EVOLUTION, MIDNIGHT SHOW, THE LOVE WITCH and More at Australia’s 2016 STRANGER WITH MY FACE Film Fest

Female-focused fright film festival announces full lineup for their 2016 program.

SHOCK has been reporting on the various goings-on in Hobart, Australia for the 4th edition of the STRANGER WITH MY FACE International Film Festival, an exciting genre-centric fest with a strong focus of femininity and female filmmaking.

The festival will take place in Hobart from April 14-17, with a line-up of eight feature films, a shorts program, a symposium, workshops, panels and social events.

The 2016 program is set to include the Australian premiere of Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s EVOLUTION and the international premiere of MIDNIGHT SHOW, by up-and-coming Indonesian director Ginanti Rona Tembang Sari, who will also be at the show.

French director Hadzihalilovic, whose previous full-length feature film is the acclaimed 2004 feature INNOCENCE), has cited influences from Narciso Ibañez Serrador’s WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? to Lovecraft to Philip K. Dick in inventing the strange and compelling world she etches in EVOLUTION. She will take part in a Skype Q&A after the SWMF screening.

Festival Director Briony Kidd says, “These two films sum up what SWMF is about. EVOLUTION is a poetic and provocative meditation on themes around motherhood and the body. It comes to us from a highly regarded art house filmmaker at the top of her game. MIDNIGHT SHOW,  meanwhile, is a hardcore horror film made by a first-time director who’s having a big impact at the Indonesian box office.”

“They represent filmmakers at different stages and with very different approaches, and yet both are working within a genre framework to explore humanity’s deepest fears.”

Also screening at the 2016 SWMIFF are:

The Australian premiere of Bernard Rose’s FRANKENSTEIN, starring Xavier Samuel, Tony Todd, Carrie Ann Moss and Danny Huston;

?The Australian premiere of Anna Biller’s stylish retro thriller, THE LOVE WITCH, which is particularly notable for its lush 35 mm cinematography despite a modest budget.

The Australian premiere of Yolanda Torres’s THE FORSAKEN, an intense contained location thriller from Spain about a group of criminals trapped together in a house.

THE INVITATION, Karyn Kusama’s chilling look at group dynamics and gas-lighting, winner of Best Film at Sitges in 2015;

Australian filmmakar Megan Riakos’s debut feature film, CRUSHED, a thriller set in picturesque wine country;

The dark yet charming coming of age story GIRL ASLEEP, directed by Rosemary Myers and adapted from an acclaimed play produced by South Australia’s Windmill Theatre Company.

All screenings take place in the Peacock Theatre, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart.

SWMF is supported by the Tasmanian Government through Screen Tasmania.

For full schedule and media accreditation and essentially every single blasted thing you need to know about the awesome SWMIFF go to their official site here.   

And their official Facebook page here. 

And follow them on Twitter here.