Fantasia Fest is a week away and the line up already has us more than excited. Fantasia International Film Festival, also known as Fantasia Fest or simply Fantasia, is an annual film festival founded in 1996 and held primarily in Montreal, Canada. It specializes in genre films, including fantasy, horror, science fiction, and cult cinema, and draws over 100,000 attendees each year. This year will mark the 30th anniversary of the legendary festival.
We decided to conjure up a list of our most anticipated titles at the film festival. Check out the full line up at the official site here but here are some of the titles that have us the most buzzing.
The Eyes
A year after being brutally attacked in her photography studio by a former boyfriend who was obsessed with her, Seo-jin remains traumatized by the events that nearly cost her her life. Suffering from a hereditary degenerative form of blindness, her efforts to secure a cornea transplant are cut short by the apparent suicide of her twin sister, Seo-in, just as her attacker is released from prison. Convinced that it was a murder carried out in revenge against her, Seo-jin moves into her sister’s house in the countryside, where she finds her sister’s mobile phone, allowing her to view her previous messages. Despite these new clues, the authorities refuse to reopen the investigation, with the exception of Detective Ho, who has just returned to work after time off due to an injury and offers to assist her in her quest. Surrounded by strange neighbours and still plagued by acute paranoia, her leads become as blurred as her vision. Faced with this urgent need to act, Seo-jin will become increasingly reckless, at the risk of joining Seo-in in the afterlife.
I Love Paris
I LOVE PARIS opens with an impromptu MTV CRIBS-style apartment tour. “This,” explains Paris, holding up a plastic horse, “is Rodrigo.” Moments later, she shows the viewer a clay statue in her maximalist apartment. “I got a boner for music,” she tells the camera, as she shows off her creation and his upturned erection and face, paying tribute to the musical gods. The film’s production design has an incredibly catered lived-in feel. Shot in a mockumentary style, I LOVE PARIS is an explosive and vibrant vampire film that is funny, dynamic, and haunting. Avoiding many of the pitfalls of mockumentary, I LOVE PARIS feels real but never loses touch with keeping the audience entertained. The editing style is quick, the compositions thoughtful, and the energy upbeat. Aminata Thiboult, who plays Paris, is an explosive talent; her screen presence is electric, playful, and intense. Her performance is hypnotic.
The Leader
“How does a housewife from Houston become the leader of a cult?” That question, posed by an interviewer to Bonnie Lu Nettles (Vera Farmiga, THE CONJURING, THE DEPARTED), is answered as we watch Bonnie, dissatisfied with her home life and cheating husband, find a soulmate in the devoutly religious Marshall Herff Applewhite (Tim Blake Nelson, WATCHMEN, MINORITY REPORT). Together they begin offering “awareness lessons” to people in need of purpose and direction in their lives, forming a group that will come to be known as Heaven’s Gate. Calling themselves “Do” and “Ti,” the duo bestow their followers with new names and indoctrinate them into strictly regimented new lives, in which the freedom of choice is removed and “desires of the flesh” are verboten. According to “Do” and “Ti,” their human bodies are merely “vehicles” for extraterrestrial beings—and the day is approaching when they will all abandon those vessels and rise to a higher consciousness.
FERIN
Excited to explore a new chapter in life, wealthy and influential art collector Irene (Carolyn Bracken, ODDITY, YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER) has just adopted a baby through a surrogate arrangement. This exploration will take on unexpectedly darker shapes when a sudden tragedy shatters Irene’s world, grief tearing through her to such paralyzing extremes that primal, violent instincts begin to guide her in ferocious ways. Her path fatefully crosses with Dama (Caroline Goodall, SCHINDLER’S LIST, HOOK), a lavishly wealthy trafficker of exotic predator animals. Dama recognizes that Irene has become a mercurial predator herself. A morbid bond forms between them. Few in the vicinity will be safe.
There’s a ton of other movies playing throughout the whole festival. A lot of world premieres and classics. It truly is a celebration of genre and a love letter to the art that is cinema. We will be covering the festival as much as we can throughout its run time so stay tuned. Which film are you most excited to see or hear about at the festival?
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