World premieres of numerous feature debuts from acclaimed short film talents, North American Premieres of Amanda Nell Eu’s Semaine de la Critique Grand Prize winner TIGER STRIPES, Sam H. Freeman & Ng Choon Ping’s Berlinale sensation FEMME, Yoshimi Itazu’s THE CONCIERGE, Quarxx’s PANDEMONIUM, Lee Hae-young’s PHANTOM and Jimmy Laporal-Trésor’s RASCALS are among the highlights at Fantasia 2023.
The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 27th edition with a large and varied program of screenings, workshops, and launch events running from July 20 through August 9, 2023, taking place at the Concordia Hall Cinema, with additional screens at the J.A. DeSève Cinema, Cinémathèque québécoise, and Cinéma du Musée. Ticket pre-sales will open on Saturday, July 15, at 1pm. The festival website is now live with a complete lineup of over 120 features and 200+ shorts available to be explored.
This year’s Career Achievement Award goes to the one and only Nicolas Cage. In over 40 years in film, Nicolas Cage has brought a wide variety of unforgettable people to life in works that are as memorable as the characters he portrayed, with textured performances that have been among the most exciting and unique from anyone in the last four decades. More so than that, Cage is drawn to films and filmmakers that take these people (and the audiences) on unforgettable, often risk-taking journeys, be they in dark dramas (LEAVING LAS VEGAS, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, JOE, PIG), wild comedies (RAISING ARIZONA, RENFIELD) action favourites (CON AIR, FACE/OFF), or such fearless masterworks as WILD AT HEART and MANDY, films that mix the true and the fantastic into indelible works of popular and cinematic art. And now, at the World Premiere of SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL and another classic Cage performance, Fantasia is honoured to present this year’s Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award to this remarkable performer responsible for bringing life to some of the most fascinating people to grace the big screen in some of the most extraordinary films ever made.
WE ARE ZOMBIES
The 27th Edition will close on an especially riotous note with the World Premiere of WE ARE ZOMBIES, the latest from internationally beloved Quebecois cult collective RKSS, François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. Based on the comic LES ZOMBIES QUI ONT MANGÉ LE MONDE (The Zombies that Ate the World), the film is set in a society where zombies, referred to as “living-impaired,” roam among us with no urge to eat flesh. The film stars Megan Peta Hill (RIVERDALE), Alexandre Nachi (1991) and Derek Johns (THE BOYS). Also on board is RKSS mainstay Jean-Philippe Bernier, handling both the cinematography and the pulsing electro soundtrack with Le Matos.
RKSS came of age at Fantasia, first in our audience and then on our screen, with their early short films becoming instant crowd favourites. Their debut, TURBO KID, emerged from Frontières, premiered at Sundance and quickly attained rabid cult status across the world. Nothing makes us prouder than to close our 27th edition with the world premiere of their third feature, a special homecoming with RKSS returning to their earliest audience.
HIPPO
Other world premieres at Fantasia 2023 include MS. APOCALYPSE RINGS IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM, a poignant and profoundly human drama about courage and new beginnings, directed by Lim Sun-ae, and HIPPO, an achingly funny, deeply perverse, and uncomfortable-yet-endearing comedy steeped in pain and melancholia written and directed by Mark H. Rapaport. North American premieres include TIGER STRIPES, a striking debut from Amanda Nell Eu and THE PHANTOM, an edge-of-your-seat spy thriller featuring a who’s-who of insanely talented actors directed by Lee Hae-young. Meanwhile, FEMME offers us a perfectly calibrated queer thriller that subverts expectations.
TIGER STRIPES
The full programme is now available on the Fantasia International Film Festival Website.
