By Daniel Rutledge
New Zealand film guru Ant Timpson is assembling a team of the world’s most exciting modern horror directors to create an 'ABC' of ways to die.
Timpson is the programmer of the Incredibly Strange Film Festival, owns and operates short film competition V48HOURS and runs New Zealand’s notorious movie marathon. He will also be familiar to TV3 watchers as the classic film reviewer on Sunrise.
With The ABCs of Death, Timpson is teaming up with Tim League’s Drafthouse Films and Magnet Releasing to produce a 26 chapter anthology feature that showcases death in various forms, from the shocking and exotic to the humorously droll.
Each of the 26 directors will be assigned a letter from the alphabet that represents a word to act as a springboard for a short story of death.
"This project was inspired by my young sons being introduced to the world through their ABCs books,” says Timpson.
“The idea of subverting that format to reveal a study in all the dastardly and humorous ways a person can leave this world appealed on multiple levels. And it was somewhat fitting to learn that the earliest forms of the ABCs books actually did use fear of punishment to teach the young.”
Twenty-five of the directors are already established on the international horror movie scene and the 26th will be chosen from a global competition being announced very soon.
The directors that have already been announced are as follows:
- Banjong Pisanthanakun (Shutter, Alone)
- Angela Bettis (Roman)
- Adrian Garcia Bogliano (Cold Sweat)
- Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun)
- Ernesto Diaz Espinoza (Mirageman)
- Bruno Forzani and Héléne Cattet (Amer)
- Gadi Harel (DeadGirl)
- Thomas Malling (Norwegian Ninja)
- Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police)
- Simon Rumley (The Living and the Dead; Red, White and Blue)
- Tak Sakaguchi and Yuji Shimomura (Yakuza Weapon)
- Marcel Sarmiento (DeadGirl)
- Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film)
- Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre)
- Andrew Traucki (Black Water, The Reef)
- Nacho Vigalando (TimeCrimes)
- Jake West (Doghouse, Evil Aliens)
- Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers)
- Ben Wheatley (Down Terrace, Kill List)
- Adam Wingard (Pop Skull, A Horrible Way To Die)
Co-Producer Tim League is based in Austin, Texas, and is the CEO of the Alamo Drafthouse chain of cinemas. He also owns and operates the largest genre festival in North America; Fantastic Fest.
"Helming the Fantastic Fest for the past seven years has brought us in touch with an amazing community of filmmaking talent,” says League.
“The ABCs of Death offers us a chance to work closely with a large number of visionary filmmakers to create a film with more jaw-dropping moments than a whole summer of blockbusters.”
"I got to the letter A and said yes,” said Tom Quinn of Magnet Releasing.
“We’re super excited to be working with a familiar cast of Magnet directors as well as Tim League and Ant Timpson.”
Information on how to enter the competition to be the 26th director will be announced shortly on the official ABCs of Death website.
3 News
source: newshub archive
