Since 1996, the Fantasia International Film Festival has brought independent genre films from all across the world to Montreal. Today, Fantasia is one of the largest genre film festivals in North America, and will take place from July 18 to August 4.
As a genre festival that specializes in low-budget, independent films, Fantasia’s lineup is always sure to include an eclectic mix of films from different artistic lineages—the festival is most known for its horror and sci-fi inclusions, but selections span many other genres and every subgenre in between.
The opening film Bookworm, the sophomore directorial feature of Ant Timpson, is a family-friendly adventure film starring Elijah Wood and 12-year-old actor Nell Fisher, known for her role in Evil Dead Rise. Fisher plays a young overachiever bored with her everyday life, whose absentee father (Wood) one day appears in her life to take her into the wilderness in a classic literary adventure, in search of a mythical beast. The film will kick off Fantasia with a lighthearted comedy adventure, setting the tone for a festival of fun.
Many movies in the selection provide new twists on classic genre staples. Director E.L. Katz’ latest film Azrael as much homages the revenge thriller as it does silent cinema, including virtually no dialogue in favor of natural soundscapes and screams. The movie stars Samara Weaving, known as a leading genre actor from The Babysitter and Ready or Not, as the titular character who escapes her religious cult by hiding in a nearby forest. However, here she learns that she has moved from one evil to another—as she is now victim to an ancient lurking evil in the trees—and must rely on her base survival instincts to slash and survive.
Infinite Summer, the latest film by Miguel Llansó, strays from the director’s previous exploitation works and moves into the liminal zone between sci-fi and mystery. The film follows a group of teenagers who meet the mysterious Dr. Mindfulness, an app developer who puts the girls onto a meditation app that changes their body chemistry into “something between pollen and cosmic dust”. Its intentionally vague synopsis leaves a lot to the imagination and retains the essential mystery around the film’s premise: something about a clandestine connection to an Estonian zoo.
Jayro Bustamante, who previously directed La Llorona (2019), returns with the fantasy parable Rita. The film centers the eponymous Rita, a 13-year-old living in an abusive custody facility whose prisoners are abused and forced into prostitution. She learns that she is the subject of a prophecy spread around by other girls in the facility, which claims a warrior angel is to come down to free them from their imprisonment. Rita uses fantasy tropes and imagery to touch on present-day injustices à la the works of Guillermo del Toro, and explores the dehumanization of young girls within the prison system as well as the community that can form despite it.
This Man, directed by Tomojiro Amano, similarly draws from folk sources, this time reimagining a popular urban legend into a modern J-horror. Two detectives attempt to follow a string of deaths linked to drawings made in each victims’ final moments: a unibrowed man who has been appearing in their dreams. The film is built on the same legend as last year’s Dream Scenario, but This Man directly plays up the premise’s horror overtones—it brings to mind classic Japanese horror like Ring and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Cure, while also homaging contemporary Western horror like Final Destination and It Follows.
To see Fantasia’s entire 2024 lineup, visit their program here.
