Film festivals are quintessentially the fixtures and fittings of a film critic’s life. Whether it’s Berlin, Sundance, Cannes, or the Fantasia Film Festival, among many others, they are what command our attention and govern our sense of time. Then there’s the impact of the human footprint that is slowly eroding the environment’s seasons. If changing seasons are going the way of the Dodo, I suppose being a film critic has its advantages, because no matter the weather, the film festivals continue.
One of the summer festivals is the Fantasia International Film Festival, which marks its 29th edition this year. It’s a beast of a programme, branded Canada’s “most important and prestigious genre film festival” by Quentin Tarantino, and “a shrine” by Guillermo del Toro. Fantasia Film Festival caters to those who want to explore the darkest and most extreme corners of genre cinema, while juxtaposing milder and more traditional genre works with dramas and comedies. This year, during its 19-day showcase of films, the Fantasia Film Festival will host workshops and launch events at Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screenings and events at Cinéma du Musée and BBAM! Gallery.
Looking ahead to the 29th edition presents the usual challenge of digesting the vast programme. One of the exciting side events at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival is legendary composer Danny Elfman. He’s pulling double duty to unveil the animated short filmBullet Timewith director Eddie Alcazarand accept the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award.
One of the much-anticipated titles in this year’s Fantasia Film Festival lineup is director Michael Shanks’ body horror, Together, which is riding a wave of hype after its Sundance World Premiere. Early reactions suggest it will be among the most hotly discussed horror films of the year. The question, however, is whether new eyes on Together will yield contrarian opinions, positioning it as one of the year’s most divisive films.
Genre alumni Dave Franco and Alison Brie play married couple Tim and Millie, who relocate to the country amid escalating tensions in their stale relationship. After falling into a crevice, Tim comes into contact with a mysterious and unnatural force that makes him physically stick to Millie whenever the pair touches. Together reportedly lacks any subtlety, signposting its theme of co-dependency in what may be a film that holds the audience’s hand a little too much.
Dependency is a theme that features in another potential highlight of this year’s programme. Alex Russell‘s Lurker starts out as a story about fandom when Matthew (Théodore Pellerin) unexpectedly crosses paths with pop star Oliver (Archie Madekwe). Continuing cinema’s conversation about our relationship with social media, Lurker quickly descends into unsettling territory as Matthew undergoes a journey of self-discovery, experiencing the perils of external validation.
If early responses are to be believed, Lurker could be a compelling reflection on how easy it is to lose ourselves because of the understandable needs and desires we have been hardwired with, in conjunction with technology affecting the human experience.
Continuing the trend of feature débuts, the theme of the maternal and motherhood starkly contrasts in director Chloé Cinq-Mars’ Nesting (Peau À Peau) and Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now. Much like Lurker, which confronts a timely subject, Nester works into the story of Pénélope (Rose-Marie Perreault), a new mother, who is psychologically and emotionally falling apart, the subject of postpartum depression.
The mental health issues of new mothers are something that health services are behind the curve in recognizing, and Fantasia Film Festival’s Justine Smith observes, “What emerges is a chilling and deeply human exploration of identity, isolation, and the aching silence surrounding maternal mental health.” Nester may stand as a powerful example of using the cinematic form to explore an often-overlooked experience.
In contrast, Julie Pacino’s I Live Here Now sees Rose (Lucy Fry), a struggling actress, discover she’s pregnant. Only, she had been told years ago that she would never be able to conceive.
Watching I Live Here Now lures viewers into the director’s surreal and dreamlike imagination. For better or worse, Pacino’s world-building is a mind-bending experience, but beneath its visual and narrative excesses, it’s grounded in familiar anxieties. Nor can it escape the shadow of real life, where, in much of the world, women still struggle for autonomy over their bodies. Pacino is also willing to position women as being morally duplicitous and complicit in violence against other women.
Mother of Flies, the latest from the filmmaking collective of Zelda and John Adams and Toby Poser, is an easy recommendation. Familiar faces in genre filmmaking, they visited Fantasia last year with Hell Hole, inspired by a road trip through the Canadian oil fields. That story centers on a US-led fracking crew that stirs a monster from its dormant slumber.
This was presented alongside their short film Plastic Smile. Written by Francesco Loschiavo, it’s an unsettling tale of a porcelain doll that asks a little girl to take her to a dark tunnel in the woods. In Mother of Flies, Zelda Adams plays Mickey, who has been diagnosed with cancer. When conventional medicine fails, she seeks out a witch in the woods named Solveig (Toby Poser), who will be her guide into the world of black magic and necromancy.
To round off Fantasia Film Festival’s curtain-raiser recommendations, in the Born of Woman short film programme, Sarah Lasry’s body horror Hotel Acropole sounds like a striking vision of horror that Fantasia’s Mitch Davis pitches as “What a film. What a filmmaker.” In his write-up, he compares it to “early Lucile Hadzihalilovic by way of 90s Cronenberg and a touch of Marina de Van.” The man knows his cinema, and one hopes this story of a grieving and pregnant woman lost in solitude with a wound on her back that will not heal, will make the type of impression Davis suggests.
Other shorts at Fantasia Film Festival include Helen Hideko’s Ever After, about a woman who takes refuge underwater whenever her parents quarrel, and Guy Kozak’s western thriller Melody of Love, which revolves around a cowboy’s relationship with a rancher’s daughter and her father’s horse. Then there’s director Connor McNamara’s surreal black comedy How to Drag a Body, in which the act of waking up next to a dead body and listening to the voice that tells you to drag it up the stairs might lead to an epiphany of sorts.
One of the highlights of the shorts’ lineup this year is the second edition of the CineMapsosa programme, which highlights four films from Korean filmmakers that challenge the cinematic form. They include Hong Suk-hyun’s Cinderella at Noon, Kang Da-yeon’s Uniform, Heo Ga-young’s Where Roots Go, and Hong Seung-gi’s Chaehwa.
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