From July 20 to August 9, the Fantasia International Film Festival is celebrating its 27th edition in Montreal! They’re bringing incredible film premieres and special events, including an event honoring the career of the one and only Nicolas Cage. Ticket pre-sales will open on Saturday, July 15, at 1 PM.
Check out the latest films screening at Fantasia 2023 below!
OFFICIAL CLOSING FILM: WE ARE ZOMBIES
The 27th edition of Fantasia ends end with the World Premiere of We Are Zombies, the latest from Quebecois cult collective RKSS (Summer of ’84)—François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. Based on the comic LES ZOMBIES QUI ONT MANGÉ LE MONDE (The Zombies that Ate the World), the film is set in a society where zombies, referred to as “living-impaired,” roam among us with no urge to eat flesh. The film stars Megan Peta Hill (RIVERDALE), Alexandre Nachi (1991), and Derek Johns (THE BOYS).
MS. APOCALYPSE
Young-mi works as a bookkeeper for a tech factory, where her awkward disposition has earned her the nickname “Ms. Apocalypse.” Secretly infatuated with a co-worker named Do-young, she is shocked when she finds out that he has been embezzling company money, but ultimately chooses to cover his tracks. On the last day of 1999, Do-young turns himself in, and they are both sentenced to jail. When Young-mi is released a few months later, Do-young’s beautiful wife is waiting for her with a compelling offer.
HIPPO
Loosely based on ‘Hippolytus’, HIPPO examines the coming of age of two homeschooled step-siblings: Hippo (Kimball Farley), a video game-addicted teenager, and Buttercup (Silver Bear winner Lilla Kizlinger), a Hungarian immigrant with a love of classical music and Catholicism. The feature directorial debut of writer/director Mark H. Rapaport, producer of THE SCARY OF SIXTY-FIRST and PLEDGE. Also starring Eliza Roberts and Jesse Pimentel. Executive produced by Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, and Jody Hill.
TIGER STRIPES
The first amongst her group of friends to hit puberty, 12-year-old Zaffan (Zafreen Zairizal) feels her body changing. In the small rural village in Malaysia where her life is structured around the rules of school and Muslim faith, this could become a problem…a monstrous problem.
NEW LIFE
A mysterious woman (Hayley Erin) is on the run, a fixer (Sonya Walger) is assigned to bring her in, and the stakes of the pursuit rise to apocalyptic proportions. From the producers of SOMETHING IN THE DIRT and THE MORTUARY COLLECTION.
THE PHANTOM
The 1930s: a dark time in Korean history. During the Japanese colonization of Korea in 1933, anti-occupation groups resist the oppression of the ruthless Imperial government. After a failed assassination attempt on the newly-appointed Governor General, security chief Kaito leads an investigation to hunt down an expert spy known only as the “Phantom.” Five prime suspects are then locked inside a remote hotel and forced to prove their innocence. Lee Hae-young (BELIEVER) returns to Fantasia with a spy thriller featuring a stacked cast: Sul Kyung-gu (IDOL), Lee Hanee (EXTREME JOB), Park So-dam (PARASITE), Park Hae-soo (SQUID GAME) and Seo Hyun-woo (DECISION TO LEAVE).
FEMME
Performing as Aphrodite Banks, Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, CANDYMAN) has become one of London’s most celebrated drag artists. After a show, he steps out to get some cigarettes when he is brutally attacked by a gang of racist homophobes. Jules withdraws from the drag race traumatized and despondent. Months later, while at a gay sauna, he recognizes a familiar face: his attacker Preston (George MacKay, 1917), whom he starts dating, hatching a plan for revenge.
BOOGER
Mary Dauterman’s short film, WAKEY WAKEY took Fantasia by storm when it internationally premiered in the Born of Woman showcase in 2019. She’s now back with her feature debut BOOGER, a dark comedy about lost cats, grief, and millennial despair. Anna’s (Grace Glowicki) best friend Izzy just died, and her landlord won’t stop calling about rent. As her life falls apart, she’s bitten by Izzy’s cat Booger and starts to get stranger every day: she’s hungry for canned fish, she keeps swallowing her hair, and her predator instincts are out of control.
