Vancouver’s Gender Equity in Media Society (GEMS) has unveiled the five selections for 2025’s Genre Film Lab, formerly known as From Our Dark Side.

The accelerator program is designed to support Canadian women and gender-diverse genre film creators whose projects are in the advanced stages of development.

Genres permitted under the program include, but are not limited to, fantasy, horror, science fiction, thriller and western.

Three of this year’s selections are based in B.C. and include writer-director Sasha Duncan’s Peachy, produced by Eloise Cameron-Smith and Dalila Jovanovic; and Deepfake, directed by Miranda MacDougall and written by Ariel Bond. Deepfake is produced by Lucy McNulty for Vancouver’s Strange Company Productions, Bond for Storiel Entertainment, also based in Vancouver, and Magdalena Shenher in a consulting role.

Rounding out the B.C. selections is The Evermore, written and directed by Mia Martinez. It is produced by Martinez and Jonnathan George for Familiar Blue Films and Nic Altobelli for Naltobel Productions.

Another selection is Toronto writer-director Lu Asfaha’s They Echo. The film is produced by Fonna Seidu for Toronto’s Snail Mail Media and Jay Carolyn Wu, Andrew Ferguson and Matt King for Toronto’s LaRue Entertainment.

The fifth selection, After the End, by writer-director Elena Sturk-Lussier, is from Manitoba and produced by Jessica Landry for Winnipeg’s Familiar Films.

The Genre Film Lab program, like last year, is beginning a month earlier in May with two masterclasses on story development and pitching, instructed by producer and coach Helene Granqvist.

Additionally, the cohort will take part in three strategy sessions with genre film industry experts on financing and packaging, a film and sales distribution seminar, individualized consultancies, one-on-one development sessions and a practice pitch session with a group of genre industry experts. The program culminates in July with a dedicated pitch session at the Frontières International Co-Production Market at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival.

This year’s projects were selected by a jury of filmmakers and genre experts that included Austin-based producer, consultant, programmer and professor Logan Taylor; filmmaker and actor Mary Galloway; and filmmaker, film historian and programmer Elizabeth Purchell. New York-based filmmaker, performer and programmer Vanessa Meyer is the program’s director.

“Along with the GEMS team, I am looking forward to introducing our 2025 finalists and their dynamic new projects to the international genre film market,” said Meyer in a statement. “As always, the goal of this program is to support the development of underrepresented voices, and to foster a community through which these voices may prosper and be heard.”

The Genre Film Lab 2025 is supported by Telefilm Canada and the Frontières Market.

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