While the oeuvre of Toronto director David Cronenberg, the maestro of body horror, has inspired generations of Canadian filmmakers (including his progeny) and continues to do, Montreal’s Fantasia Festival and its Frontières Market event put them face-to-face with the global genre community – not to mention rabid local audiences – in a red-carpet-free cinema hotzone.
10 years in the making, Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s “Death Does Not Exist” (“La mort n’existe pas”), his third animated film and the only Canadian feature to world-premiere at Cannes this year, receives its North American and local premiere July 17.
Dufour-Laperrière has made all his animated films with the same small team out of the Montreal studio he runs with his brother Nicolas. “We’re coming from the Quebec film scene, which has a strong relationship with documentary, animation, alternative fiction, alternative means of production,” he told Variety.
“The subject matter [of ‘Death Does Not Exist’] might be difficult, but it is made with total honesty, and we put everything we had on screen. We want people to feel the magic of handmade images that never existed before we made them, even within what is at the end a tragic and fantastic tale.”
Death Does Not Exist
The Quebec slate – much of which unspools over the three, day-long Les Fantastiques week-ends du cinéma québécois, which offers family screenings and free film-related activities – includes some world-premiering films that showcase Montreal.
Tania Morissette, Fantasia deputy director and director of Quebec programming, told Variety that Francis Bordeleau’s second feature, “Anna Kiri,” an artistic thriller about a young delinquent woman who gets a new chance at life and tries to break into the literary world, is “easily the most star studded Quebec production at the festival. It includes younger names like Catherine Brunet, Charlotte Aubin and Maxime de Cotret, as well as established actors like Caroline Néron and Anne-Marie Cadieux.”
Chloé Cinq-Mars’ eagerly anticipated first feature “Nesting” (“Peau à Peau”), a previous Frontières project, is a psychological thriller starring Rose-Marie Perreault about the horrors of post-partum motherhood. “I know they’ve had quite a lot of interest from other festivals, so I think it’ll have a beautiful life on the genre fest circuit,” Morissette said.
Anna Kiri
In advance of its world premiere at Fantasia, Ava Maria Safai’s Vancouver-set “Foreigner” – Persian teen Yasamin (Rose Dehgan) tries to fit in with her new clique by dying her hair blonde, inviting a sinister force into her life – was picked up for worldwide sales and distribution by Canadian genre special Raven Banner
“Media shapes how we see ourselves and when you grow up never seeing anyone like you on screen, you start to shrink to fit the frame,” Safai said in a statement. “I made ‘Foreigner’ to help break that cycle and create space for people who’ve been erased, so they can finally see themselves at the center.”
Canadian films world premiering in Canadian showcase Septentrion Shadows include Hubert Davis’ post-apocalyptic eco-thriller “The Well,” which is in Fantasia’s Cheval Noir competition program; Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall’s “Lucid,”; Jody Wilson’s carnival-set feature debut “The Bearded Girl” (the youngest member of a venerable bearded-woman sword-swallowing act wants to leave the family business); Simon Glassman’s Alberta-set “Buffet Infinity” (“the director tells the story by channel-surfing through weird original TV ads he’s created – and they’re hysterical,” says director of Canadian programming Carolyn Mauricette); and Kurtis David Harder’s “Influencers,” a new chapter in the story of the mysterious troublemaker CW (Cassandra Naud), first seen in “Influencer” (2022).
The Well
Toronto filmmaker Ian Tuason’s world-premiering feature bow “The Undertone,” starring Nina Kiri (“The Handmaid’s Tale”) as a podcaster whose work and home lives become terrifyingly connected, is produced by the Canadian genre studio Black Fawn Films, along with Slaterverse and Kino Studio. The film screens July 27 and 29.
“Our goal was always to have the premiere at Fantasia so for months we’ve been focusing on making it happen,” Black Fawn president and co-owner Chad Archibald told Variety. Black Fawn Distribution will be handling world sales for the film and distributing it in Canada. “It’s all under one roof. Our goal since launching our world sales arm at Cannes this year is to create an ecosystem for the films we make and the films we rep where we work with the industry partners, press outlets, and festivals that help our films succeed.”
Since 2008, Black Fawn has had 13 world premieres at Fantasia. “[It] feels like a homecoming to us. Fantasia kicks off the summer’s genre festival circuit,” said Archibald, who will also be hitting the four-day Frontières market with the Black Fawn team.
“So many up-and-coming voices find their way into Frontières. Helping some of these projects find a path to production is a goal for us. When you sit in the pitch sessions for Frontieres, you know you are going to see some weird and amazing stories that only the messed up minds in the genre world could come up with. It’s always amazing to see such an organized event with so many industry professionals from around the world sitting in a packed theatre listening to someone pitch a movie concept so insane, it would make your grandmother’s head explode.
“That’s what you’re signing up for at Frontières.”
The 29th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs July 16 to Aug. 3, in Montreal.
Nesting
