FANTASIA’S UPCOMING VIRTUAL EDITION (AUGUST 20 – SEPT 2)
ANNOUNCES FIRST WAVE OF PROGRAMMING,
WITH NEIL MARSHALL’S
THE RECKONING TO OPEN FESTIVAL
The Fantasia
International Film Festival will be celebrating its 24th edition as a
virtual event accessible to movie lovers across Canada, with a wild
assortment of scheduled screenings, panels, and workshops
taking place online from August 20 through September 2, 2020. The
decision to launch a digital edition of the famed genre festival was
born from Fantasia’s desire to keep the health and safety of its
attendees a top priority during the current global health
crisis, while still offering daring, much-needed new genre
entertainment to residents of Canada and supporting the breakout
filmmakers of the year. Fantasia is excited to reveal a selected first
wave of titles.
AN EVE OF
RECKONING FALLS UPON FANTASIA’S OPENING NIGHT
Fantasia’s 24th edition will open with a special screening of Neil Marshall’s recently completed cinematic powerhouse
THE RECKONING. A poignant and horrific period thriller set in
1665 against the backdrop of the Great Plague and the subsequent witch
hunts in England, THE RECKONING stars Charlotte Kirk (OCEAN’S 8, NO
PANIC WITH A HINT OF HYSTERIA), Sean Pertwee (DOG
SOLDIERS, DOOMSDAY), Joe Anderson (THE GREY, THE CRAZIES), Steven
Waddington (THE IMITATION GAME, LAST OF THE MOHICANS), and Emma
Campbell-Jones (DOCTOR WHO). A vivid, compelling and confrontational
film whose themes are frighteningly pertinent to today’s
concerns. This will mark the second time that a work from the esteemed
British filmmaker has opened Fantasia, THE DESCENT having been the
festival’s official Opening Film in 2005.
A GENRE-BENDING VISUAL FEAST AWAITS YOU WITH
UNDERGODS
An otherworldly journey through a Europe in decline, Chino Moya’s
UNDERGODS is a collection of aesthetically astonishing, darkly
humorous fantasy tales about a series of men whose worlds fall apart
through a visit from an unexpected stranger. This singular visual feast
is a co-production between the UK, Belgium, Estonia,
Serbia, and Sweden with a cast that includes Geza Rohrig (SON OF SAUL),
Johann Meyers (SNATCH), Hayley Carmichael (LES MISERABLES tv series),
Eric Godon (IN BRUGES), Kate Dickie (THE WITCH), Adrian Rawlins
(CHERNOBYL), Ned Dennehy (MANDY), and an especially
crazed Jan Bijvoet (BORGMAN). World Premiere
MAKOTO TEZUKA ADAPTS THE LEGENDARY MANGA
TEZUKA’S BARBARA!
One night, a famous novelist encounters a young, seemingly homeless woman in an overpass tunnel. He brings her home,
which sets him on a path of increasingly bizarre encounters. TEZUKA’S BARBARA
is the abrasively jazzy adaptation of
Osamu Tezuka’s adult manga of the same name. Directed by Makoto Tezuka
(LEGEND OF THE STARDUST BROTHERS) and lensed by Christopher Doyle (IN
THE MOOD FOR LOVE, HERO),
this film – released as part of Tezuka’s 90th anniversary celebration –
mixes
pinku-style erotica with an examination of the creative impulse and a
dash of the occult, thus unveiling the lesser-known dark side of the
ASTRO BOY creator and anime maestro.
North American Premiere
CELEBRATE 45 YEARS OF TROMA WITH LLOYD KAUFMAN’S LATEST CREATION!
Nearly
25 years after the release of TROMEO AND JULIET, Lloyd Kaufman and the
Troma Team are going “back to the Bard” with an utterly
insane interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, set against America’s opioid crisis. Kaufman celebrates Troma’s 45th –
and his 50th – year of making movies by taking on Big Pharma,
addiction, and an intolerance of social media with all the sex, mutants,
musical numbers, and violence that Shakespeare always wanted but never
had.
#SHAKESPEARESSHITSTORM marks the most ambitious project in
Troma’s 45-year history, popping with Kaufman’s uniquely anarchistic
style at a time when it couldn’t possibly be more needed!
