcome to the third and final part of our interview with Paul Finch. This time we’re concentrating on The Devil’s Rock and Paul’s future plans.“http://www.thisishorror.co.uk/interviews/paul-finch-part-iii/

Then another interview with  http://indiehorrornews.com

A slew of more good reviews:

Video review here at http://thecinemasnob.com/2012/03/31/the-devils-rock-review.aspx

“WWII has been mined pretty damn well in film. It seems like no other time period has been so overused, especially in the horror genre. But that is what caught me by surprise with The Devil’s Rock.”     http://www.aboutheroes.com

“In the end The Devil’s Rock suprised me by how well it handled itself and was a very interesting watch that had no humor to it what so ever and was a very serious film, but one that I wish would have come to theaters instead of some the other supposed horror movies as this one is very suspenseful and filled with dark atmosphere.”http://ghostwound.blogspot.co.nz

“This isn’t the kind of movie I walk into all kinds of stoked about and then halfway through realize none of my expectations will ever be met.  No, my friends, this was the kind of movie where my expectations weren’t even remotely high enough.    http://thesemoviessuck.wordpress.com

Finally, if you head over to the http://www.facebook.com/TheDevilsRock we’re posting a series of photos about how the Demon special makeup effects were created, starting with Gina Varela having her head cast:

Ghoul is the first feature film adapation of one of Brian’s novels.  I was hoping to be first with my adaptation Dark Hollow, but the Chiller  beat me too it, although we did manage to sneak Ob briefly into The Devils’ Rock.

Ghoul is screening tonight at 9pm on the Chiller Network at 9pm EST, and Brian’s organising a live twitter feed here:  http://www.briankeene.com/?p=11197&cpage=1#comment-44120

“After two miscarriages, writer Adam Shay’s marriage is on the rocks. On a walk through local woods rumored to be haunted, Adam come across a strange sight: a statue of a half-man, half-goat creature – a satyr from ancient legends – that comes to life before his eyes. Soon, women in town begin disappearing, summoned to the woods by the satyr’s hypnotic piping. When Adam gathers his friends to hunt down the satyr and save the women, what they uncover is an unholy evil hellbent on protecting itself and spreading its seed…”

I’ve been trying to adapt this for a few years and  originally (pre Devil’s Rock) it was going to be a much lower budget production set in England, with a script by Devils’ Rock co-writer Paul Finch, but after Devil’s Rock we revisited the script and original novel again and pretty much did a complete re-write, upping the budget and putting in all the cool fun stuff from the book that we’d had to strip out originally to try and keep the budget down and setting it back in Pennsylvania where it should be.  And we put the dog back in (dog’s are expensive on a very low budget).

The film now has a facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/DarkHollowMovie

And the first bit of news is that New Zealand actor Shane Rangi (Spartacus: Gods of the Arena, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings ) is attached to play the role of Hylinus, the satyr.

Here’s a pic of Shane in full Spartacus mode:

This is the final draft, which I was re-writing constantly during shooting, quite often until the early hours of the morning, frantically trying to trim down the scenes and mainly the dialogue just so we could ‘make’ each day.   After about the 3rd day when it became clear that we were going to struggle to shoot everything in 15 days, we started having early morning script meetings each day on set, just working out what lines of dialogue we didn’t need and could cut there and then.    When you’re shooting 8 pages of script per day, even just a couple of lines saved here or there can make the difference between saving an hour or more on set.

There are a few scenes which we had to make the decision to drop during filming – the Helena/Demon ripping a dead body apart (we had a great prosthetic makeup fx for that ready a prepped complete with blood that was going to spray onto her face and intestines to fall out of the stomach cavity), and also a long aural attack, where the demon uses sound to attack Grogan and Meyer (maybe that’ll turn up in the sequel…)

There’s also quite a lot of dialogue that (luckily) didn’t make the final cut.  With hindsight, or more time in the edit, I’d've gone back and easily chopped out at least another 5 minutes of dialogue to speed things up.

You can see a hi-res scan of the full article here:

http://www.paulcampion.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/TDR_fangoria_march12.pdf