The Fantasia International Film Festival is raising the bar for Canadian genre filmmaking as it gets underway in Montreal for its 27th edition.

Michael Paszt (pictured right), managing partner at Toronto-based distributor Raven Banner Entertainment, tells Playback Daily that the festival “has been a genre fan’s delight for many years.” However, the event has grown into a “premiere destination for producers, sales agents and distributors [in the genre space] worldwide” thanks to the prominence of its coproduction market Frontières, now in its 15th year.

The emergence of Frontières has proved a boon to Canadian-originated projects, helping to close the gap between financing and festival exhibition. A case in point is My Animal, directed by Jacqueline Castel and produced by Toronto’s Andrew Bronfman and Montreal’s Michael Solomon.

Pitched at Frontières 2019, this queer Ginger Snaps-style horror drama premiered at Sundance in January and will feature in Fantasia’s Canadian-cinema focused Septentrion Shadows section. On the sales front, Photon Films has Canadian distribution rights for the title, while global rights have been snapped up by Paramount Worldwide Acquisition Group.

A key element of the Frontières market is Forum, an invite-only initiative where partially-financed projects (20-50%) take part in strategy sessions and one-on-one meetings with industry professionals. Canadian projects selected for this year’s Forum include Nyla Innuksuk’s In The Heart Of The South, produced by Sphere Media and Mixtape TV, and TJ Cuthand’s Indigiqueer thriller Macîskotêw.

“Genre films are pretty much the domain of indie filmmakers and outsiders, which is why Canada has such a long history of making them,” says Andrew T. Hunt (pictured left), another managing partner at Raven Banner. “For Canadian filmmakers who loathe playing the public funding game, genre films have always had the best track record for ROI, and a great way to give the middle finger to the gatekeepers and naysayers out there.”

The core Fantasia festival has stayed true to its Canadian roots, ensuring home-grown content plays a prominent part in the lineup. A snapshot of Canada’s diverse contribution includes Romi, from director Robert Cuffley (Chokeslam) and writer-producer Susie Moloney (Bright Hill Road). First produced as a short in 2021, Romi is now a feature film that deals with 2023’s defining topic: artificial intelligence gone haywire. Like My Animal, Romi will feature as part of the Septentrion Shadows section.

Among the Quebec features are Pier-Philippe Chevigny’s social drama Richelieu and Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms (pictured above), which will make its North American premiere as the opening film of the festival. Having recently launched at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, the arthouse thriller features Juliette Gariépy as a woman who becomes obsessed with the trial of a brutal serial killer, played by Maxwell McCabe-Lokos.

“Fantasia has been really loyal to Canadian content,” says Red Rooms producer Dominique Dussault (pictured right) of Nemesis Films. “We have screened several short films at the festival and I was fortunate to be named best emerging producer in 2019 for Red Wine. It’s a real honour that Fantasia has entrusted us with the opening slot.”

Red Rooms‘ subject matter is perfectly pitched for Fantasia’s audience, which Dussault calls “the most enthusiastic genre fan-base in the world.”

The prodco’s goal is to continue to build the buzz generated at Karlovy Vary. “The film has already sold to France, Belgium and Switzerland, and has been accepted into more festivals,” she says. “Our key ambition for Fantasia is to attract interest from the U.S. and Asian markets.”

While Red Rooms is a top priority for Nemesis, the company is also participating in Frontières. “Olivier Godin and I will be pitching a new project called Anna Nous Parlera (Anna Will Talk To Us),” says Dussault. “This one is a dark comedy about a novel that blows the head off anyone who finishes it.”

Fantasia promises to be a busy fortnight for Godin, whose Irlande Cahier Bleu will premiere in the Camera Lucida section, a showcase for films that push boundaries.

Hunt says Raven Banner will be hosting its own networking event during the festival to take advantage of the market. “We have a full development slate, but we always make room for a truly spectacular project, so we’re keeping our eyes open,” he says. “It’s a great place to reconnect with peers, and discuss sales, financing, and copro opportunities.”

Canadian talent in the spotlight at Fantasia isn’t limited to those working on domestic productions. There is, for example, a strong Canadian flavour to the latest Nicolas Cage project Sympathy for the Devil, which will have its world premiere at the festival.

Written by Luke Paradise and directed by Yuval Adler, the film follows “The Driver,” played by Joel Kinnaman, who finds himself in a high-stakes white-knuckle game of cat and mouse after being forced to drive a mysterious man, “The Passenger,” played by Cage. Produced by Hammerstone Studios and Capstone Global, large swathes of the film were shot in a virtual production volume in Las Vegas during 2022.

Canadian producer and Bandit director Allan Ungar (pictured left), a producer on Sympathy for the Devil, says the film “came together faster than anything I’ve ever been involved with” due to the “window of opportunity” to cast Cage and Kinnaman. “You can spend months or years on issues like casting, but we put this film together in five weeks,” says Ungar.

The producer says Toronto was in the running as a production location, as well as other Canadian cities, “but when we broke it down by dollars and cents we felt it was more advantageous to shoot in the U.S.”

“The fact that Nick Cage lives in Las Vegas made it logical to produce in a volume based there. It was the right decision, but a shame for me and [fellow Sympathy for the Devil producer] Alex Lebovici because we grew up in Toronto,” adds Ungar.

Cage was due to attend Fantasia to support the film and collect the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award. However, he has pulled out because of the SAG-AFTRA strike, which does not permit members to promote their films or walk red carpets. “Our hearts are with the actors… and we hope to see the unions get a fair deal soon,” said Fantasia organizers in a statement on Cage’s cancellation.

Commercially, Sympathy for the Devil arrives at Fantasia in strong shape, with Capstone Global handling global sales and RLJE Films securing rights for North America, the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. “Capstone have been doing an incredible job,” says Ungar, “I’m looking forward to making this a more leisurely experience where I can embrace the reaction to the film and focus on that.”

That said, it’s also an opportunity to talk about his next genre project, says Ungar. “Hammerstone and I are going to be adapting Hideo Kojima’s video game Death Stranding as a movie. We have some exciting news coming up soon.”

Fantasia runs until Aug. 9.

Top image courtesy of Nemesis Films; photo of Allan Ungar by Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images