The Fantasia International Film Festival is continuing its cherished tradition of featuring emotionally and visually terrifying genre movies that will surely make viewers scream in horror – and delight – with its current slate. This summer’s 27th annual edition of the Montreal-based festival, which begins today and is running until Wednesday, August 9, is sure to leave audiences shrieking in both fear and excitement over its line-up, which includes over 120 features and 200 shorts.
Screenings of the movies included in the festival are taking place at several theaters across Montreal, including the Concordia Hall Cinema. Additional screens will be held at the J.A. DeSève Cinema, Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée. Tickets are now on sale on Fantasia’s official website.
Audiences are sure to love several features that are screening throughout the festival, including the horror film, ‘Lovely, Dark, and Deep.’ The drama is set to have its World Premiere this Sunday, July 23 at 9:40pm Et in the Cheval Noir screening section at Salle J.A. De Sève. The feature will be presented with director Frank Mosley’s experimental comedy-drama short, ‘Good Condition.’
‘Lovely, Dark, and Deep’ was penned by Teresa Sutherland, who garnered fame in part by scribing the 2018 cult horror mystery thriller, ‘The Wind.’ She also garnered attention as a staff writer on creator-director Mike Flanagan’s acclaimed supernatural horror mini-series, ‘Midnight Mass,’ which premiered on Netflix in 2021. She also made her feature film directorial debut on ‘Lovely, Dark, and Deep.’
In ‘Lovely, Dark, and Deep,’ the enigmatic Lennon (Georgina Campbell, ‘Barbarian’) is granted a long-awaited position as a park ranger in an isolated outpost. However, as soon as she arrives, the woods tower ominous around her. Her new home for the next 90 days is strangely shrouded in mystery and conspiracy theories pertaining to bizarre disappearances.
Once Lennon settles into this minimalist life, visions quickly start to manifest and blend the past and present. Something even more sinister also begins lurking in the serene, writhing landscape. Steadily, Lennon descends further and further into the horror that lays dormant at the roots of the new landscape she finds herself in. As these mysteries arise and blossom, the lines between reality and dream quickly begin to blur.
For more information on ‘Lovely, Dark, and Deep,’ whose Fantasia screenings will be hosted by Sutherland and several of its executive producers, including Marco Baray, Elan Gale, Matthew Welty and Molly Quinn, visit its page on the festival’s official website.
Another eagerly awaited film that’s play during this year’s Fantasia is the experimental action drama, ‘Stay Online.’ The movie is also set to have its World Premiere in the Cheval Noir screening section. The film will be presented this Saturday, July 22 at 7:00pm ET, which will be followed by a second screening on Monday, July 24 at 2:05pm. Both screenings will be held at the Salle J.A. De Sève.
‘Stay Online’ was written by Anton Skrypets and Eva Strelnikova. The movie marks the feature film debut of Strelnikova, a Ukrainian filmmaker.
‘Stay Online’ follows Katya (Liza Zaitseva), a volunteer from Kyiv who’s fighting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While using a laptop donated to the resistance, she comes into contact with the original owner’s superhero-obsessed son, who’s looking for his lost parents. In an effort to make a positive change in this boy’s life and pull herself out of a destructive cycle, Katya risks all that she holds dear to locate his parents.
As the first Ukrainian feature film to have been shot since the beginning of the ongoing Russian invasion, ‘Stay Online’ is a necessary piece of protest art that commands and deserves attention. The focus on seeking and dispersing information through the internet is as pertinent as it has ever been.
Considering the invasion has essentially lost its time in the limelight on North American news outlets, people have had to shift to alternative sources, such as TikTok, to procure information. Using the screenlife format to full effect, Strelnikova crafts a somber but honest story that offers insight into the war-torn streets of Ukraine during wartime.
For more information on ‘Stay Online,’ whose Fantasia screenings will be hosted by Strielnikova, Skrypets and Artistic Team Serhii Shadrin, visit its page on the festival’s official website.
