Fantastic Fest 2018: ‘Madame Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club’

Madam Yankelova’s Fine Literature Club is a movie unlike any other. If you ask director Guilhad Emilio Schenker, he’ll call it an adult fairy tale à la Edward Scissorhands, and that’s probably the most accurate comparison one could make.

The film is a fantastical love story with a horror twist. There is a secret book club of women – every Thursday they meet and are required to bring a male guest with them to the book club. At the end of each session, the men are rated, slaughtered, and cooked into hot dogs while the woman who brought the best man is awarded the woman of the week award.

Receive 100 awards and you will be named a Lordess of the beautiful the mansion the club is held in – bring too many duds, and you could end up working as a servant to the mansion until your dying day. Sophie is just one quality man away from becoming a Lordess, but instead she’s beginning to fall in love with her suitor and does not wish to see harm come to him.

Emilio’s slick visual direction really makes for a bright and vibrant film. It exists in its own version of reality and has some truly heart-warming moments as well as a few well placed laughs.

I had the opportunity to talk to director Emilio Schenker about the inspiration for the movie as well as what it’s like making such a strange film in Israel. Enjoy the interview below!