Montreal: The fourth edition of Fantasia, The International Festival of Fantasy and Action Cinema, unspools July 23-Aug. 15 with more than 90 films on the program. Notables include David Koepp’s world premiere of Stir of Echoes, Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko’s Gamera 3: The Revenge of Iris, the new WB 40’s retro-style animation feature The Iron Giant and the festival avant-premiere on July 22, The Blair Witch Project.

Distributor Alliance Vivafilm is releasing both Stir of Echoes and The Blair Witch Project, directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick and this year’s Prix de la Jeunesse winner at Cannes.

The festival’s program is a heady mix of genre cinema ranging from Asian action and monster movies to science-fiction and supernatural horror and adult and cult animation. The festival is an undeniable hit with the public, and this year’s edition features some 40 industry guests from Asia, the u.s. and Europe.

This year’s top fest tribute goes to legendary action director/producer Johnnie To (Expect the Unexpected, A Hero Never Dies) of Hong Kong’s Milkyway Image. To and fellow Milkyway producer Christina Lee are attending along with Singapore-based actress Annabel Chong (Sex: The Annabel Chong Story), Japanese composer Kawasaki Masahiro (Kamikaze Taxi), Gamera 3 special fx director Tomoho Haraguchi and directors Kaneko and Hideo Nakata whose supernatural horror duet Ring and Ring 2 are among the program highlights.

Other industry guests attending Fantasia ’99 include u.s. director Les Bernstein (Night Train), German director Jorg Buttgereit (Nekromantik), Canadian directors Vincenzo Natali (Cube) and Greg Houston (Phil Karew 2), u.s. director Lloyd Kaufman (Terror Firmer) and the film’s screenwriter Doug Buck, Spanish producer Lucias Palacios (Cloven Hoofed), n.z. director Anthony Timson (Crab Boy) and u.s. director Bill Plympton who will present his very bizarre Annecy animation festival winner, I Married a Strange Person.

Foreign distributors attending include Don May of Synapse Films (u.s.), Mark Walkow of Image Entertainment (u.s.) and Shozo Watanabe of Toho (Japan). Feature-length Japanese animation on the program, most often very inspired, includes the Toho studio adventure Spriggan, and the dark Bandai studio production, Jin-Roh.

The program also includes: a series of professional forums organized in association with Cine-Asia on the state of Hong Kong cinema, tentatively set for July 26; Asian fantasy films, on Aug. 7; and new trends and new generations of filmmakers in Japan and Korea, on Aug. 14.

Fantasia ’99 screenings take place at the Cinema Imperial and Ex-Centris, Theatre 3.