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Universitatea Națională de Muzică -
Saturday, March 19, 2016 - 20:00
Universitatea Națională de Muzică -
Sunday, March 20, 2016 - 19:00
Written by:
David Sandberg
Cast:
David Sandberg, Jorma Taccone, Leopold Nilsson, Steven Chew, Andreas Cahling, Erik Hörnqvist, Eleni Young, Helene Ahlson, Per-Henrik Arvidius, Eos Karlsson, David Hasselhoff
Cinematography:
Martin Gärdemalm, Jonas Ernhill, Mattias Andersson, Henning Sandström, Anton Hjalmarsson
Editing:
Nils Moström
Music:
Mitch Murder, Lost Years
Special effects:
Laser Unicorns, David Sandberg, Klas Trulsson, Simon Tingell, Jimmy Sahlin, Harry Ellard
Producer:
Linus Andersson, Eleni Young Antonia
Romanian Premiere
Kung Fury is an ambitious short film of high production value, which manages to pack every trope of the 80s cop movie genre. We encounter a visual compilation of all time monsters and patterns of action movies, the notion of going back to the past and a battle between good and evil, where the first one is helped by the presence of human-animal hybrids and the latter is the ultimate villain, Adolf Hitler. Apart from being a homage to all the impressive things of the 80s, its stylistic approach and thrilling visual effects mark its camp aesthetic with a sensibility based on deliberate and self-acknowledged theatricality; its graphics and cover story deepens in our brain and reveals a metatextual and an iconic construction of a cult and hip short film. (Claudia Cojocariu, BIEFF)
Director:
David Sandberg is a Swedish filmmaker with years of experience in directing television commercials and music videos. In 2012, he quit the commercial directing business and focused on writing a script for an action comedy film set in the 1980s, inspired by action films of that era - Kung Fury. Kung Fury was funded mainly through a Kickstarter campaign, where people from all around the world showed their support for this crazy project. David worked on the film for a more than a year with almost no budget but a strong vision, with the help of friends and family.
Festivals, awards:
- European Film Awards - Vila do Conde Short Film Nominee 2015
- Cannes Queer Palm Award (nominated)
- Quinzaine des Réalisateurs Cannes 2015
Director's statement:
The thing that inspired me the most was actually the music. I listened to a guy named Mitch Murder. I listened to his music all the time when I wrote the script and he was the biggest inspiration for me, and I’m so glad he made the soundtrack. I had just bought a green screen, and I was experimenting and did this test where I had Mitch Murder’s music and was doing Miami Vice stuff. And I thought, ‘This was really cool - if I put effort into this, it could really be something.’ I had initially intended to do the whole short film by myself, all the visual effects. But after working on it for a long time, I realized it was too ambitious. I was completely broke, and my idea was to do a trailer and at the same time launch a Kickstarter in order to raise money to help me out. (David Sandberg)
Curatorial comment:
And, really, that’s what Kung Fury is - it’s not so much an 80’s movie parody as it is the boiled down nectar of what those films meant to a lot of impressionable young kids. It’s how we remember those flicks 'feeling', not what they actually were - like a memory that only becomes fonder and more powerful over time. Considering we’re living in an age where the entertainment industry is making a lot of money mining our collective nostalgia for things that once were, Sandberg has finally managed to contort the cynical notion that our memories are just dollar signs. In the world of Kung Fury - a film crafted with such love and DIY ingenuity - those memories are the fuel that brings us to cinematic bliss. (Ivan Kander, www.shortoftheweek.com)
The thing that inspired me the most was actually the music. I listened to a guy named Mitch Murder. I listened to his music all the time when I wrote the script and he was the biggest inspiration for me, and I’m so glad he made the soundtrack. I had just bought a green screen, and I was experimenting and did this test where I had Mitch Murder’s music and was doing Miami Vice stuff. And I thought, ‘This was really cool - if I put effort into this, it could really be something.’ I had initially intended to do the whole short film by myself, all the visual effects. But after working on it for a long time, I realized it was too ambitious. I was completely broke, and my idea was to do a trailer and at the same time launch a Kickstarter in order to raise money to help me out. (David Sandberg)
Curatorial comment:
And, really, that’s what Kung Fury is - it’s not so much an 80’s movie parody as it is the boiled down nectar of what those films meant to a lot of impressionable young kids. It’s how we remember those flicks 'feeling', not what they actually were - like a memory that only becomes fonder and more powerful over time. Considering we’re living in an age where the entertainment industry is making a lot of money mining our collective nostalgia for things that once were, Sandberg has finally managed to contort the cynical notion that our memories are just dollar signs. In the world of Kung Fury - a film crafted with such love and DIY ingenuity - those memories are the fuel that brings us to cinematic bliss. (Ivan Kander, www.shortoftheweek.com)