World premieres this year include Johnny Coffeen’s supernatural dark comedy The Avalanche starring Alex Essoe and Lou Taylor Pucci; Josh Logan’s dark fantasy cosmic horror The Relic: Dragon, based upon his award winning short film; Jacob Schwarz’s high-octane revenge thriller Whiskey Throttle; and Christian Everhard’s cosmic horror The Crawling starring Will Brittain and Katherine Hughes.
North American and U.S. premieres include Michele Fiascaris’s taut neo-noir thriller Rain Catcher starring Dudley O’Shaughnessy and Kate Dickie; Carson McKinnon’s deliriously twister thriller Mother & Me! starring Caylee Cowan and Brady Noon; Mark H. Rapaport’s horrific dark comedy Godhead starring Kimball Farley; and Nick Taylor’s nostalgia fueled documentary Rubberhead: The Life & Monsters of Steve Johnson about the iconic special makeup effects artist Steve Johnson.
Regional premieres include Russell Goldman’s anxiety-filled suspense thriller Sender starring Britt Lower, Rhea Seehorn, David Dastmalchian, and Jamie Lee Curtis; Raviv Ullman’s & Greg Yagolnitzer’s buzzy dark comedy thriller Drag starring Lizzy Caplan, Lucy DeVito, and John Stamos; Casey Walker’s frozen supernatural western Ithaqua starring Luke Hemsworth, Kevin Durand, and Michael Pitt; Paul Urkijo Alijo’s medieval dark fantasy spectacle Gaua; Brea Grant’s, Ed Dougherty’s, and Chelsea Stardust’s horror sci-fi comedy anthology Grind; Alex Hanno’s “Whiplash meets screenwriting” meta-thriller Bravado; John Veron’s deviously demented cult horror Godmother starring Dee Wallace and Bruce Davison; Noah Stratton-Twine’s and Jake Kuhn’s subversive and surreal The Peril at Pincer Point; Tyler Savage’s genre-bending Oddities starring Adrienne Barbeau; Brian L. Tan’s Indonesian crime thriller Bandit; and Jesse Gouldsbury’s instant cult classic comedy The VelociPastor 2.
“Thirteen years in, it still blows us away how many wildly creative filmmakers trust FilmQuest with their work. This year’s lineup is strange, fearless, surprising, and full of the genre spirit we built this festival to celebrate,” noted the festival’s Assistant Director Jonna Jackson.
Some of the announced guests who will host filmmaking labs and workshops at the festival’s “Camp Cthulhu” include director Michael Dougherty (“Trick ‘r Treat,” “Krampus,” “Godzilla: King of Monsters”), former Disney executive and producer Brigham Taylor (“Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, “Tron: Legacy”), Emmy winning casting directors Amber Horn & Danielle Aufiero (“Color Out of Space,” “The OA”), producers Jamie & Jason Neese (“Horizon,” “The Umbrella Academy”), and Slamdance co-founder and former AFI Film Festival director Jon Fitzgerald, with more set to be announced later this September.
FilmQuest is also planning to launch to launch its anticipated genre film market, which will include a lineup of between 20-40 additional feature films curated for distribution and sales in addition to the Official Selections. More details will also be announced in September.
The festival will end with an audiovisual awards show on Halloween night, where the festival promises a game changing” genre film production opportunity will be announced, along with the presentation of the coveted Cthulhu Trophy to winners in feature film, short film, student film, animation, and music video categories.
This includes the Golden Cthulhu for Best Feature Film and the Grand Prize Short Film winners. The past two Grand Prize Short Film winners, “I’m Not a Robot,” and “The Singers,” would win the Live Action Short Film Academy Award after their wins at FIlmQuest.
See the full lineup with every official selection here.
