{"id":54346,"date":"2026-08-02T03:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=54346"},"modified":"2026-08-02T02:34:33","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T06:34:33","slug":"backstage-madness-aka-shermendelik-karnavaly-2025-fantasia-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/02\/backstage-madness-aka-shermendelik-karnavaly-2025-fantasia-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Backstage Madness (aka Shermendelik\u00a0karnavaly\u00a0) (2025) [Fantasia 2026]\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A writer creates while under the pressure to be able to sell his story to an\u00a0ever-changing\u00a0market.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Directed by\u00a0Amanbek Azhymat, Backstage Madness is a\u00a0definitely-dark\u00a0comedy that approaches something all creatives wanting to have a career in their field of choice face: The need to succeed to be able to continue to work\u00a0while trying to maintain their style and feed the monster that is the current market. This is something that has been discussed a lot online from every corner of the world and the film takes this idea and turns into a funny, oftentimes messy, process where the story is more\u00a0“in progress” for the lead who is writing it than it is finished as he keeps changing his genre and his characters. This does lead to a few moments of “wait, uh?” for the viewer as the story takes sharp turns at times and parts seem to be missing.\u00a0As such, it makes for a film that can lose\u00a0the attention, but it also\u00a0represents\u00a0the writing process quite well for many writers.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The cast here is\u00a0fun;\u00a0everyone\u00a0commits to\u00a0their parts and the bit. The festival has a bunch of names listed on its site but not which part they play, so this is another case of\u00a0can’t\u00a0attribute the work to the actors properly so this will be vague.\u00a0The actor who plays the writer is great here,\u00a0he’s\u00a0the one who directs the characters in a\u00a0way,\u00a0and he makes the most of his screen time.\u00a0The actor who plays the “hire a friend”\u00a0character is a lot of\u00a0fun,\u00a0and he fully commits to whatever happens to him. The rest of the cast is good, all going along with all that is happening to them and around them.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The film going back and forth between\u00a0the writer’s world and the world he creates means there needs to be a difference to see\u00a0this clearly. The film has some of this, mostly in setting as the writer mostly is found at a table, actively working, but when he is out of that room,\u00a0it can take a few moments longer. The look of the film is good, but the\u00a0difference\u00a0between one world and the other is not clear enough at times.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Backstage Madness is another fun, at times nonsensical, dark\u00a0comedy,\u00a0and it works. It has a few issues here and there, but\u00a0it’s\u00a0entertaining,\u00a0it’s\u00a0funny, the stunts are good, there is\u00a0plenty here\u00a0for everyone to find something they love.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fantasia 2026 runs from July 16th to August 2nd, 2026<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A writer creates while under the pressure to be able to sell his story to an\u00a0ever-changing\u00a0market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2497],"tags":[58,219,259,4062,477],"class_list":["post-54346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasia-fest","tag-action","tag-comedy","tag-dark-comedy","tag-fantasia-2026","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54347,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54346\/revisions\/54347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}