World Premiere
CANADIAN TITLES PRESENTED IN WORLD PREMIERE, STRONG PRESENCE OF
WOMEN DIRECTORS AND SURPRISING NEWCOMERS
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A
mother and daughter are suspected of witchcraft by their devout rural
community in Canadian filmmaker Thomas Robert Lee’s freakishly
nightmarish
THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW. One of the most unsettling and
surprising occult horror films since HEREDITARY, this haunting tale is
steeped in folklore and brimming with imagery that will besiege your
subconscious. It stars Catherine Walker (A DARK SONG),
Jared Abrahamson (HELLO DESTROYER), Hannah Emily Anderson (WHAT KEEPS
YOU ALIVE), Don McKellar (LAST NIGHT), and Sean McGinley (BRAVEHEART),
and is co-produced by MY BLOODY VALENTINE director George Mihalka.
World Premiere
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The sophomore feature by Canadian Writer/Director/Cinematographer/Composer Anthony Scott Burns (OUR HOUSE),
COME TRUE is a distinctive and compelling work of dark
science-fiction that haunts the space between wakefulness and sleep.
Plagued by disturbing dreams and unable to go home, rebellious teenager
Sarah (THE KILLING’s Julia Sarah Stone) is relieved to
find shelter at a university sleep study. Hoping this will finally
help her to get rid of her nightmares, she unwittingly becomes the
channel to a horrifying new discovery. Co-starring Landon Liboiron
(TRUTH OR DARE). Produced by Mark Smith (IN THE TALL GRASS)
and Nicholas Bechard (HOLIDAYS) and Canadian genre film luminaries
Steve Hoban (GINGER SNAPS) and Vincenzo Natali (CUBE).
World Premiere
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In
New Delhi filmmaker Sidharth Srinivasan’s first horror work - and first
narrative feature in a decade, following SOUL OF SAND - a DJ encounters
a beautiful woman at a club, goes back
to her home, and finds himself thrust into a nightmare odyssey of
ritual magic, patriarchal death customs, and family conflict most
unusual. Transgressive, darkly humorous, and mystically atmospheric,
KRIYA is a fever dream of fear starring Navjot Randhawa
(MEHSAMPUR), Noble Luke, and Avantika Akerkar (THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC
MARIGOLD HOTEL), is co-produced by Andy Starke (IN FABRIC) and Pete
Tombs (FREE FIRE), and features an unforgettable score by
Jim Williams (POSSESSOR). World Premiere
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Bernardo
is an undertaker. He runs his mortuary business in the same house where
he resides. In the front, he has his clients. And in the back, his
dysfunctional family lives amongst
coffins, wreaths, and the mischievous but nonviolent ghosts that
visit on a daily basis. But when a malevolent entity enters the scene,
it wreaks havoc on the already fractured household in Argentinean
writer/director Mauro Iván Ojeda’s chilling first
feature. THE UNDERTAKER’S HOME (La Funeraria) stars Luís Machín (MONTECRISTO), Celeste Gerez (DESTINO ANUNCIADO), and Camila Vaccarini (PAISAJE).
World Premiere
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A film by John C. Lyons
and Dorota Swies,
UNEARTH is a fracking horror story that follows
two neighboring farm families whose relationships are strained when one
of them chooses to lease their land to a gas company.
Adrienne Barbeau (THE FOG), Marc Blucas (BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), and
Allison McAtee (WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS) star.
World Premiere
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Swedish filmmaker Johan Von Sydow’s eight-years-in-the-making
TINY TIM: KING FOR A DAY, like its subject, is unlike anything else out there. Through Tiny´s intense diaries (read by
"Weird Al" Yankovic performing Tim's inner voice with genuinely dramatic results), archival footage,
and interviews with family, friends, and contemporaries like Wavy Gravy, Tommy James, and the late Jonas Mekas and D.A. Pennabaker, the
film paints an intimate portrait of one of the oddest careers in showbiz World Premiere
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Shinichiro Ueda (ONE CUT OF THE DEAD) is back with his highly anticipated sophomore film
SPECIAL ACTORS! A delirious meta-comedy, doubling down on the
performative antics of his previous making-of/zom-com hybrid, Ueda now
turns the entire world into a stage – to our utmost delight!
Canadian Premiere
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The sophomore feature from Natasha Kermani (IMITATION GIRL),
LUCKY tells the tale of
May (Brea Grant, who also scripted), a self-help author who suddenly
finds herself stalked by a threatening but elusive masked man that
mysteriously reappears every night.
A visceral and smart exploration of gaslighting through the prism
of horror storytelling, LUCKY was originally slated to launch at this
year’s SXSW.
