Coraline: First Preview

Based on Neil Gaiman's international best-selling book, "Coraline" is the story of a young girl (Dakota Fanning) who unlocks a mysterious door in her new home, and enters into an adventure in a parallel reality. On the surface, this other world eerily mimics her own life - though much more fantastical. In it, Coraline encounters such off-kilter inhabitants as the morbidly funny Miss Forcible and Miss Spink, and a counterfeit mother (Teri Hatcher) - who attempts to keep her. Ultimately, Coraline must count on her resourcefulness, determination, and bravery to get back home.

As an animated stop-motion fantasy film based on Neil Gaiman's novella of the same name, it will be animated and co-directed by Henry Selick and Mike Cachuela and is scheduled to be released in theaters on February 6, 2009.
Laika Entertainment House (formerly Vinton Studios) has funded the film with around $50 to $70 million. Coraline is the first stop-motion animation to be shot stereoscopically with a dual digital camera rig for digital 3-D exhibition.
New tools are being developed which will give the stop-motion creators the same flexibility as CGI animators, making it possible to push objects forward and back in post-production. The characters' hands were made to be interchangeable, so more than 1000 different pairs of hands were made.

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VIY: First Preview

A big budget Russian horror which was an adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's popular 1835 short story about the demon Viy -- whose gaze was deadly if met eye-to-eye -- it was scheduled to be released in 2009 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Gogol's birth. The film ‘Viy’ is first and foremost intended to be a thriller/adventure movie packed full of stunning images and vivid characters all of which are given extra flavour thanks to Gogol’s own brand of mysticism and his feel for a sense of terror.

Early 18th century. Cartographer Jonathan Green undertakes a scientific voyage from Europe to the East. Having passed through Transylvania and crossed the Carpathian Mountains, he finds himself in a small village lost in impassible woods. Nothing but chance and heavy fog could bring him to this cursed place. People who live here do not resemble any other people which the traveler saw before that. The villagers, having dug a deep moat to fend themselves from the rest of the world, share a naive belief that they could save themselves from evil, failing to understand that evil has made its nest in their souls and is waiting for an opportunity to gush out upon the world. Even in his worst nightmares our materialistic scientist could not suppose that he was going to meet devil’s faithful servant.

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The Beckoning: First Preview

From Spanish director Elio Quiroga, here’s come a ghost story with international title “The Beckoning” aka “No Do”. Quiroga was well known before with his film “La Hora Fria” (The Cold Hours), a stunning little post apocalyptic genre bender revolving around a small band of humans trying to survive in an underground bunker after a catastrophic event unleashed both aliens and zombie-like hordes upon the earth.
With a story that revolves around ghosts, the Spanish civil war, and a series of secret, hidden documentary films the basic synopsis sounds equal parts Flicker and The Devil’s Backbone, here’s the relevant bits of the press release:
Shot in Spanish with substantial high-tech effects, “NO-DO” is a horror story in which a woman sees ghosts. The explanation to their appearance lies in an old NO-DO newsreel (i.e., one of the state-sanctioned documentaries made during Franco’s regime).
The film speculates around the little known “Secret NO-DOs”, made in the 40s for the Catholic Church in Spain. It is told that those confidential films were used by exorcists to document supernatural events using a special film emulsion designed for this purpose. Some “Secret NO-DOs” are rumored to be stored in subterranean vaults in the Congregazione del Santo Uffizio, Rome, but its existence is officialy denied by catholic church leaders.

(Source: Twitch)

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