Fantasia International Film Festival is right around the corner, and Insession Film has two writers covering the fest, Megan Loucks and Maxance Vincent. Together, they bring you a stunning preview of some of the more exciting films to be featured at Fantasia!
Megan:
Fantasia International Film Festival enters its 30th year, and the lineup this year is packed. From the film opening the festival, Nicolas Winding Refn’s Her Private Hell to Atsushi Nishigori’s animated anthology GROTESQQQUE, there’s a delicious slate of films to dive headfirst into. With this being my first time covering this festival remotely, I put together a small sampling of films that caught my eye. As someone who loves horror, fantasy, and the occasional sci-fi film, Fantasia highlights talented voices around the globe, and here’s hoping it continues for another 30 years.
All synopses for the films below are taken from Fantasia’s program listings.
Sour Minnows Dir. Harrison Atkins
Synopsis: “After unknowingly peeking through the veil, Ricky (David Brown, THE RAINBOW BRIDGE, JURY DUTY) and his roommate Tepper (Chase Williamson, THE GUEST, JOHN DIES AT THE END) witness six men sensually licking the pavement on an empty L.A. street. As time stretches and bends in the aftermath of this encounter, Ricky’s relations, including his situationship with fellow cinephile Aura (Suzanna Son, RED ROCKET, FEAR STREET: PROM QUEEN), begin to take on surprising new dimensions. Memories morph into lies, reality becomes malleable, and Ricky finds himself at the mercy of “The Yellow Thing,” an entity that wears people like costumes.”
This entry from the USA piqued my interest from the description in the synopsis “six men sensually licking the pavement.” This marks director Harrison Atkin’s sophomore feature, and touches on how a post-pandemic world treats its inhabitants. With AI creeping, or rather barging, into every aspect of our lives, a film that reflects the growing concern with the implications of artificial intelligence, is right up my alley.
Motherwitch Dir. Minos Papas
Synopsis: “Eleni (Margarita Zachariou), a painter, is isolated from her wider community, consumed by unbearable grief after losing all three of her children in a senseless accident. In desperation, she enters into a Faustian pact with feminine chthonic forces to bring them back. To do so, she must gain the trust of a lonely and abused local boy, Michalakis (Sifis Katsoulakis), a fellow painter seeking refuge from his violent father. Yet once the ritual is enacted, the real nightmare begins, as Eleni’s psychic wound spills outward into the surrounding community through the manifestations she has unwittingly invited in.”
Any film that has been compared to 2019’s Hereditary and 1989’s Pet Sematary instantly goes on my watchlist. Films about grief, specifically centered on motherhood, are important to experience, especially during times when senseless violence rises around the world. Papa’s newest film has been shown at a handful of other festivals, with stellar word-of-mouth.
Godhead Dir. Mark H. Rapaport
Synopsis: “With his sophomore effort, GODHEAD, Rapaport plunges us back into his wickedly strange imagination in an equally baffling and engrossing film that examines the intertwining blood structures where fanaticism and obligation meet. The film follows eccentric twins who proclaim themselves prophets, blurring reality and delusion as they draw a priest into their supposedly divine mission. Shot by William Babcock (HIPPO, PLEDGE) in crisp black and white, the filmmaking embraces canted and exaggerated angles that draw on and subvert structures of power. A darkly comic work examining the limits of dogmatic belief, the film’s formal identity reflects themes of fanaticism within a world of increasingly fragmented and unreal truths. The film feels claustrophobic and uncertain, pulling us into the mindspace of religious indoctrination.”
Sarah Coffey and Kimball Farley both starred in Queens of the Dead, which makes Godhead that much more intriguing to me since they play the film’s main characters. Also, the use of prophets, religion, and the fantastical side of indoctrinations made this a no-brainer to add to this list. If the poster is any indication of the quality of this black-and-white feature, surely Godhead will be a religious experience.
The Journey to Gyeong-Ju Dir. Kim Mi-jo
Synopsis: “A mourning mother named Ok-sil (Lee Jung-eun) and her three daughters wear matching T-shirts and go on a road trip to get revenge against the person responsible for the death of her youngest child, after they find out he’s been released from jail. During the first trial, he has received an initial sentence of 15 years in prison, but it has been shortened to eight afterwards. The horror of seeing the dead body of her daughter at the hospital has left Ok-sil traumatized ever since. Their journey takes an unexpected turn that challenges them to face their deep feelings of frustration, sorrow, and grief. What starts out as a mission of vengeance becomes an unpredictable and personal voyage of love, loss, and redemption.”
