The 11th annual Future Gate Sci-Fi Film Festival will take place in Prague from Sept. 24 to 30, and this year’s edition will feature renowned director Terry Gilliam as a special guest. Gilliam, known for his influential work in science fiction cinema, will receive an award for his contribution to the genre during the festival’s opening ceremony at Kino Lucerna.
Two of Gilliam’s most iconic films, 12 Monkeys and Brazil, will be screened during this year’s Future Gate festival. A Q&A session will follow the 12 Monkeys screening on Sept. 25 at 8:30 p.m., while Gilliam will introduce Brazil on Sept. 26 at 6 p.m.
Gilliam is widely recognized for his creative, often surreal storytelling. His career includes co-founding the comedy troupe Monty Python and directing films such as The Fisher King, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. His latest project, The Carnival at the End of Days, is expected to premiere next year.
Gilliam is no stranger to Prague; he filmed The Brothers Grimm in the Czech capital in 2003, and brought The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2018. The third and fourth seasons of the Syfy series 12 Monkeys were shot in Prague, though Gilliam was not involved with the TV show based on his original film.
The Future Gate Sci-Fi Film Festival is the largest science fiction film event in Central Europe, with screenings across eight cities in the Czech and Slovak Republics. In addition to the Prague, the festival will also visit Olomouc, Šumperk, Hodonín, Brno, Pilsen, Hradec Králové, and Košice throughout October.
This year’s lineup of films at Future Gate includes Daughter of the Sun, a melancholic drama about a father and daughter escaping their past, which will open the festival at Kino Lucerna on Sept. 24. Director Ryan Ward and producer Makenzie Leigh will be on hand to introduce the film.
Also screening at the Future Gate festival will be Mars, an animated film in the vein of Rick and Morty featuring the voice performances from the cast of the cult TV show The Whitest Kids U’ Know, including Barbarian director Zach Creggar and Trevor Moore, who recorded dialogue for the film before his death in 2021. Director Sevan Najarian will introduce the film at Kino Lucerna.
The festival will also screen Yannis Veslemes’s She Loved Blossoms More, a surreal sci-fi horror film that explores grief and mourning, as well as Miguel Llansó’s Infinite Summer, a futuristic film that blurs the line between reality and illusion during a week of escapism. Both directors will be on hand to introduce their films in Prague.
The Future Gate festival will also include a special preview screening of The Substance, a body-horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley that drew rave reviews at Cannes earlier this year. The Substance will open wide in Czech cinemas from Oct. 10.
The festival will also screen a number of classic sci-fi films, including Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, as well as short films and documentaries with sci-fi themes like A Disturbance in the Force, which offers a behind-the-scenes look at the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special.
Tickets to this year’s Future Gate Sci-Fi Film Festival in Prague are already on sale, and run CZK 150. All films will be shown in their original versions with Czech and (if not in English) English subtitles, with the exception of The Iron Giant and The Wild Robot, which will be presented in Czech-dubbed versions.
A full program of films and accompanying events at this year’s festival can be found at the official Future Gate website.
Lead image: Terry Gilliam courtesy Future Gate; Kino Lucerna via The Prague Reporter
One Response
Gilliam stopped by Terryho Ponožky, the poster shop in Světozor that was named after him 😄