Fantasia audiences will also surely be frightened by the fantasy drama, ‘Empire V.’ The feature is set to have its World Premiere in the Selections 2023 category. The film will be presented on Saturday, July 29 at 9:45pm ET at the Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall).
‘Empire V’ was written and directed by Victor Ginzburg, who adapted the story from a novel by celebrated postmodern author Victor Pelevin. Set in modern-day Moscow, the screen adaptation follows disaffected former journalism student Roman (Pavel Tabakov) as he accepts a cryptic invitation to join the elite. When he does, he finds himself forcibly transformed into a vampire.
But Roman doesn’t become a typical creature of the night. Thanks to a parasitical worm known as the Tongue, Roman (now called Rama) has become part of a ruling class of vampires who exercise an anonymous dictatorship over humans based not on a thirst for blood but the hunger for money.
As various instructors teach him the ways of their elite breed, and Rama explores his new supernatural abilities, he begins a tentative relationship with another newly turned vampire, Hera (Taya Radchenko). His desire for more knowledge about this intoxicating new world also leads him into potentially deadly conflict with Mithra (Miron Fedorov), who initially served as his mentor but later becomes his nemesis.
For more information on ‘Empire V,’ whose Fantasia screenings will be hosted by Ginzburg and several of its executive producers, including James Steele and Yury Krestinsky, visit its page on the festival’s official website.
Another anticipated movie that’s set to play this year’s Fantasia is the sci-fi drama, ‘Aporia.’ The film is also set to have its World Premiere in the Cheval Noir screening section. The feature will be presented on Thursday, July 27 at 6:50pm ET, as well as the following day, Friday, July 28 at 1pm ET. Both screenings will be held at Salle J.A. De Sève. Following its screenings at the festival, Well Go will release the movie in theaters on August 11.
‘Aporia,’ which was written and directed by Jared Moshé, follows Sophie (Judy Greer) as her life takes a sudden hard turn when either fate or a terrible chance of circumstance sees her husband Mal (Edi Gathegi, ‘The Harder They Fall’) is killed in a drunk-driving accident. Left to parent her grief-torn teenaged daughter (Faithe Herman, ‘Shazam!’) on her own while trying to keep things together with an emotionally taxing nursing job, her breaking point might be coming up fast. It takes every bit of her remaining strength not to fall apart.
One day, her husband’s best friend (Payman Maadi, ‘A Separation’), a brilliant former physicist, approaches her with an experimental machine that he’s secretly been working on for years. The machine is capable of bending time in specific ways, and may be able to bring a version of Sophie’s old life back to her. She understands that by taking a chance with this, the consequences will be entirely unforeseeable. It’s an impossible choice to make. But it’s also a lifeline that’s all but impossible to resist.
For more information on ‘Aporia,’ whose Fantasia screenings will be hosted by Moshé and its producing team, visit its page on the festival’s official website.
Fantasia audiences will also surely be scared by the festival’s Official Closing Film, RKSS’ ‘We Are Zombies.’ The horror comedy will have its World Premiere on Wednesday, August 9 at 6:30pm ET at the Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Théâtre Hall).
The movie is the latest feature from internationally beloved Quebecois cult collective RKSS (‘Summer Of ’84’) – François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell, who wrote and directed the project. RKSS came of age at Fantasia, first in as audience members and then on screen with their early short films, which became instant crowd favorites. Their debut feature, ‘Turbo Kid,’ emerged from Frontières and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015.
Based on the comic ‘Les Zombies Qui Ont Mangé Le Monde (The Zombies that Ate the World),’ ‘We Are Zombies’ is set in a society where zombies, referred to as living-impaired, roam among the living with no urge to eat flesh. The movie stars Megan Peta Hill (‘Riverdale’) and Alexandre Nachi (‘1991’).
For more information on ‘We Are Zombies,’ whose Fantasia screenings will be hosted by Simard, Whissell and Whissell, visit its page on the festival’s official website.
Film Factual 