Fantasia International Film Festival


Fantasia International Film Festival is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore genre film fans, and distributors, who take advantage of the eclectic line up to select domestic and international films for release across North America. By virtue of the reputation developed over the last 15 years, this festival has been described as perhaps the "most outstanding and largest genre film festival in North America".

Overview

The history of the Fantasia Festival has roots in the Asian Film scene in Montreal. Beginning in 1996 where it screened Asian films from Hong Kong and Anime from Japan, the festival later expanded its international repertoire and screened genre films from all across the world. Since this time many world and international premieres have featured at Fantasia fest, including Shaun of the Dead, Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Midnight Meat Train, Dread, The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Uzumaki.
at Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal July 24, 2012
Among the many North American premieres have included
Ringu, Inglourious Basterds, Thirst, We Are What We Are, Visitor Q and Night Watch''.
The organizers present a number of awards at the conclusion of each annual festival, including the Barry Convex Award for best Canadian film premiering at the festival.

History

1996–2010

Fantasia 2011 opened the 2011 edition of the festival with the Canadian Premiere of Red State. The festival also featured the presentation to John Landis of a lifetime Achievement award. The Canadian premiere of the director's new film, Burke and Hare also took place. Also notable was the world premiere of the Swedish horror film Marianne, which some had hailed as one of the great discoveries in genre cinema of 2011. The world premiere of Final Destination 5 was part of Fantasia 15.

Canadian premiere films

Fantasia 2012 featured the screenings of the films Toad Road, Doomsday Book, the horror anthology film V/H/S, Hidden in the Woods , Seediq Bale, and Quentin Dupieux's Wrong.

Fantasia 2014

The Creeping Garden was one of the featured films in the 2014 Festival.

Video publications of Fantasia