Marshall opened the festival in 2005 with The Descent and is only the second person to do this twice (the second is Takashi Miike).
The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 24th edition as a virtual event accessible to movie lovers across Canada, with a wild assortment of scheduled screenings, panels, and workshops taking place online from 20 August until 2 September, 2020. For more information, go to www.fantasiafestival.com
The festival’s full lineup will be announced in early August. In the meantime, Fantasia has revealed a selected first wave of titles. A second wave of Fantasia 2020 titles will be announced in July and its full lineup will be revealed in early August, with ticket sales commencing shortly afterwards.
Check out the first wave list and scroll down for more on some of the films selected.
#SHAKESPEARESSHITSTORM
Dir. Lloyd Kaufman, USA – World Premiere
12 HOUR SHIFT
Dir. Brea Grant, USA – International Premiere
A COSTUME FOR NICHOLAS
Dir. Eduardo Rivero, Mexico – Canadian Premiere
COME TRUE
Dir. Anthony Scott Burns, Canada – World Premiere
THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW
Dir. Thomas Robert Lee, Canada – World Premiere
FRIED BARRY
Dir. Ryan Kruger, South Africa – Canadian Premiere
KRIYA
Dir. Sidharth Srinivasan, India/UK – World Premiere
LABYRINTH OF CINEMA
Dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan – Canadian Premiere
LAPSIS
Dir. Noah Hutton, USA – Canadian Premiere
LUCKY
Dir. Natasha Kermani, USA – International Premiere
THE OLD MAN MOVIE
Dirs. Oskar Lehemaa and Mikk Mägi, Estonia – North American Premiere
THE RECKONING
Dir. Neil Marshall , UK – Special Screening
SLEEP (Schlaf)
Dir. Michael Venus, Germany – North American Premiere
SPECIAL ACTORS
Dir. Shinichiro Ueda, Japan – Canadian Premiere
TEZUKA’S BARBARA
Dir. Macoto Tezuka, – Japan
North American Premiere
TIME OF MOULTING
Dir. Sabrina Mertens, Germany – North American Premiere
TINY TIM: KING FOR A DAY
Dir. Henrik Von Sydow, Sweden – World Premiere
UNDERGODS
Dir. Chino Moya, UK/Belgium/Estonia/Serbia/Sweden – World Premiere
THE UNDERTAKER’S HOME (La Funeraria)
Dir. Mauro Iván Ojeda, Argentina – World Premiere
UNEARTH
Dirs. John C. Lyons & Dorota Swies, USA – World Premiere
YUMMY
Dir. Lars Damoiseaux, Belgium – Quebec Premiere
AN EVE OF RECKONING FALLS UPON FANTASIA’S OPENING NIGHT
Fantasia’s 24th edition will open with a special screening of Neil Marshall’s recently completed cinematic powerhouse The Reckoning. A poignant and horrific period thriller set in 1665 against the backdrop of the Great Plague and the subsequent witch hunts in England, it stars Charlotte Kirk, Sean Pertwee, Joe Anderson, Steven Waddington, and Emma Campbell-Jones.
A vivid, compelling and confrontational film whose themes are frighteningly pertinent to today’s concerns, it will knock the wind out of you.
A GENRE-BENDING VISUAL FEAST AWAITS YOU WITH UNDERGODS (world premiere)
An otherworldly journey through a Europe in decline, Chino Moya’s Undergods is a collection of aesthetically astonishing, darkly humorous fantasy tales about a series of men whose worlds fall apart through a visit from an unexpected stranger.
This singular visual feast is a co-production between the UK, Belgium, Estonia, Serbia, and Sweden with a cast that includes Geza Rohrig, Johann Meyers, Hayley Carmichael, Eric Godon, Kate Dickie, Adrian Rawlins, Ned Dennehy, and an especially crazed Jan Bijvoet.