Kim Mi-jo had me at a road trip revenge thriller, and it doubled down on me when it revolved around the story of a mourning mother and her daughters. As mentioned before, films that show the unique perspectives mothers bring with the impacts of senseless violence make for interesting films. It also helps that this has been compared to Little Miss Sunshine, a personal favorite, if it were about seeking redemption.
Colony Dir. Yeon Sang-ho
Synopsis: ““I am the only vaccine that can stop this outbreak.” Professor Se-jeong (Gianna Jun) attends a biotech conference to hopefully start looking for a new career in the field. What is supposed to be a simple day of finding a new job turns into blood-soaked terror as she and other survivors are trapped in the building with nowhere to run as a dangerous virus mutates people into infected beings undergoing horrifying transformations. It’s a fight for survival against these mindless, cannibalistic freaks, while struggling to figure out how to end this deadly threat…”
Yeon Sang-ho’s newest film goes back to the zombie genre and from the blood soaked image used for the film’s promo, it looks like to be another Sang-ho horror delight. Some say that the zombie genre has more than run its course, and I wouldn’t completely disagree, but I also wouldn’t turn down a revolutionary filmmaker working in the genre that he found immense success in.
Maxance:
The programming of the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival reflects the eclectic and unconventional spirit that this grandiose celebration of all things genre cinema has always given us. Among one of the most intriguing titles, at first glance, is Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff’s Dance Freak, where a viral outbreak turns humans into pulsating creatures who only want to dance. Starring comedy legends Stavros Halkias, Sarah Sherman, and Conner O’Malley (also known as the greatest actor of all time), this underground selection looks to check all the boxes of a legendary time in the Concordia walls viewing something we’re likely never to see on the big screen again…unless it develops the cult followings films like Hundreds of Beavers and Rats! received in the wake of their respective Fantasia premieres.
The festival also likes to reward its regular filmmakers, chief among them Kiyoshi Kurosawa, one of the most versatile and prolific Japanese directors, with over 70 films to his credit. His latest work, The Samurai and the Prisoner, was one of the buzziest titles to come out of a rather middling edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Janus quickly picked it up, and it is now being shown in the Horizon 2026 section at this year’s Fantasia before its July 31 release. The film marks Kurosawa’s first foray into the jidaigeki, set within a mystery story in which a lord uncovers a grand conspiracy unfolding before his eyes.
Kurosawa has been mostly known for the J-horror masterpieces Cure and Pulse, but his filmography is far more diverse than that, and he once again shows the breadth of his work by delivering a film that seems steeped in the grand tradition of some of the greatest Japanese formalists, such as Akira Kurosawa, Masaki Kobayashi, Kenji Mizoguchi, and Kaneto Shindo. To say I’m not brimming with anticipation to see Kiyoshi’s latest motion picture on the big screen would be the understatement of the year!
Fantasia is also synonymous with some truly incredible action films that will surely overstimulate our senses. Anyone who hasn’t seen Yuen Woo-ping’s jaw-dropping Blades of the Guardians (which was released in North American cinemas in February) should definitely put it on their radar, but my eyes are absolutely focused on two potential bangers: Giddens Ko’s Kung Fu and Eiji Uchida’s TOKYO BURST: Crime City. It wouldn’t be Fantasia if I didn’t see at least one contemporary Hong Kong actioner, and Kung Fu looks to be the exact tonic we need before the mania of the retro programming (more on that later), while also helping us see where the action landscape is in Hong Kong today, especially after Soi Cheang revolutionized the form with Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In.
Uchida’s TOKYO BURST: Crime City, which will compete for the coveted Cheval Noir award, will undoubtedly satiate our thirst for pulse-pounding, death-defying martial arts, as it is a direct spinoff of the popular (and bone-crunching) The Roundup franchise, which has made Ma Deong-seok (also known as Don Lee) an even bigger star in Korea than he already was. The Roundup universe is expanding – and fast – as the franchise moves to Japan and tracks a brand-new group of colorful characters. It will be one of two Uchida movies to play at this year’s edition of Fantasia, with the second being The Specials, which will follow a group of Yakuza assassins who will go undercover as a pop dance group to kill a rival gang. This seems to follow a similar beat to Yu Nakamoto’s Break Free, which will also play at Fantasia and tracks the story of a Yakuza enforcer becoming a breakdancing sensation. The common threads are there, and it’s beautiful to see how closely connected most of the lineup is at this festival.
Finally, I’d be remiss not to talk about at least one splashy premiere, and it’s not Her Private Hell or Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma. While those are indeed big titles, they have already played at other (and more significant) festivals than Fantasia, despite top talent walking in the same auditorium as Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie did when Heated Rivalry changed their lives late last year (sorry, I had to link it somehow to this show).