THE CONCIERGE
“The word ‘no’ doesn’t exist in a concierge’s dictionary.” That’s just one of the demanding rules that Akino must abide by in her new job as a concierge at the elegant and expansive Arctic Department Store, where the customers are all animals and the most valued among them are of extinct species.
APOCALYPSE CLOWN
A troupe of failed clowns and an intrepid reporter embark on a lunatic road trip of self-discovery after a mysterious solar event plunges the world into anarchy in what may be the funniest (and only) clowns-and-catastrophe movie ever made. Featuring David Earl, Natalie Palamides, Amy De Bhrún, Fionn Foley, and Tadgh Murphy.
DEVILS
Motivated by anger and revenge, homicide detective Jae-hwan is hellbent on taking down a dangerous serial killer named Jin-hyuk. During a frenzied chase, Jae-hwan finally captures the perpetrator but a disastrous accident sends him to the hospital. Upon waking, Jae-hwan finds something is terribly off: he now looks and sounds like Jin-hyuk. Director Kim Jae-hoon makes his feature debut with the FACE/OFF-inspired body-swap thriller DEVILS.
FANTASTIC GOLEM AFFAIRS
Rudderless bachelor Juan (Brays Efe, PAQUITA SALAS) and his best friend David play charades on the rooftop. When David falls to his death, his body disintegrates into a thousand clay pieces. He was…a golem all along?
RASCALS
Set during the rise of the skinhead movement that swept through Paris in the 1980s, RASCALS is a searing portrait of a generation caught up in rising fascism.
THE MOON, SKY AND YOU
In Hei Yau Lin’s debut feature, THE MOON, SKY AND YOU, high school lovers fight against a hitman organization. Made for The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, THE MOON, SKY AND YOU announces a new voice for genre cinema.
PANDEMONIUM
Winner of Fantasia’s 2016 Jury Prize for Best International Short for A NEARLY PERFECT BLUE SKY, writer/director Quarxx returns to the festival with new feature PANDEMONIUM. Drawing on themes found in Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost, the film is a multi-textured existential fantasy topped with signature notes of visceral horror, disturbing fairy tale, wry comedy, and thrills. Exploring the many faces of death — suicide, murder, illness, accident — Quarxx dives deep into the notion of sin without redemption and the frailty of the human condition through the waking nightmare of one confused traveler (Hugo Dillon) who refuses to abandon all hope as he enters the gates of hell.
EIGHT EYES
At the breaking point of their dysfunctional marriage, Cass (Emily Sweet) and Gav (Brad Thomas) take a trip through Serbia. After meeting a mysterious local, Saint Peter, who eagerly offers to be their guide, the couple embark on an impromptu sightseeing expedition that soon takes a series of sinister turns. The inaugural production from beloved restoration label Vinegar Syndrome.
WHITE STORM 3: HEAVEN OR HELL
Lock and load for this explosive action extravaganza, a stand-alone sequel with all new characters directed by a true master of exploitation cinema, Herman Yau (THE LEGEND IS BORN-IP MAN, UNTOLD STORY).
HOME INVASION
A nightmarish essay film doubling as an experiential horror film framed through an oppressive peephole, this genre-defying documentary takes the viewer from the invention of the doorbell to the arrival of Amazon’s Ring, showing how this history intertwines with film technology, horror cinema, and labor struggles. Composed of a mix of archival patent illustrations, domestic security footage, and classic film clips from Hitchcock to Haneke, HOME INVASION asks what happens when our homes and dreams have been invaded.
SATAN WANTS YOU
In 1980, a book entitled Michelle Remembers rocked pop culture. Written by Michelle Smith and her psychiatrist Larry Pazder, this account reveals Michelle’s suppressed memories of satanic ritual abuse at the hands of her parents. In SATAN WANTS YOU, which debuted at SXSW 2023, directors Sean Horlor and Steve J. Adams interview key witnesses of Michelle’s ordeal to delve into the reasons why this book is seen as the catalyst for the Satanic Panic phenomenon.
A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE.