MAKOTO TEZUKA ADAPTS THE LEGENDARY MANGA TEZUKA’S BARBARA! (North American premiere)
One night, a famous novelist encounters a young, seemingly homeless woman in an overpass tunnel. He brings her home, which sets him on a path of increasingly bizarre encounters. Tezuka’s Barbara is the abrasively jazzy adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s adult manga of the same name.
Directed by Makoto Tezuka and lensed by Christopher Doyle, this film – released as part of Tezuka’s 90th anniversary celebration – mixes pinku-style erotica with an examination of the creative impulse and a dash of the occult, thus unveiling the lesser-known dark side of the ASTRO BOY creator and anime maestro.
THE CURSE OF AUDREY EARNSHAW WILL HAUNT YOUR SOUL (world premiere)
A mother and daughter are suspected of witchcraft by their devout rural community in Canadian filmmaker Thomas Robert Lee’s freakishly nightmarish The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw.
One of the most unsettling and surprising occult horror films since Hereditary, this haunting tale is steeped in folklore and brimming with imagery that will besiege your subconscious. It stars Catherine Walker, Jared Abrahamson, Hannah Emily Anderson, Don McKellar, and Sean McGinley.
A NIGHTMARE ODYSSEY OF RITUAL MAGIC: KRIYA (world premiere)
In New Delhi filmmaker Sidharth Srinivasan’s first horror work a DJ encounters a beautiful woman at a club, goes back to her home, and finds himself thrust into a nightmare odyssey of ritual magic, patriarchal death customs, and family conflict most unusual.
Transgressive, darkly humorous, and mystically atmospheric, Kriya is a fever dream of fear starring Navjot Randhawa, Noble Luke, and Avantika Akerkar, and features an unforgettable score by Jim Williams.
CELEBRATE 45 YEARS OF TROMA WITH LLOYD KAUFMAN’S LATEST CREATION! (world premiere)
Nearly 25 years after the release of Tromeo And Juliet, Lloyd Kaufman and the Troma Team are going “back to the Bard” with an utterly insane interpretation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, set against America’s opioid crisis.
Kaufman celebrates Troma’s 45th – and his 50th – year of making movies by taking on Big Pharma, addiction, and an intolerance of social media with all the sex, mutants, musical numbers, and violence that Shakespeare always wanted but never had.
AFTER ONE CUT COMES SPECIAL ACTORS! (Canadian premiere)
Kazuto is not your typical amateur thespian. His dreams have been spoiled by a special nervous condition that makes him faint at the slightest sign of stress! One day, upon his brother’s serendipitous invitation, he joins a most peculiar agency, employing everyday actors to stage real-life situations! Being a stand-in at a wedding or a funeral is one thing… but soon enough, Kazuto must infiltrate a cult… and all hell breaks loose!
Shinichiro Ueda (One Cut Of The Dead) is back with his highly anticipated sophomore film Special Actors! A delirious meta-comedy, doubling down on the performative antics of his previous making-of/zom-com hybrid, Ueda now turns the entire world into a stage.
A HEALTHCARE WORKER PREPARES FOR A HARROWING 12 HOUR SHIFT (international premiere)
Writer / Director Brea Grant (who also scripted and stars in this year’s Lucky) has delivered one of our favorite films of the year. A gripping real-time, hospital-set thriller / black comedy taking place in the late ’90s at the onset of the opioid crisis, 12 Hour Shift follows a junkie nurse through an ascension of grisly criminal happenings as she funds her habit through organ harvesting side work on the job.
Fronted by a career-best performance from Angela Bettis, playing a ferociously uncommon kind of antihero, and infused with inspired directorial details, the film co-stars Chloe Farnworth, David Arquette, and Mick Foley. Originally slated to launch at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.
IT’S TIME TO GET YUMMY, BLOODY YUMMY (Quebec premiere)
Believe the hype. With YUMMY, Belgian filmmaker Lars Damoiseaux has made one of the craziest, funniest, most inventive, and surprising zombie gorefests to assault screens in recent years. You won’t believe your eyes!
Fantasia is proud to partner with Festival Scope and Shift72’s virtual screening platform to make this year possible.