I instead want to highlight Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s Hot Spot, which will have its World Premiere (!!!) in the Cheval Noir section this year. The Polish genre auteur is no stranger to Fantasia, having also played her best-ever work, The Lure, at this festival. And while her last film, The Silent Twins, was a major disappointment, the premise of this latest endeavor is more than tantalizing. A dystopian thriller that tackles the ever-worrying subject of sentient A.I. ruling the world, starring Noomi Rapace? Say no more – sign me up!
If any of you reading this curtain raiser are still in Montreal after Fantasia is over, the Cinémathèque Québécoise is planning a retrospective series that celebrates the 30th anniversary of the festival, where Smoczyńska’s The Lure will be screened. More information can be found here.
Every year, programmer King-Wei Chu organizes a few restoration screenings of Hong Kong classics – a staple of any in-person visit to Fantasia. Last year saw the J.A. de Sève auditorium erupt in total euphoria with Pao Hsueh-Li’s mind-melting The Battle Wizard, and the 30th edition will screen two underseen Shaw Brothers classics, in two different formats.
The first is the world premiere of a 2K restoration of Chang Cheh and Kuei Chih-Hung’s The Delinquent, by Arrow Video. While the boutique distributor has yet to announce its plans for a Shawscope Vol. 5, one probably thinks we’ll find this eclectic combo of two distinct visions in Hong Kong cinema on a future Blu-ray box set. To see any restored Shaw Brothers movie on the big screen is an event of its own, but seeing it at Fantasia with a packed crowd is even better. Anyone who attends the festival shouldn’t miss the opportunity to see that crowd in action in front of these incredible films.
The second is a 35mm screening of Johnny Wang Lung-Wei’s Hong Kong Godfather, a rare opportunity to see an unavailable, out-of-print Shaw Brothers movie that predates the Heroic Bloodshed movement during a commercially dwindling era for the studio. Studios like Golden Harvest and Cinema City were beginning to make their mark in Hong Kong cinema, while some important Shaw films fell by the wayside due to the aforementioned companies’ growing success. Hong Kong Godfather may be one of such examples, which promises a “totally bonkers bloodbath ending, shot in the same mall used in Jackie Chan’s Police Story climax,” per the film’s description on Fantasia’s website.
Speaking of Cinema City, Fantasia will also be premiering a 4K restoration of Sun Chung’s City War, courtesy of Shout! Factory, which recently acquired the Golden Princess library and has been sporadically releasing 4K remasters of long-unseen Hong Kong classics on physical media and the big screen. Starring Chow Yun-fat and Ti Lung, in their third collaboration after John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow and its sequel, the movie is rarely seen outside Hong Kong but is remembered as one of Chung’s final films before his retirement. The Montreal crowd will finally get a chance to lay their eyes on yet another unknown Hong Kong classic sooner than later!
Finally, on the Taiwan side, Thrilling Bloody Sword is looking to slash the Hall auditorium once a newly restored 4K print premieres on July 26. I could potentially describe a movie I haven’t seen in this article, but I’d rather use King-Wei’s words to give you a taste of what to expect instead: “Thrilling Bloody Sword is like if wuxia He-Man meets The Battle Wizard.” What more needs to be said? I’m already seated in the theater as we speak!
More restorations will include repertory screenings of Paul Morrissey’s Forty Deuce, Takashi Miike’s Gozu, Takeshi Koike’s Redline, and Bruce McDonald’s Pontypool, the latter of which will be screened as the Kingston-born filmmaker will receive the 2026 Canadian Trailblazer Award. On the Québec side, a restoration screening of Jacques Godbout’s The Mob is planned, while other retro viewings are centered on figures who will receive the Denis Héroux award for their contributions to the development, creation, or distribution of Quebec genre and independent cinema.
These figures are director/actor/playwright Robert Lepage (The Confessional, Possible Worlds, both presented in 35mm), actress Louise Portal (Sophie Deraspe’s Les loups, Rodrigue Jean’s Full Blast, the latter of which will be screened in 4K), and VFX artists Blood Brothers (Cul-de-$ac). All will deliver a masterclass on their work during the festival, adding to other discussions, such as a masterclass with filmmaker Nicolas Winding Refn, a conversation with Grace Glowicki hosted by Matt Johnson, and a panel with Jane Schoenbrun, Hannah Einbinder, and Alice Maio Mackay, moderated by Camp director Avalon Fast.
This is just a taste of what Fantasia has to offer this year! There will be something for literally everyone. Stay connected to Insession Film for upcoming reviews from Maxance and Megan!
