London International Fantastic Film Festival Launches Inaugural 2024 Edition

The London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF) celebrates its inaugural edition this year, taking place from the 26th November to the 1st December at BLOC Cinema and Genesis Cinema in Mile End, London. Individual tickets and festival passes are on sale now via Eventbrite.

For their Opening Night, they will be welcoming director Yukihiko Tsutsumi, lead actress Erika Oka, and producer Takeshi Moriya to London for an in-person Q&A following the UK premiere of The Killer Goldfish, Tsutsumi’s new gonzo crime caper and visual smorgasbord. Known in the West for films such as 2LDK, Egg, and the 20th Century Boys trilogy, they are delighted to be welcoming this legendarily prolific filmmaker and his latest work to LIFFF to kick off their first edition.

LIFFF’s Features Competition explores transformations, journeys and identities. Amartya Bhattacharyya’s concept album musical Son of Adam is a civilisation-spanning odyssey across lands in search of love. Charming supernatural crime caper from India Dead Dead Full Dead provides a nice change of pace, and also a goat. Offbeat genre superstar Kenichi Ugana delivers a gut-busting dry comedy of cross-cultural punk in The Gesuidouz, fresh from this year’s TIFF. Trans and cis writer-director duo Kit & Arran deconstruct masculinity in play with King Baby, a dark comedy of hierarchies and insecurities reminiscent of the films of Peter Strickland. The underseen horror provocation of the year, Succubus is an intoxicatingly (t)horny blend of PVT Chat and Get Out that demands to be seen with a crowd. And Gakuryu Ishii, legendary director of Burst City, August in the Water, and The Box Man, delivers Self-Revolutionary Cinematic Struggle, a mind-melting metatextual epic exclusive to the big screen, here in its International Premiere.

Meanwhile the Shorts Programme pushes the boundaries of storytelling and imagination. Divided into four categories: “Wo(a)nders”, “Love”, “Kaleidoscope”, and “Animation”, LIFFF delivers a vibrant array of shorts celebrating diverse voices and genres. Among the highlights is the UK-made Chimera, by Neil West, guiding viewers through a mesmerising exploration of memory and self-discovery. Stepping into the spotlight is A Green Affair, directed by Rebecca Thomson, offering a fresh take on romance with a love story beyond imagination. Meanwhile, Dragon Fruit, directed by J. Brown, invites audiences on a journey through harsh realities and fractured humanity. From heartwarming tales of love and resilience to surreal visual feasts, these shorts promise a fantastic viewing experience that will leave audiences spellbound.

The festival culminates with a special screening of independent queer oddity Zerophilia. An American independent flop that was derided on release in 2005, its marketing shied away from embracing its queerness. A film about repression that was itself repressed, Zerophilia emerges into a trans film scene ready to see it for what it really is. Writer-director Martin Curland and members of the film’s cast will join us over Zoom after the screening at the Genesis Cinema for a live Q&A, where they’ll reflect on the film together for the first time since its initial release. This closing night event will be followed by the announcement of the festival awards, decided by our juries and our audience.

King Baby will be followed by an in-person Q&A with co-director Kit Redstone. Succubus will be followed by a Zoom Q&A with director R.J. Daniel Hanna and lead actor Brendan Bradley. Further Q&A announcements will follow in the coming week.

The Festival

London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF), celebrating its inaugural edition this year, is a celebration of extraordinary and visionary cinema. Founded by a passionate collective of cinephiles, LIFFF is dedicated to showcasing the most imaginative and boundary-pushing films from across the globe. The festival’s board and advisors represent a diverse range of expertise across science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the avant-garde. As a not-for-profit organization, LIFFF serves as a vital platform for independent filmmakers and cinephiles alike. It provides an immersive space where filmmakers can present their creative work and where audiences can experience the fantastic and surreal. We seek to foster meaningful interactions between filmmakers and cinephiles locally and internationally, through in-person and online screenings and events.

The Team

Festival Director Kanako Fujita is a London-based Japanese film producer, and founder of Felis Pictures Ltd. Her films have won international awards, including “Push-Button Syndrome”, which received the Asian Discovery Award at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival. She also works as an international sales agent and as a critic, with bylines at Japan Forward, EasternKicks, Cineuropa, and Zippyframes.

Features Programmer Blake Simons is a journalist and film programmer with a taste for the self-reflexive, sentimental, and surreal. They’ve written for BFI, Metrograph, The Film Stage, ScreenAnarchy and more about queer and Japanese cinema, and they enjoy speaking with filmmakers about what makes them and their films tick.

Shorts Programmers 1999 are a dynamic film collective founded by Zhuoling Shi, Meixuan Yi, and Bingxin Zhang, three graduate students with backgrounds in Film Studies, Media, and Communication. Passionate about bridging cultural landscapes, they’re dedicated to bringing innovative film, theatre, and art projects to China and the UK. With a focus on storytelling that transcends borders, they collaborate with artists, directors, and stakeholders on compelling narratives that reflect diverse perspectives, aiming to foster a deeper cultural exchange between East and West.

Tickets/Festival Passes

Tickets for all festival screenings are now available on Eventbrite, with a Festival Pass option that allows attendees to enjoy multiple screenings at a discounted rate.

For those looking to fully immerse themselves in the festival experience, LIFFF is offering a Festival Pass. This pass provides access to multiple screenings at a discounted rate, allowing attendees to enjoy a diverse selection of films ranging from feature-length premieres to innovative shorts.

For the detailed schedule of the London International Fantastic Film Festival (LIFFF), please visit their official website at https://londonfanta.com/schedule-inperson/

Tickets for the Opening Film (The Killer Goldfish), In-competition Features, Shorts and Festival Passes are available now on Eventbrite: 2024 London International Fantastic Film Festival | Eventbrite

For the Closing Film (Zerophilia) at Genesis Cinema, please book separately: Events | Genesis Cinema