IMAGINE: / 25th Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival
15 to 26 April 2009 – Pathé Tuschinski


From April 15 to 26, the festival will see its 25th edition. An anniversary therefore, but that is not the reason we gave the AFFF a new label.

So why is there a new name?

* Because the term 'fantastic' is too often confused with the more limited term 'fantasy'.
* Because we think that IMAGINE: not only sounds better, but also implies an invitation to the audience: 'Just imagine that...'
* But above all, because IMAGINE: explicitly emphasizes the adventurous, free-thinking direction of the festival, much more so than the old name.

The genres in which the festival traditionally specializes, fantasy, horror and science-fiction, lost their strict definitions a long time ago. More and more it's the margins of the film industry, where creators allow themselves larger amounts of artistic freedom, that the festival picks its selections from. Films that don't try to cater to a specific target audience by colouring neatly within the lines of 'their genre', but present themselves to the viewer on their own terms. Films that have one question to their viewers in common: 'Just imagine that...' And then they go on to tell their own story their own way, regardless of the genre or mixture of genres.


IMAGINE: will not be a different festival than the AFFF. Actually, the opposite is true. More than the old name, the new one reflects the full width of programming that has developed in the last few years.

With a new name and with a campaign created in cooperation with communications bureau Vandejong (Foam, Filmmuseum, among others), we not only want to brush up our image, but hopefully we will also inspire film lovers to reconsider any possible bias they may have against our festival.