First look: What to see at the 2025 Fantasia Film Festival
Festivals and events
If you're craving an unconventional, art house-style movie-going experience that feels both old school and cutting-edge, look no further than the Fantasia International Film Festival's 29th edition, happening July 16 to August 23, 2025.
Founded in 1996, the Fantasia International Film Festival is a world-renowned genre movie celebration, once described as "a sanctuary for genre" by director Joe Lynch. Here, "B movies" by lesser-known writers and directors are elevated and celebrated alongside wild new works by critically and commercially successful filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro (Academy Award Best Picture Winner, The Shape of Water) and Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar).
With an audience of fans and industry professionals, the thrill of Fantasia comes largely from its interactive screenings and spirited yet respectful Q&As. Known for generating buzz around low-budget films in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror genres, Fantasia also showcases extraordinary cinema from Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Come for the zombies, vampires, and aliens, and stay for the fun atmosphere and panels with some of genre film's biggest stars. With so many world and Canadian premieres taking place, you might just be among the first to see the next breakthrough horror film!
While the full programming of the 29th edition won't be revealed until early July, below is a selection of already announced features that are not to be missed.
A small town's descent into madness
Fantasia's 29th edition will open with a special screening of Ari Aster's neo-Western black comedy, Eddington. Set in May 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor turns against neighbor in the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico.
Postcards from Japan
Maverick director, festival favourite, and 2016 recipient of Fantasia's Lifetime Achievement Award Takashi Miike returns with a triple threat: the World Premiere of the cat-pocalypse J-horror anime Nyaight of the Living Cat, the coming-of-age boxing drama Blazing Fists, and the anxiety-inducing legal thriller Sham. In Yuta Shimotsu's New Group, a cult-like mentality turns high school gymnastics into a nightmarish dance of death, delivering a creepy, Junji Ito-esque critique of modern society. The long-awaited sequel Tamala 2030: A Punk Cat in Dark is a metaphysical mind-melt, colliding kawaii cat-girl aesthetics with paranoid pop-art brilliance. Finally, the documentary Japanese Avant-Garde Pioneers explores the transgressive 1960s art scene, from harrowing butoh dance to freak-show theatre.
Razor-sharp cultural commentary
In Izabel Pakzad's Find Your Friends, a desert girls' trip turns into a tense mission of revenge against hostile locals, offering a sharp look at festival culture and the fragile divide between the sexes. Ava Maria Safai's "bubblegum horror" Foreigner sees a teen immigrant in 2004 dye her hair to fit in, only to attract a demonic force. Alex Russell's Lurker is a tense deconstruction of celebrity obsession, where a fan's proximity to a pop star becomes a matter of life and death.
Genre gems from around the globe
A beautifully crafted Chinese animated feature from writer-directors Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan, The Girl Who Stole Time promises a fantastical and existential yet enchanting journey that explores the aching reality of impermanence. Lucid expands a festival short into a '90s grunge-fueled feature nightmare, where a candy elixir unleashes terrifying creativity. Real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie star in Together, a shocking body horror where a mysterious force corrupts both a couple's relationship and their flesh.
Deemed too frightening for its original streamer, Adilkhan Yerzhanov's Kazakh Scary Tales brings nightmarish regional folk horror to the screen in its World Premiere. A cop ventures into a remote village to investigate a series of gruesome events, only to find himself caught in a storm of local witchcraft and death.
The South Korean thriller Noise uses brilliant sound design to create unbearable tension as a woman with a hearing impairment is plagued by bizarre sounds. Finally, from the directors of Amer, Reflection in a Dead Diamond is a thrillingly imaginative ode to '60s Euro-spy films starring Italian screen legend Fabio Testi.
The 29th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16 to August 23, 2025. Screenings will be held in Downtown Montreal at the Concordia University Hall Building and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional events at Montreal's Cinéma du Musée.
Sarah Beall
Sarah Beall is a writer, editor, and creative who loves food, fun, and all things arts and culture. Her wanderlust has taken her to such places as São Paulo, Brazil, Seoul, South Korea, London, England, and New York, New York, and yet she’s always happiest playing tourist and living the good life in Montreal, the world-class city she’s called home for over 20 years.