Live from SXSW: Tim League Talks International Genre Lunacy by Scott Weinberg
If you're a hardcore movie geek and you've been to Austin at least once, you're probably familiar with the magical Tim League. Along with his wife/partner Karrie, Mr. League is the man behind not only the sublime Alamo Drafthouse movie theaters, but he also unleashed Fantastic Fest upon the world AND found time to create a karaoke bar/bowling alley called The Highball. Obviously Mr. League does none of these things by himself. But he does captain one hell of a movie shrine.
Anyway, the man loves nothing more than scouring the planet for the finest in lunatic cinema, and if he doesn't track it down, one of his many scouts probably will. Logically, with SXSW 2010 freshly underway, I thought it'd be fun to chat with Tim about his obsession with international genre fare, and the man certainly didn't disappoint. Let's get to it:
How many North America film festivals do you go to each year? And how many outside North America?
Tim: Other than Fantastic Fest, of course, I personally attend about four North American festivals a year and probably four more outside of North America. In addition, the Fantastic Fest scouting team generally hits another four or five international festivals beyond what I attend. My anchors are the European Film Market/Berlin Film Festival and the Cannes Film Festival. We go to those two every year.
What countries would you say hold the most respect (or reverence) for genre films? More specifically, which countries/festivals love horror flicks the most?
Tim: Japan is the country we watch the most. There's a huge and loyal genre audience in Japan, they have a long tradition of really crazy movies and continue to surprise us every year with new talent. Spain is fantastic as well. This may be changing soon, but there has been strong government subsidies for Spanish film production and we keep tabs on an incredibly robust group of young genre filmmakers. We are also watching Indonesia very closely right now as well as Chile, Brazil, and Argentina. We are seeing a lot of promising young genre filmmakers emerge from those countries.
As far as a genre film community, two of the most important worldwide events are the giants of the genre film festival world: Sitges in Spain and BIFFF (Brussels). Sitges has been running for 43 years, Brussels for 28. They have built the best genre film audiences in the world. It was at Sitges back in 2001 that Harry Knowles and I first aspired to create Fantastic Fest.
Why is it important for a genre festival to find offerings from every corner of the globe?
Where else would American film producers find source material for remakes?
Read the whole interview by Scott Weinberg @ Cinematical.
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