The Chattanooga Film Festival is Virtually Here!

MMC! is happy to report that one of our favourite film festivals, the 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival is virtually here! That’s “virtually” in the sense that the festival opens on Friday, March 22 and “virtually” in the sense that the CFF has converted to an online edition available to US residents and featuring a wide array of feature films, shorts, panels, and live events, including MMC! favourite Scare Package (Baron Vaughn, Courtney Andujar, Hillary Andujar, Anthony Cousins, Emily Hagins, Aaron Koontz, Chris McInroy, and Noah Segan, 2019). Virtual badges are currently on sale and are very reasonably priced. And while MMC! may be headquartered outside of the CFF’s digital jurisdiction, you might just see some CFF coverage appearing here in the near future …

From the Chattanooga Film Festival:

ICE-T, GWAR, JOE DANTE HEADLINE VIRTUAL EDITION OF THE 2020 CHATTANOOGA FILM FESTIVAL

The Chattanooga Film Festival’s revolutionary online genre festival includes a lineup of electrifying and provocative features, shorts, events, and surprises, including notable guests: Ernest Dickerson, Joe Bob Briggs, Alex Winter, and more!

Chattanooga, TN (May 13, 2020) – The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) along with its presenting sponsor Gunpowder & Sky’s ALTER and media partner Bloody-Disgusting.com, are thrilled to announce their innovative lineup of features, panels and live events set for May 22 to May 25. In unprecedented times, the festival is offering a full-access badge price of $30 and divvying up a portion of the proceeds back to participating filmmakers.

Early News for the 2020 Chattanooga Film Festival!

The good folks at the Chattanooga Film Festival have let slip some early announcements ahead of their first wave of programming. A new venue, some banner opening and closing films, and some special events signal an exciting new iteration of the Fest.  The “Sundance of the South” lands in the Scenic City on April 16 to 19!

Here’s what the CFF has to say:

Chattanooga, TN (February 17, 2020) – The Chattanooga Film Festival (CFF) is hard at work solidifying its film and event programming for their 2020 installment and is excited to share the first small wave of titles and events. Taking place April 16 – 19 at Chattanooga’s Songbirds Guitar Museum, a gorgeous new venue that’s quickly established itself as one of the Scenic City’s premier entertainment destinations, CFF promises four days filled to the brim with films, special events and workshops.

In Fabric (Peter Strickland, 2018) – Chattanooga Film Festival 2019

FIRST FLOOR: WOMEN’S FASHION, ACCESSORIES, TERROR

Writer-director Peter Strickland’s latest effort is his most demented vision to date, a bizarrely terrifying combination of Suspiria and Phantom Thread that is awash in blood (and other bodily fluids). Set in the world of 1970s fashion, In Fabric is a psychosexual phantasmagoria initiated by a murderous dress that is sold by an unusual department store and the hypnotic coven that runs it. Recently divorced bank clerk Sheila is the garment’s first victim, completely unaware that her purchase at Dentley & Soper’s will unleash the frock’s curse and set in motion an absurdly brutal chain of fashion related brutality.

With In Fabric, Peter Strickland blends Italian supernatural horror and Europudding erotica with corporate micromanagement and baroque customer service-speak, producing an incisive parody of consumer culture that still manages to feel legitimately unsettling and truly terrifying. In Fabric is a must sees for surreal fashion addicts and kinky horror fans alike!

Special Edition Comments:

• High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation
• 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Uncompressed Stereo PCM
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Feature-length audio commentary with writer/director Peter Strickland
• Fashion Victims, new interview with Strickland
• Deleted scenes with commentary by Strickland
• Dentley & Soper’s commercial
• Production design gallery
• “The Magic Spring,” A Hawk & A Hacksaw’s music video directed by Strickland
• “Never Enough,” The KVB’s music video directed by Strickland
• “Instrumental 7,” Flying Saucer Attack’s music video by Strickland
• Original theatrical trailer
• Reversible sleeve featuring two artwork choices

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by horror film journalist Mark Kermode and excerpts from the Dentley & Soper store catalogue

Monos (Alejandro Landes, 2019) – Chattanooga Film Festival 2019

The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films presents Monos.

On a far away South American mountaintop, a group of adolescent child soldiers guard a kidnapped American woman for the Organization, a bandit militia that demands complete obedience from the youngsters. When a borrowed milk cow is killed and a battle approaches their mountain refuge, the group is sent to guard their prisoner in the dense jungle below where resentments, paranoia, and power struggles turn into a nightmarish fight for authority and survival. Charged by Jasper Wolf’s crisp, concentrated cinematography and Mica Levi’s titantic score, Alejandro Landes creates a monumental and hallucinatory war film that evokes Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and William Goldings Lord of the Flies.

Disc Features:

• 4K digital master, approved by cinematographer Jasper Wolf, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with director Alejandro Landes, composer Mica Levi, actress Inés Efrón, and cast members
• Video diary shot during the film’s production
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by critic Manuel Betancourt

My Chattanooga Top Ten!

The 2019 Chattanooga Film Festival is now done and dusted and its winners have been announced. Giovana Olmos won the Student Filmmaker Award for Sweet Tooth, Dylan Meyer took the prize for Best Short with Rock Bottom, Andi Morrow’s Pusher the Movie won for Tennessee Filmmaker, Bethany Brooke Anderson won Best Feature for Burning Kentucky, and the Audience Prize went to Billy Senese’s The Dead Center. Senese’s film, shot in Nashville, was the only award-winner that I saw and it was an enjoyable horror experience, featuring an ancient evil unexpectedly held in a hospital’s psychiatric ward and a frustrated doctor forced to face this unexpected threat. The filmmaker’s own experiences with mental illness obviously inform The Dead Center and the film finds legitimate scares in the friction between its institutional setting and its supernatural menace. Still, the movie fails to make the most of its concept by remaining too vague in its characters and its monster, missing opportunities to ratchet up its stakes and bring its audience even closer to The Dead Center‘s dark core. I would encourage horror fans to check out The Dead Center but MMC! had favourites of its own and the best of the best were found in the “CFFeatures” section.

Trailer Tuesday

In all my shout-out excitement this weekend, I neglected my main purpose: thanking everyone who voted in our year-end poll! Two films stood atop all others – Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters and Paul Schrader’s First Reformed. Naturally, you can expect to see one of those two films as the subject of MMC!‘s next imagined Criterion title. (No spoilers, but it’ll be Shoplifters!)

Now, on to some trailers!

The Criterion Channel is set to launch on April 8 and the Collection has cut together a rousing trailer promoting it. MMC! already has its charter membership, but there’s plenty here that pricks up our ears: The Safdies! Susan Pitt’s Asparagus! The Devils! Local Hero! The Holy Mountain! Hype! “Godzilla and Beyond!” The Channel’s initial line-up has been announced and there’s even more MMC! fan-bait there too: 11 films noir from Columbia, David Lynch’s The Elephant Man, John Woo’s Last Hurrah for Chivalry, Bi Gan’s Kaili Blues, a profile on Charles Burnett, seven films featuring Simone Signoret, AND Alan Parker’s Bugsy Malone! (If the Collection ever released a hard media edition of Bugsy Malone, I swear my face will melt right off!)