There’s no doubt that we’re living in a golden age of television. 45 years ago, however, we were most decidedly not, and the proof lies in THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL, a two-hour TV monstrosity that has long been named the worst STAR WARS ever. Jeremy Coon and Steve Kozak’s exhaustively researched and wildly entertaining A DISTURBANCE IN THE FORCE interviews everyone from the show’s creators and crew to superfans including “Weird Al” Yankovic, Seth Green, and Kevin Smith, revealing the absurd circumstances that led to the ‘70s Variety-style show turning out as disastrously as it did.
THE ABANDONED
A grieving detective and her tyro partner seek justice for a mysterious series of murders whose tragic fates could be connected to an illegal migrant worker ring. From first-time director Tseng Ying-Ting.
BABY ASSASSINS 2
Have the gun-toting gamines Mahiro and Chisato finally met their match? The comedic action concoction BABY ASSASINS returns for round two.
BIRTH/REBIRTH
A single mother (Judy Reyes) and a childless morgue technician (Marin Ireland) are bound together by their relationship with a little girl they have reanimated from the dead. A brilliant, provocative film that reimagines Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein with such a contemporary understanding that it becomes something new and singular.
THE CHILDE
A mixed-race boxer finds himself hunted by multiple assassins. An insane action film with a comic book flavor fit for a wild crowd.
FLAMING CLOUD
Cursed by mischievous deities with a sleep-inducing kiss, Sangui sets out on a journey to find a cure and his long-lost love in Liu Siyi’s debut feature, a distinctive, whimsical, and romantic fantasy.
HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS
A zany and anarchic homage to the silent film era pits a drunken applejack salesman against hundreds of beavers. An endlessly inventive freakout from the makers of the 2019 Fantasia audience award-winning LAKE MICHIGAN MONSTER. Comparisons range from Tex Avery to William Castle, as the film’s relentless pace captures a style of filmmaking mostly lost in our modern era.
IT LIVES INSIDE
An Indian-American teenager (Megan Suri) struggling with her cultural identity unwittingly releases a demonic entity that grows stronger by feeding on her loneliness. A frightening meshing of the tensions of the immigrant experience with ferocious supernatural horror, finely crafted and exceptionally well-performed, with fresh concepts taking the film into severe nightmare territory.
MAD CATS
A mysterious message containing clues to his missing brother’s whereabouts sends Taka on a quest that leads him to a gang of warrior women with extraordinary feline abilities.
MISS SHAMPOO
Apprentice hairdresser Fen and Triad boss Tai strike an unlikely romance in MON MON MON MONSTERS director Giddens Ko’s zany genre hybrid. Opening Film: Taipei Film Festival. Canadian Premiere.
ONYX THE FORTUITOUS AND THE TALISMAN OF SOULS
YouTube’s popular “Weird Satanist Guy” comes to the big screen, as the amateur occultist Onyx (writer/director Andrew Bowser) and his four companions tangle with the villainous Bartok (Jeffrey Combs).
PIAFFE
Struggling foley artist Eva (Simone Bucio) grows a horsetail in pursuit of the perfect equine sound in this kinky, gender-bending fantasia, shot on 16mm.
RAGING GRACE
An undocumented Filipina caregiver (Max Eigenmann) desperate to provide for herself and her daughter Grace (Jaeden Paige Boadilla), discovers a dark secret hidden by her wealthy employer (David Hayman). A gripping film that compassionately addresses real-life horrors, billed as a “coming of rage” thriller.
RIDE ON
An aging stuntman and his beloved horse are called back for one last ride in the film business that once made him a superstar. With 100 films under his belt, Jackie Chan is in top form, shining like a true artist as he has for 50 years. RIDE ON is an affectionate love letter to Chan’s fans and the dying art of crazy stunts and action.
SKIN DEEP
An intimate body swap sci-fi drama that eschews easy laughs for genuine feelings, featuring a cast that balances a rainbow of roles.
SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING
Fran (Daisy Ridley), an isolated office drone, strikes up an uneasy friendship with a new coworker. A dark, moving drama about stepping out of one’s shell and a powerful tale of resilience and connection built around the hardest of topics.
THE SPARRING PARTNER
A sensational double homicide dominated the news in Hong Kong in 2013. A motley crew of jurors must decide the fate of the accused without any outside influence. First-time director Ho Cheuk-To’s gripping and stylish drama has already won an avalanche of awards and acclaim.
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