Fantasia International Film Festival

Since its inception in 1996, the Fantasia International Film Festival is the largest and most influential event of its kind in North America. Fantasia—as it’s simply referred to—is all about genre films or “B movies”. These are low-budget commercial movies that receive less publicity. But ask any film buff, and they’ll tell you that these flicks are incredibly entertaining.

The three-week festival is one of Canada’s most beloved film festivals. Those who know about the annual cinematic celebration love it. Academy Award winning director Guillermo del Toro described the event as “a shrine” to cinema.

The diverse programming emphasizes the imaginative cinema that comes from beyond Hollywood, regions such as Asia, Europe and the Americas. Fantasia’s flamboyant offerings range from powerful personal visions to international commercial crowd-pleasers, and many of the titles are rarely seen in North America.

2019 marks the 23^rd edition of the festival, and the roster of films is packed with plenty of cinematic punches. Australian heartthrob Liam Hemsworth stars in Killerman, a full-throttle knockout crime thriller about dirty cops and dirtier mobsters. In Astronaut, lonely widower Angus (a phenomenal Richard Dreyfuss) battles his family, ill health, and time to win a competition for a golden ticket to space. After winning an Audience Award at Fantasia 2014, writer-director Lee Su-jin returns with a complex and fascinating psychological thriller entitled Idol.

Bon cinema!