Fantasporto

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Hoarder - Robert Knepper

The British contingent stands out among the European films in competition at an edition that will also pay tribute to Portuguese director and producer Fernando Vendrell

A total of 27 feature films and 19 shorts make up the official selection of Fantasporto, according to the announcement made by the organisers of the event, which will be celebrating its 35th edition between 27 February and 7 March this year. The Korean movie HaeMoo by Shim Sung-Bo and the Canadian title Patch Town by Craig Goodwill will have the respective honours of opening and closing the festival directed by Mário Dorminski.

The selection, which was pared down from a multitude of works hailing from 51 countries, includes four world and five European premieres. Fourteen of the 27 features were produced by European countries, with the British contingent enjoying a major presence, as it has six titles in the selection: Awaiting by Mark Murphy and The Hoarder by Matt Win, both of which are world premieres, as well as Let Us Prey by Brian O’Malley, Hungerford by Drew Casson, Deadly Virtues by Ate de Jong, and The Dead 2: India by Howard J Ford and Jonathan Ford.

A place in the competition has also been granted to the Italian films The Perfect Husband by Lucas Pavetto and Handy by Vincenzo Cosentino (European premiere), the Romanian title Be My Cat: A Film for Anne by Adrian Tofei, the German-Russian co-production III by Pavel Khvaleev (both of the latter are world premieres), the Spanish movie Asmodexia by Marc Carreté, Hungary's Liza, the Fox Fairy by Karoly Meszaros, the French film Horsehead by Romain Basset and the Irish movie The Canal by Ivan Kavanagh.

The remaining 13 features in the official selection are mainly US productions, but some room has also been left for Asian cinema, with four European premieres: the Japanese titles Hunger of the Dead by Naoto Tsukiashi and Ao Oni by Daisuke Kobayashi, the Korean film Mourning Grave by In-Chun Oh, and the Filipino movie Dementia by Perci M Intalan.

Thirteen works will be presented at the Directors' Week, including One on One, which sees the return of Kim Ki Duk to Fantasporto two years after his film Pietà won an award at the gathering.

Young Portuguese cinema also has a place reserved for it at the festival, thanks to the short films that will be presented as part of the competition dedicated to film schools. Just one national feature film stands out in addition to all the shorts: A Porta 21, a film noir shot in black and white, produced by Fury n’ Dust and directed by João Marco (Além de Ti, 2013).

The tradition of paying tribute to an important figure from the Portuguese film world will continue, with this year's award going to director and producer Fernando Vendrell.