For yet another year, Cinema Crazed’s own Felix Vasquez and Emilie Black will be covering the Fantasia Film Festival, and this year the Festival celebrates 25 years. Going digital once again due to COVID restrictions, Fantasia Fest will continue from August 5th to August 25th with its usual line up of groundbreaking and original foreign, fantasy, horror and action films, as well as innovative short films and showcases from unique voices from film and pop culture from all over the world.
In anticipation of the coverage, we thought we’d list five films that we’re eagerly anticipating for this year’s line up! And if you’re attending the festival digitally, these are five we hope you check out.
Let us know what you’re anticipating, below!
Brain Freeze
In the small, middle-class community of Ile-aux-Paons (Peacock Island), a new fertilizer is spread on the golf courses to allow the rich to play year-round. But the experimental fertilizer contains an active component that contaminates the population, turning them into zombies interested only in multiplying. This is how André (Iani Bédard), a young teenager who is taking care of his baby sister, crosses paths with Dan (Roy Dupuis), a security guard. As they journey across their quarantined island, they try to find the source of the evil and save themselves! BRAIN FREEZE offers zombie-movie fans the perfect mix of horror and comedy, while fully embracing its Quebec identity.
Bull
Once a feared gang enforcer, Bull (Neil Maskell, KILL LIST) has been gone for 10 years. Not imprisoned. Not reformed. Simply… gone. Now, he’s returned to the small English town he used to terrorize in search of the mobsters he once ran with. The ones who double-crossed him. And worse. He’s out to find his missing son and also out for blood. Lots of it. Utterly unstoppable, Bull will tear through the anguishes of his past to carve out a personal path to justice. One by one, the most dangerous gangsters in town are about to learn the deepest meaning of fear.
Catch the Fair One
Mixed Indigenous ex-boxer Kaylee “K.O.” Uppashaw (Kali Reis) is going through a rough stretch. Temporarily staying at a women’s shelter, she works a diner gig while navigating the processes of putting her life back together following the disappearance of her sister two years ago. One night, a private investigator brings evidence that her sister may in fact be alive – and is being moved around a brutal sex-trafficking network. Kaylee prepares herself for the most ferocious fight of her life as she moves to infiltrate the monstrous underworld that tore her family apart.
Hellbender
Teenager Izzy (Zelda Adams) lives a lonely life with her mother (Toby Adams), their house isolated deep in the Catskill Mountains. That scenic seclusion is no accident. Her mother has gone through enormous efforts to keep Izzy largely away from people since she was five. For her own protection, and perhaps for that of others. They spend their days being each others’ best friends, teaching one another and making music in their two-piece rock band, H6LLB6ND6R. As Izzy begins to grow more into herself, she starts venturing into town, spending time with other people, and a sharp thirst for deeper knowledge is stirred. Knowledge of self, and also of her family’s mysterious history… with witchcraft.
Satoshi Kon, The Illusionist (Satoshi Kon, l’illusionniste)
French documentarian Pascal-Alex Vincent unveils a poignant, detailed portrait of Satoshi Kon, a unique and transformative talent; Proceeding chronologically through Kon’s oeuvre – MILLENNIUM ACTRESS, TOKYO GODFATHERS, his manga releases and the TV series PARANOIA AGENT, and PAPRIKA – LA MACHINE À RÊVES. Kon’s colleagues and contemporaries create a composite reflection of his personality, his principles, and the themes and ideas that obsessed him. Among them are Mamoru Oshii (GHOST IN THE SHELL), Mamoru Hosada (MIRAI), Jérémy Clapin (I LOST MY BODY), and Rodney Rothman (SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE).
Movies we’ve already covered that we recommend: Frank & Zed, and Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes