15/03/2016 - The event will once again welcome the stars of genre film, with colourful opening and closing screenings

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Burr Steers

The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival will unspool from 29 March-10 April. The programme for this brand-new edition revolves around the daily grind. Far from expeditions into outer space and journeys back to the future, recently fantastic film has carefully started leaning towards tackling what’s eating away at our society, thus becoming a real sounding board for the evils of the 21^st century. The programme for this new edition of the BIFFF will set about illustrating this by including a number of movies that hinge on burnout, or the crisis facing our environment.

The opening and closing ceremonies will showcase genre productions and co-productions involving Europe. The British co-production Pride and Prejudice and Zombies [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Burr Steers (which will actually whisk us far away from our humdrum lives), an adaptation of the bestseller by Seth Grahame-Smith that bites great chunks out of the classic Jane Austen novel thanks to its living dead, wffill have the honour of opening the gathering, alongside Danish director Anders Thomas Jensen, who is making a big comeback, and whose previous film, Adam’s Apples [+see also:
film review
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interview: Anders Thomas Jensen
interview: Mads Mikkelsen
interview: Tivi Magnusson
film profile], won the Grand Prix and the Audience Award at the BIFFF ten years ago. Jensen is back with Men and Chicken [+see also:
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film profile], the story of some nutcase siblings who live cut off from society on an island, where they are hiding a patriarch who is somewhat disturbing, to say the least. The closing of the event is being entrusted to a much-respected regular at the festival, Alex de la Iglesia, who will present his new movie, My Big Night [+see also:
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film profile], a dark comedy portraying the recording of a TV variety show that turns into a nightmare.

Lurking in the various competitions, we find The Corpse of Anna Fritz [+see also:
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film profile] by Hector Hernandez Vicens (Spain), Rabid Dogs [+see also:
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film profile] by Eric Hannezo (France), The Photographer [+see also:
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film profile] by Waldemar Krzystek (Poland), Retribution [+see also:
film review
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interview: Dani de la Torre
film profile] by Dani de la Torre (Spain) and The Wave [+see also:
film review
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interview: Roar Uthaug
film profile] by Roar Uthaug (Norway) in the Thrillers section. There is only one European film in the international competition, Spy Time [+see also:
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film profile] by Javier Ruiz Caldera (Spain), but we should point out that the festival is also organising a European section, in which the Silver Méliès is handed out, a prize that enables its winner to take part in the annual European competition for the Golden Méliès for Best European Fantastic Film. The results will be announced on 10 April.

(Translated from French)