Fantasia Festival: First wave of announcements for virtual edition
The Fantasia Festival will carry on in a Canadian-exclusive virtual edition later this summer. Here’s what genre fans can expect.
The Fantasia Festival is something I’ve known about for years, but have never gotten a chance to experience in person. For several consecutive years in the early 2010s, I attended Festival Kinetik, an Industrial/experimental/noise music festival in Montreal. In the time before the festival folded, I’d entertained notions of taking a separate vacation to attend one of North America’s most prestigious genre festivals.
Here is our guide to the first wave of film announcements for Fantasia’s 24th edition, which will take the form of a virtual festival.
With the ever-present concern of COVID-19 contributing to a “new normal” across the globe, the notion of sharing a packed room with a bunch of strangers has become even less feasible (and appealing).
That said, some film festivals and distributors have found ways to ensure that the show will continue. Given our current technology, the dissemination of media is easier than it ever has been in human history.
In short: the Fantasia Festival is coming to a digital outlet near you…if you’re in Canada between August 20 and September 2, that is.
Even if the rest of the world has to wait longer to sample these offerings, the first wave of announcements hold the promise of good things for genre fans.
Of the titles, two from actress/writer/director Brea Grant caught my eye.
In Lucky, Grant (who scripted and stars) plays May, “a self-help author who suddenly finds herself stalked by a threatening but elusive masked man that mysteriously reappears every night.” Sounds like an exercise in paranoia, and I’m all for that type of subjective, character-driven ride. Lucky is directed by Natasha Kermani.
12 Hour Shift (written and directed by Grant) stars horror favorite Angela Bettis. The bleak premise “follows a junkie nurse through an ascension of grisly criminal happenings as she funds her habit through organ harvesting side work on the job.” Bettis is no stranger to playing characters walking a tightrope between sanity and madness, and 12 Hour Shift sounds like a boundary-pushing testament to her often-underestimated abilities. The film also stars Chloe Farnworth, David Arquette, and Mick Foley.
Other feature offerings from Fantasia’s first wave:
- The Reckoning
- Undergods
- Tezuka’s Barbara
- The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw
- Kriya
- The Undertaker’s Home
- Come True
- #SHAKESPEARESSH*TSTORM
- Unearth
- Special Actors!
- Tiny Tim: King for a Day
- Sleep (Schlaf)
- Fried Barry
- Yummy
- Labyrinth of Cinema
- Lapsis
- Time of Moulting
Animation:
- A Costume for Nicholas
- The Old Man Movie
Next. STREAMING. dark
Are you looking forward to Fantasia Festival? What films do you want to see? Let us know in the comments.