Fantasia International Film Festival

Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) 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".[1]

Fantasia International Film Festival
Official poster of the 2011 Fantasia International Film Festival
LocationMontreal, Quebec, Canada
Founded1996
LanguageInternational
Websitefantasiafest.com

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.

Premier of Alter Egos 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.[2]

History

1996–2010
  • Fant-Asia 1996 (inaugural festival)
  • Fant-Asia 1997
Some of the films featured were Perfect Blue, Drunken Master II, Stagefright, El Dia de la Bestia, Henry, A Gun for Jennifer, Tromeo and Juliet and Cutting Moments.
  • Fant-Asia 1998
Fantasia's Toronto edition premiered at the Bloor Cinema.
  • Fantasia International Film Festival 1999
The 1999 edition of Fantasia was the only one that used the ex-Centris facilities. This year also featured the second Toronto edition.
  • FanTasia 2000
The 2000 edition of Fantasia featured the debut of the Just For Laughs film festival, Comedia, as a selection of comedy films were shown with the regular Fantasia fare. This was also the final year that a Toronto edition of the festival was presented.
  • FanTasia 2001
The 2001 edition was the last held in the Imperial Cinema. It was also the last time the festival was jointly held with Comedia.
  • FanTasia 2002 (missed year)
Fantasia 2002 was cancelled due to problems with the Imperial Cinema. The air conditioning system was broken, and it could not be fixed in time for Fantasia. Indeed, the theatre was not repaired until 2004. Due to the lack of assurance that the theater would be available, and the fact that it broke four months before the festival, meant that alternate bookings were not available. The lack of assurance for the 2003 festival meant a change in venue.
  • FanTasia 2003 (move to Concordia University)
Fantasia 2003 was held for the first time on the Concordia University campus, using the DeSeve Cinema and Henry F. Hall Alumni Auditorium. The venue change was instigated by the lack of consideration that the Imperial Theatre gave in informing the festival organizers on the status of Imperial. This was also the first year that a DVD filled with movie trailers of movies shown at the festival was available for purchase with the festival guide book.
  • Fantasia 2004
The 2004 Fantasia was held at Concordia University using the Hall Auditorium and deSeve Cinema. Unlike the 2003 event, no DVD filled with trailers was available.
  • Fantasia 2005
The 9th annual Fantasia Festival in 2005 was again held at Concordia University. That year, a trailer-filled DVD was provided as part of the festival guide book and not a separate purchase.
  • FanTasia 2006 (10th edition/10th anniversary)
Fantsasia's 10th anniversary and 10th edition, the 2006 edition, is the first to feature free outdoor shows. The outdoors shows are at Parc de la Paix and are free. Outdoor projections included films from the previous editions: Kamikaze Girls, the last four episodes of Goldorak, Night of the Living Dorks and Attack the Gas Station. The indoor shows use the same Concordia University facilities as since the move to Concordia. The outdoor shows are several kilometres away from the indoor shows. With its 10th anniversary, Fantasia helped to launch an associated but separate Toronto festival Toronto After Dark Film Festival.
  • FanTasia 2007
This edition was held from July 5 to July 23, 2007 at the Concordia University. In addition to the Hall hall and DeSeve hall, a third screening room has been added at the D.B. Clarke Theatre. There were, however, no outdoor shows this year. Montreal film Flutter received the award for best Quebec short feature.[3]
  • Fantasia 2008
This edition was held from July 3 to July 21, 2008. It featured the world premieres of Pig Hunt, Home Movie, Repo! The Genetic Opera, Midnight Meat Train, Eric Shapiro's Rule of Three, Truffe, Treevenge, The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow, Electric Fence, Paradox Mary, Laura Panic, and Don't Worry.[4]
  • Fantasia 2009
The films screened at Fantasia 2009 were, among others, Thirst, Love Exposure, Embodiment of Evil, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, Smash Cut, Trick 'r Treat, Neighbor, Must Love Death, Cencoroll and Dread. The festival started on July 9 with Takashi Miike's film Yatterman and ended on July 29, 2009 with the North American premiere of Quentin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.
  • Fantasia 2010
The films for Fantasia 2010 were announced on Tuesday, June 29, 2010. Tickets went on sale on July 6, 2010 at 1 pm. The Festival started on July 8, 2010 running until July 28, 2010 with 6 indoor screening venues and one outdoor location. For 2010 a permanent blog was introduced to communicate with fans year-round.

Fantasia 2011

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.[5] 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.[6] The world premiere of Final Destination 5 was part of Fantasia 15.[7]

Canadian premiere films

World premiere films

Fantasia 2012

Fantasia 2012 featured the screenings of the films Toad Road, Doomsday Book, the horror anthology film V/H/S, Hidden in the Woods (original version), Seediq Bale, and Quentin Dupieux's Wrong.[8]

Fantasia 2014

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

Video publications of Fantasia
Small Gauge Trauma is the name of the film shorts component of Fantasia. A DVD anthology of various shorts shown over various editions of Fantasia has been published.
Fantasia has published a subtitled VHS version of the Hong Kong film Red to Kill, for release in Quebec.
Fantasia has published a subtitled VHS version of the Hong Kong film Run and Kill, for release in Quebec.
  • Jackie Chan's Greatest Stunts
Fantasia has published a subtitled VHS version of the Hong Kong action scenes compilation Jackie Chan's Greatest Stunts Volumes 1 & 2, for release in Quebec.
Fantasia has published a subtitled VHS version of Jackie Chan's stunt action compilation My Stunts, for release in Quebec.
Fantasia has published a subtitled VHS version of Jackie Chan's autobiography My Story, for release in Quebec.
  • Trailer DVD
For the 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2003 festivals, a DVD filled with trailers of some of the films being played has been provided for purchase.

See also

Other genre film festivals

References
  1. "Win A Trip To The Fantasia Film Festival This Summer". soundonsight.org. 2011. Retrieved June 21, 2011.
  2. Kaeli Van Cott, "19th Fantasia International Film Festival Announces 2015 Winners". IndieWire, August 5, 2015.
  3. "FANTASIA 2007 PRIZES ANNOUNCED". News release. Fantasia Festival. July 25, 2007. Retrieved 2009-09-16.
  4. https://fantasiafestival.com/en/archives/2008?id=310
  5. "First wave of films for fantasia 2011 has been announced". soundonsight.org. 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
  6. "Marianne - World Premiere". fantasiafestival.com. 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
  7. Fangoria, Fantasia Hosts Special Midnight World Premiere of "Final Destination 5"!, Samuel Zimmerman, 27 July 2011
  8. Todd Brown, Twitch, Fantasia 2012 Announced First Wave of 2012 Programming, http://twitchfilm.com/2012/06/fantasia-announces-first-wave-of-2012-programming.html Archived 2012-12-22 at the Wayback Machine

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