Bloodthirsty ants swarm Insect Fear Film Festival

CHAMPAIGN, lll. -- Ants exposed to Iraqi plutonium turn a Los Angeles skyscraper into a nightmarish death trap, and diamond miners confront a bloodthirsty ant swarm in the Namib Desert in this year’s Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois Foellinger Auditorium on Feb. 25 (Saturday).

This year’s theme is “international ants,” and along with traditional IFFF activities, including face painting, an art exhibit and views of magnified insects through Bugscope, there will be an ant zoo featuring trapjaw ants, odorous house ants and the world’s second-largest ant species.

Doors open at 6 p.m., opening remarks start at 7 with movie trailers and ant shorts from around the world to begin at 7:30. The two longer features, “Glass Trap” and “The Bone Snatcher,” will follow.

“Ants inhabit all continents except Antarctica; there are more ant species than there are bird and mammal species, and they collectively outweigh all of Earth’s vertebrates,” said U. of I. entomology professor and department head May Berenbaum, who founded the annual film festival in 1984.
“Real ants are so amazing they don’t need Hollywood exaggerations to impress people!”