Every year, the Fantasia festival is a highlight of the Montréal summer for me. I always try to attend and see as many films as I can (though I can never see as many as I want). The movies themselves are hit-or-miss – that’s to be expected for a festival that focuses on genre and fantasy – but they never fail to be at the very least entertaining, and the atmopshere in the cinema is consistently incredible (meow). I’ve been recording some brief impressions on the movies I get to see every year; find them all here .
This year I feel like I didn’t necessarily see the best the festival had to offer! Which means I ended up with a list of ‘mostly competent movies’, instead of the usual ‘few gems among a pile of charmingly awful b-movies’. Still, as always, the festival was a lovely time – so without further ado…
Feature films
This is what I was the most hyped about, but it was a big disappointment. The art direction and animation are amazing, but the result is somehow still formulaic.
An hour and a half of increasingly bizarre ads – and somehow, narratives emerge, like the bitter competition between a family-run sandwich shop and the titular all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. It’s hilarious, and when things start to get old (which they unfortunately do), the whole thing morphs into a new genre.
Appropriately, this was pure chaos. A surreal rom-com that’s all over the place but in a good way: full of ideas and visual jokes, and very human, which was so refreshing in the age of genAI bullshit.
A woman wakes up locked inside a trailer on some cross-country road. The driver and supposed abductor tells her, through speakers, that he can’t let her go… because she’s infected. What’s real? A great concept, but the last third of the movie takes a somewhat tedious (if unexpected) turn.
Well this was Uncut Gems, crypto edition; swerving at full speed between hilarious and cringe, with some unexpected detours into earnestness. Absolutely recommend.
A competent multiverse revenge story – nothing mindblowing, but still entertaining and with some really strong character work at the center of it.
A tale of teen angst dipped in witchy magical realism – the tone and cinematography were great, but I felt the plot’s promise never fully materialized.
✨ Selection of short films
A quiet, dusk-lit tale of fate, found family, and blood relatives.
An interesting, gross musing on the appearances we put on.
The ritualistic hunt of a god-beast, with animation techniques and pacing that make the viewing experience feel itself like a ritual.
A beautiful stop-motion cosmological poem crafted out of the fabrics of everyday life.
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Characters turning into shapes turning into patterns turning into rhythm, like fleeting diversions from a routine.
A series of visual skits and experiments, featuring animals at times grotesque or magical, chained together like a funny and surprising Tiktok feed.