International Premiere
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Tormented
by vivid nightmares and the belief they are real, Marlene suffers a
nervous breakdown in a remote German village. Michael Venus’
SLEEP (Schlaf), co-starring Gro Swantje Kohlhof (NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN) and Sandra Hüller (TONI ERDMANN), is a supremely confident debut.
A standout at this year’s Berlinale.
North American Premiere
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Originally slated to launch at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival,
12 HOUR SHIFT is a gripping real-time, hospital-set
thriller / black comedy taking place in the late ’90s at the onset of
the opioid crisis. Fronted by a career-best performance from Angela
Bettis (MAY), playing a ferociously uncommon kind of
anti-hero, and infused with inspired directorial details, the film
co-stars Chloe Farnworth, David Arquette, and Mick Foley. Writer /
Director Brea Grant (who also scripted and stars in this year’s LUCKY)
has delivered one of our favorite films of the year.
International Premiere
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An
alien takes over the body of a middle-aged drug addict (Gary Green) and
goes on a delirious joyride across Cape Town in Ryan Kruger’s
FRIED BARRY, an acid trip of a road movie. Winner of a RapidLion
Award for Best South African Film, it’s a tale that’s alternately
depraved and oddly sweet.
Canadian Premiere
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Believe the hype. With
YUMMY, Belgian filmmaker Lars Damoiseaux has made one of the
craziest, funniest, most inventive, and surprising zombie gorefests to
assault screens in recent years.
THE CAMERA LUCIDA SECTION DEDICATED TO BOUNDARY-PUSHING, AUTEUR-DRIVEN WORKS AT THE INTERSECTION OF GENRE AND ARTHOUSE CINEMA
The Camera Lucida section unveils its first titles:
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With the passing of director Nobuhiko Obayashi in April of 2020, cinema lost a titan. His final film,
LABYRINTH OF CINEMA (2019) is deeply humanist text:
an endlessly delirious career coda and a voyage through Japan’s wartime and cinematic history.
Canadian Premiere
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Originally slated to launch at this year’s SXSW, Noah Hutton’s
LAPSIS follows activist documentaries DEEP TIME and CRUDE
INDEPENDENCE with this brilliant skewering of the absurdity of
contemporary work environments, leaving no stone unturned: from the
sharing economy to healthcare profiteering and the increasing
game-ification of labor. This is speculative fiction at its most relevant.
International Premiere
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An entrancing debut for German director Sabrina Mertens,
TIME OF MOULTING unfolds as a series of meticulous domestic
tableaus, slowly morphing into a disturbing descent into a young girl’s
inner turmoil. Crushing, and not for the faint of heart.
North American Premiere
All
titles will compete for the AQCC-Camera Lucida prize, awarded by a jury
of critics from the Québec’s Critics Association (AQCC), member of the
FIPRESCI.
FANTASTIC BEASTS AND GROSS-OUT GAGS FILL FANTASIA’S ANIMATION SECTION
Fantasia’s
Axis section unveils its first two selections – one to guide young ones
as they grow up, the other for older folks who defiantly
resist growing up.
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Mexican feature
A COSTUME FOR NICHOLAS, directed by Eduardo Rivero, is a wild and colourful fantasy adventure.
Canadian Premiere
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Estonian country-bumpkin shock-comedy
THE OLD MAN MOVIE, directed by Oskar Lehemaa, Peeter Ritso and
Mikk Mägi’s hugely successful YouTube series has become a high-water
mark for stop-motion animation, and a glorious new low in lowbrow
laughs!
North American Premiere
All
film screenings will be geo-blocked to Canadian audiences and only
accessible from within the country, vastly expanding the number of
viewers Fantasia can engage with outside of Quebec.
Fantasia’s 24th edition will be
held online from August 20 to September 2. A second wave of Fantasia
2020 titles will be announced in July and its full lineup will be revealed in early August,
with ticket sales commencing shortly afterwards.
Montreal is a city that celebrates diversity. Since 2001 I have explored both the rich talents and particular challenges of black cultural actors. One remarkable actor is Fabienne Colas who has worked diligently for years to promote all aspects of Black and Haitian culture. Most prominently with the Montreal International Black Film Festival where I have seen the most meaningful and relevant films. That is where I met a few of the CENTRAL PARK 5 and saw the movie that retraces how 5 black children were jailed for a crime they did not commit. They were literally tortured by the state, in particular, the now president of the United States, Donald Trump, bought a 1 page add to promote the death penalty for these boys. And this chilling movie, Slavery By Another Name. Fabienne is currently working on Haïti en Folie a festival that will happen from July 24 to July 26 in Montreal and New York.
