Interview With Hudson Sowada, Festival Director Of Fantastic Film Festival Australia

Describing itself as a “A home for mind-breakers, trend-setters, razor-walkers, loose-wires, truth-talkers, trailblazers and envelope-pushers”, the launch of the Australian Fantastic Film Festival this year is a breath of fresh air in the realm of touring Australian film festivals; whether it be homegrown or from the other side of the globe, this brand-new event is the ultimate tribute to the visceral and esoteric power of genre cinema, seizing audiences from the crests of their minds to the pits of their stomachs.

Ahead of its February 20th launch date, I talked with the festival’s director, Hudson Sowada, about how he got involved with the festival, the power of genre cinema and what he considers some of his personal picks from the program.

Alex Lines for Film Inquiry: What led you to becoming the festival’s director?

Hudson Sowada: I guess the journey of this festival in its current form started about two to three years ago. Myself and two others, we programmed an event called Paracinema Fest that happened that the Lido, the Classic and the Cameo cinemas, which was a film festival dedicated to transgressive counterculture cinema, films that were pushing the boundaries of the medium. That was a fantastic event, but we had only 8, maybe 12 new films in it that first year.

Now moving onto this rendition of it, we’ve come at it with a new coat of paint. I’ve taken the lead of the programming team and spent the last year going through all the key festivals and events from around the world, looking at what content was coming out there. I really think it captures the energy of these alternative films that aren’t running along the status quo, that are challenging and bold and incredibly unique pieces of cinema from different people, backgrounds and forms of storytelling, We don’t really get the opportunity to see at this at the cinemas in Australia too often.

You’ve pretty much touched on it right there, but from your perspective, what would you define as a “Fantastic Film Festival” film?

Hudson Sowada: Yeah, that is a great question because I had to define that a lot throughout the programming of the event and what in my eyes what would communicate the tone and vibe of the festival. Going into it, in my mind a “Fantastic Film” is often conceived as genre film or those films fitting into the horror, fantasy and sci-fi categories. We have a lot of films like that in here, but the great thing about the word “fantastic” is it really incapsulates anybody who is creating content that is creates an extra-reality.

It’s films that, like we talked about earlier, are challenging or bold or regional, that can be quite twisted or have a different perspective on reality in a really interesting and unique way. We have one film called Aren’t You Happy?, which doesn’t fit into any traditional genre tropes other than the fact that it really is just a beautiful, fantastic vision of the world.

Can you walk us through your selection process?

Hudson Sowada: I would go through the festivals from around the scene and look at what people were really talking about, the ones causing interesting conversations and then I would select to view them. I watched about 150 films from a list of about 300 titles. So you’d watch them and see if it really presents something unique and original, then I would request to screen them here from there. The first film that I programmed was a title called Chained For Life, which is the opening night film.

That really set the bar and the tone and I guess the essence of what the festival was, especially because that film really is about filmmaking. It’s about the spirit of filmmaking. It’s about what stories get to be told, who gets to tell them etc. That really was a really great way to kick off the programming of the event.

Obviously you’ve picked all the titles, but do you have a couple of personal picks that you’d recommend?

Hudson Sowada: They’re all kind of my little guinea pigs and there really is stuff that suits all different cinematic tastes, whether it be animation or horror or fantasy or comedy. The ones that stand out to me, on a real super personal level, include our tentpole film which is the new A24 title Saint Maud, an amazing film about faith, salvation, madness and the fact that maybe they have to exist together in their own ways as this woman thinks that she’s talking to God and can bring salvation to this woman and it’s a really beautiful debut film from Rose Glass, who we’re really excited to be having a Skype Q&A following the screening.

Another really great one is Morocco’s first ever monster movie, Achoura, which is from a culture that we rarely get to see – in Australian cinemas at least. Some other titles that are really beautiful include Chained For Life like we mentioned earlier, one that’s definitely a highlight is Horror Noire, the documentary that looks at the history of black artists in Hollywood genre cinema, starting with Birth of a Nation, tracking all the way to Get Out and how important that was for the history of cinema in general.

Another film that I think kinda hit me in an incredibly personal and deep way is a film called Sator, mainly because the film itself has a fantastic horror atmosphere, but also the film is made by one person over five years. The cabin used in the film was built with by his [director Jordan Graham] bare hands, in the forest and it’s a look at his real life grandmother who suffers from a condition that makes her perceive that there is this being, Sator, that lives within her and writes out these letters every night and this condition is hereditary, so it’s been passed through his family. It’s this really personal look at mental illness and family and it’s just a stunning, insane film.

On that note, what do you think is the film that’s going to prompt the most walkouts?

Hudson Sowada: That’s a great question and I definitely have an answer for that. The Golden Glove is the most challenging film in the program without a doubt. It was infamously walked out and booed at the Berlinale and then it’s kind of had a little more life in the genre scene since then. It deals with the growing serial killer sub-genre in a completely unflinching way that was a real eyeopener for me. I was like everybody right now, you know, Mindhunter is so amazing and engrossing and ‘true crime’ is such a popular genre at the moment, it’s really in the zeitgeist right now, but then to see what it actually is to kill for no purpose, it really is challenging and it made me really reconsider that whole sub genre.

It looks at Germany in a post World War Two climate, which is really interesting and depressing. It looks at violence in a way that will really get into people’s skin in the best possible way – or in the worst possible way I should say. I’m interested to see how that screening goes.

One of the films I got to preview for the festival was the German drama Nobadi.

Hudson Sowada: Yes! I’m so glad you’ve seen Nobadi. What a hit, like that was an absolute sleeper, when I saw that it really came out of nowhere. I had no idea what to expect. That middle point, when everything kind of turns around on its head – wow. You can just watch it as, I guess a thriller on its own about two unlikely people meeting, but you could also really look into the political side of the skeletons in the closet with the old man and the refugee and the immigration crisis. It’s really exciting, genre being a fantastic way to explore these themes in a really beautiful way.

Looking towards the future, is there any genre titles on the horizon/films that you’ve heard about that you might have been interested in screening next year? I was just thinking about how Sundance just had Brandon Cronenberg’s new film.

Hudson Sowada: There’s so many films that you just wish you could get and sometimes the timing doesn’t work out. Sometimes they ended up playing somewhere else. Like we really wanted to screen this film Relic, an Australian film that just recently played at Sundance. We’re really lucky that we have the director coming down to the Q&A for Saint Maud. I think the one thing that I wish I had the opportunity to showcase more in the festivals was more Australian content.

I think there are some fantastic artists out there in Australia and just giving them an opportunity and a platform is definitely something I want to be able to offer. We have one 80’s Australian film that have the high-def restoration of, Sons of Steel, which we’re pretty excited about. I guess that’s what I’m going to be trying to hone in on as we prepare for the 2021 event.

Once this festival finishes, do you pretty much just start gearing up for the next one straight away?

Hudson Sowada: Pretty much. It doesn’t really stop, even though we haven’t kicked off the event yet, we have already requested a bunch of screeners from Rotterdam and Sundance and other places. It really fills in the gaps of all our free time but it’s just so great to really be able to engage and share the films that are really stirring up things from around the world.

Film Inquiry thanks Hudson Sowada for taking to time to talk with us.

Fantastic Film Festival Australia will be taking place in February 20-March 4 2020, details on their program and screening times can be found here.