Festivalgoers are expected at Montreal movie theatres for the second weekend of the Fantasia International Film Festival, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
Running from July 16 to August 2, this event aims to highlight genre cinema and forge links between avant-garde films and mainstream productions.
The program features both feature-length and short films from Quebec, Canada, and around the world. It includes a section dedicated to animated films, screenings of reimagined classics, and films for young audiences.
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Fantasia’s assistant director and programmer, Tania Morissette, had to reschedule several films due to high public demand, such as “Los Vampires,” which was screened a second time on Saturday morning.
“There were lots of people who came to buy additional tickets but unfortunately couldn’t get in,” she reports. “That’s been the case with many of our films this year. A lot of screenings are at full capacity, so we’re adding more showings.”
As a result, the South Korean zombie film “Colony,” directed by Yeon Sang-ho—for which, according to Morissette, “tickets are flying off the shelves”—has been rescheduled for the coming week.
The same goes for “Teenage Sex And Death at Camp Miasma” by director Jane Schoenbrun, whose 2024 film “I Saw the TV Glow” was a huge hit upon its release.
The festival opened with “Her Private Hell,” directed by Danish filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, best known for “Drive,” released in 2011 and starring Ryan Gosling.
He returned to the festival 20 years after his last visit and, like several other filmmakers, led a master class during conferences and discussions.
“This is our 30th anniversary, so we wanted to honor filmmakers—either those we’ve never had at the festival before, or directors like Nicolas Winding Refn, who attended the festival twenty years ago—so it’s a wonderful opportunity to have him back,” she emphasized.
Among the master classes still to be held, one of the most anticipated is that of Quebec director Robert Lepage, which will take place on Aug. 1.
Blocks of Quebec short films, grouped by theme, are screened every weekend of the festival.
Quebec feature films, meanwhile, are spread throughout the festival.
“Tight Lettuce,” a film by Harrison Houde starring Emmanuel Bilodeau, drew a full house, as did “Someone’s Daughter,” a thriller by Wiebke von Carolsfeld. In this film, a lawyer finds herself trapped in a forest with a man accused of sexual assault, whom she had defended years earlier.
“La Place,” by Louis Godbout, about a dispute over a parking spot that takes a dark turn, and “Les regards parallèles,” by Vincent Bonin-Arena, which tells the story of two brothers and the wife of one of them as they try to prove themselves as criminals, are must-sees, according to Morissette.
These films will be screened on July 26 and 29, respectively.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
