FANTASPOA 2022 Announced: "After two years of successful online editions, the 18th edition of the beloved Brazilian genre festival Fantaspoa will return to the cinemas from April 15th through May 1st. This year, attendees will discover a very different Fantaspoa from its last on-site edition (a very distant 2019): instead of its usual two venues, the fest will take place simultaneously in five cinemas, with part of its program also being available online, geo-blocked for viewers within Brazil.

The poster for this year’s festival was conceived by the festival’s art director Thalles Mourão, with the drawing from local artist Fernanda Moreira. The striking image is a mashup of two centenary anniversaries: The Modern Art Week, one of Brazil’s greatest art movements, and F. W. Murnau’s 1922 masterpiece of cinema, NOSFERATU: A SYMPHONY OF HORROR.

NOSFERATU will also have a very special screening on the opening night of the festival, with musician Carlos Ferreira performing a brand new soundtrack to Murnau’s classic. The closing night film will be the world premiere of Andre Sigwalt and Augusto Soares’ kung-fu stoner comedy THE SMOKE MASTER.

According to João Fleck and Nicolas Tonsho, the festival directors, this was the most difficult program to put assemble in the eighteen years of their festival: “In 2020 and 2021, film entries had been decreasing and, for this edition, we saw a significant increase - both in entry numbers and the overall quality of the projects. We are very proud to say that over 80% of our program has come directly from FilmFreeway entries, pointing toward a growing interest by the industry in screening at Fantaspoa.”

Confirmed guests currently include Sylvia Caminer  (FOLLOW HER),  Kirill Sokolov (NO LOOKING BACK), Chadd Harbold (PRIVATE PROPERTY), Jorge Sanders (BROTHER, KEPT), Vincent Grashaw (WHAT JOSIAH SAW), Maxwell Gold (FANGA), Vinicius Coelho (THE EYES BELOW),  Lucas Abrahão (UPURGA), Ethan Maquis (LEMONADE), Mariana Alom (BLUE HEART), Fabián Forte (LEGIONS), Andre Sigwalt and Augusto Soares (THE SMOKE MASTER), Sérgio Marone (JESUS KID), Priscyla Bettim and Renato Coelho (THE CITY OF ABYSSES) and Leo Falcão (SUBJECT).

The festival’s initial wave of 40 feature films contains seven World Premieres, five International Premieres, 19 Latin American Premieres, and seven Brazilian Premieres. These films represent a total of 26 countries and have played prestige festivals such as Annecy, Berlinale, Cannes, Rotterdam, TIFF, Moscow, Sitges, Sundance, and Tallin Black Nights."

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