Fantasia’s annual showcase of intimate, auteur genre visions returns with nine extraordinary works from an array of international talents who will leave you gobsmacked and amazed.
From the Netherlands, Yfke Van Berckelaer’s single-take LILI (North American Premiere) is a mini masterclass in performance and ascension where an actress’ audition grows increasingly less comfortable with every line read.
New Zealand gifts us Hweiling Ow’s gloriously strange and disturbing womb-rocker VASPY (World Premiere), in which a pregnant woman develops new kinds of cravings and realizes that she may be eating for more than two.
From Australia, Mia'kate Russell’s award-winning MAGGIE MAY (Canadian Premiere) is a stylish and sharp-witted black comedy about apathy that sees two sisters trying to reform bonds following their mother’s death, with unexpectedly gruesome results.
A young woman hides a recent terminal diagnosis from her friends as they embark on a road trip. They pick-up a stranger and grisly new paths of possibility are revealed in Adele Vuko’s fantastic THE HITCHHIKER (International Premiere).
The U.K. delivers THE ORIGINAL (Canadian Premiere), a dark, crushing, science-fiction drama about romantic sacrifice and extreme choices from Mexican filmmaker Michelle Garza Cervera.
From the USA, Mary Dauterman’s WAKEY WAKEY (International Premiere) is an imaginative anti-love story fever-dream.
Stefanie Abel Horowitz’s SOMETIMES, I THINK ABOUT DYING (International Premiere) is a darkly humorous and touching tale of interpersonal alienation that turned many a head at this year’s Sundance.
A young teen’s first period stirs her curiosity of local legends in Erica Scoggins’ masterfully directed, award-winning THE BOOGEYWOMAN (Quebec Premiere), a standout at Clermont-Ferrand.
Self-taught Canadian visual artist Valerie Barnhart’s devastatingly powerful GIRL IN THE HALLWAY (North American Premiere) is an innovatively animated true-crime poetry slam as nightmarish witness testimony that recently floored audiences at Annecy. Made over a period of three years as an addressment of the inaction that allows the crisis of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women to persist. Few films pack such raw, emotional force. You’ll barely be able to speak afterwards. – Mitch Davis
