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>> Fant-Asia launches its third year with a Toronto off-shoot by MATTHEW HAYS Amid the overcrowded and competitive film fest landscape in this city, one fest has emerged as a force to be reckoned with: Fant-Asia. An auspicious debut in 1996 had 55,000 diehard fans pack the Cinéma Impérial, where 70-odd Asian features were screened for a month. Cut to a year later, and the numbers swelled to 70,000. Fant-Asia had already established a reputation; distributors were eager to have their films screen at the fest and guest directors showed up in full force. Fant-Asia's organizers, led by director Pierre Corbeil of Global Vision, didn't rest on their laurels in '97. The fest evolved into an eclectic bonanza of gonzo international moviemaking. Morphing beyond Asia, selections ranged from soft porn and surreal Italian horror movies to Hong Kong children's films, Japanese monster epics and U.S. indie gore-fests, as well as the fest's basic hallmark, high-kicking martial arts films. Now a mere three years young this summer, the festival will expand into a two-city cultural event, as Fant-Asia will launch a Toronto version of its line-up, to run concurrently with the Montreal screenings in July. "Fant-Asia was successful because we did everything possible to keep it at a personal, grass roots level," says Mitch Davis, one of the programmers of the fest's international selection, struggling to explain its runaway popularity. "We would be online for at least an hour every day answering questions and addressing complaints. We were always into spending time talking to people at the cinema. It was hugely about a big communal adrenaline rush of passion and love for hyper-distinct cinema. This is the sort of filmmaking that your average North American seldom gets the chance to see, let alone on a crazy-gigantic screen with a thousand shrieking fans."
The fest deserves top marks for its efforts to bring talent into town to discuss their work with audiences. Though organizers jumped the gun when they announced Jackie Chan would be attending during the first year (he had to cancel due to a last-minute schedule change), they've since made up with guests who may not be quite as stellar but every bit as entertaining. Deborah Twiss and Todd Morris, the team behind the feminist vigilante epic A Gun for Jennifer, had the crowds howling when they described tales of lap-dancing for film funding. The city's other film fests seem to spend buckets of money flying talent in, but then don't accommodate interaction with audiences too well; what's the point of having directors in town and no Q&A sessions? (Serge Losique, are you listening?) A big part of the fun in Fant-Asia comes from its edgy spontaneity; when a 10-minute reel was missing from Dario Argento's 1975 cult horror film Deep Red, fest co-programmer Karim Hussain got up with a microphone and acted the reel out. While the move might sound amateurish, the audience cheered their approval. "I believe we should bring back a sense of the unexpected to the cinema," says Hussain who, along with Davis, is making his own feature film, Subconscious Cruelty. "Film has become a very safe medium." "It's rare that a film gets under your skin and pulls you inside out," adds Davis, "and that's what we want Fant-Asia to be all about."
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"The challenge with a festival like this," adds Corbeil, "is to find a good variety. Our audience is well-educated and demanding. They don't want the same thing year after year after year."