Press Release: FANTASIA UNVEILS ITS FULL LINEUP & A CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD TO JOHN WOO, POLARIS BY KC CARTHEW TO OPEN THE FESTIVAL ON JULY 14th

 Montreal, June 30th, 2022 - The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 26th anniversary in Montreal this summer, taking place from July 14 – August 3, with its Frontières International Co-Production Market being held July 21 – 24. Today, the festival is proud to announce its full lineup of over 130 features and 200+ shorts, along with details on scheduled panels, talks, tributes, and special events.

 
Fantasia’s 26th edition will open on July 14th with POLARIS directed by KC Carthew. The 26th edition will close on August 3 with Cannes Critics Week’s sensation NEXT SOHEE, directed by July Lung. More so, for its 26th edition, Fantasia is proud to honor the groundbreaking Hong Kong filmmaker John Woo with a Career Achievement Award. The acclaimed director will be giving an exclusive masterclass at the Cinéma du Musée on July 16th.  

 

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT AWARD: JOHN WOO

With a singular directorial approach, Woo reinvented the conventions of action cinema, its visual language and dramatic codes. Nobody breaks down a sequence like Woo does: his staging is complex, his camera choreographies are always elaborate, and his mastery of physical performance and stunts unrivalled. His brilliantly original editing patterns are instantly recognizable, like his slow-motion sequences, employed as much for pathos as for iconic flourishes. At the heart of everything, Woo’s films are built around themes of friendship and trust with moving sincerity. Following martial arts films such as HAND OF DEATH (1976), LAST HURRAH FOR CHIVALRY (1979) and beloved comedies such as MONEY CRAZY (1977) and PLAIN JANE TO THE RESCUE (1982), Woo made his name with the groundbreaking heroic bloodshed of films such A BETTER TOMORROW (1986), THE KILLER (1989), BULLET IN THE HEAD (1990) and HARD BOILED (1992). Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung and others became international stars under his watchful eye, and by crafting an action cinema - and a genre - of his own, Woo continues to astonish audiences and filmmakers alike, inspiring legions across the world. In the years following this era, Woo has worked alternately in both Hollywood and China, on other blockbuster classics such as HARD TARGET (1993), FACE/OFF (1997), MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE II (2000) and epics such as RED CLIFF I & II (2008, 2009), and THE CROSSING I & II (2014, 2015). He is currently hard at work on SILENT NIGHT, an upcoming return to American filmmaking, starring Joel Kinnaman and Kid Cudi. Fantasia is proud to honor John Woo's legacy.

 

THE ECO-ACTION FANTASY POLARIS BLASTS IN MAD MAX-STYLE TO OPEN THE 26th EDITION OF FANTASIA!

With frostbitten hands clasping magical seal-jaws, incredible fights, and visceral kills, POLARIS is a singular vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Director KC Carthew creates a dystopian future with nods to George Miller’s classic Mad Max series and an all-female-identifying cast. Filmed in Yukon, we follow the journey of Sumi (Viva Lee) and her adoptive polar bear mother to the north star Polaris as they navigate the harsh landscape. She encounters brutal foes that are no match for her fierce powers, and when she discovers unexpected allies along the way, the stakes become deadlier. Following Carthew’s first short FISH OUT OF WATER, which premiered at the 19th edition of Fantasia, and her award-winning 2017 debut feature THE SUN AT MIDNIGHT, Carthew returns with POLARIS—a Frontieres project pitched in 2019, distributed in Canada by Filmoption International. 

 

CLOSING FILM: STRAIGHT OUT OF CANNES, NEXT SOHEE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE EXPERIENCE Sohee (Kim Si-eun), a bubbly and tenacious high-school student, spirals into fatal depression when pressured by her school to work for an abusive call center. Enraged by this tragedy, Detective Yoo-jin (Bae Doona) begins a crusade against all those who exploit vulnerable teenage girls. This powerful work received a seven-minute standing ovation at Cannes, where it closed Critics’ Week 2022. NEXT SOHEE is directed by July Jung and features performances by newcomer Kim Si-eun in a career-defining turn and South Korean film icon Bae Doona (KINGDOM). 

 

MANY CANADIAN FEATURES

For three weeks, Fantasia will be showing multiple Canadian films exclusively from all over the country, from Alberta to Ontario passing by Nova Scotia. From journalist to filmmaker, Tara Thorne will be presenting her first feature at the Quebec premiere of  COMPULSUS; RELAX I’M FROM THE FUTURE, a sci-fi comedy and Luke Higginson’s debut feature starring Rhys Darby (What do we do in the shadows); the 2011 Fantasia winner of the best Canadian film, Jesse Thomas Cook, will be back with CULT HERO; DARK NATURE, filmed in the Rockies by Berkley Brady features the X-Men: Dark Phoenix actress, Hannah Emily; THE BREACH, a horror film by Rodrigo Gudiño. Next,  THE FIGHT MACHINE, directed by Andrew T. Hunt and adapted from The Fighter by Craig Davidson; Avalon Fast will be presenting her debut feature HONEYCOMB, a folkloric horror story shot in British Columbia. For his first documentary feature, OUT IN THE RING, Ry Levey travelled across Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom to interview queer wrestlers. From Toronto, Ontario, Lenin M. Sivam presents his 4th feature THE PROTECTOR (World Premiere) which features Chelsea Clark (Ginny et Georgia), Munro Chambers (Turbo Kid) and Rebecca Jenkins (Supernatural). Shot entirely in Mexico, Fantasia alumni Renaud Gautier presents PUNTA SINISTRA on the big screen; with his expressionist and experimental horror vision, Kyle Edward Ball presents us SKINAMARINK.

 

NUMEROUS PREMIERES

During the three weeks of the Fantasia Film Festival, the audience will have the opportunity to discover multiple films premiere like BODIES BODIES BODIES by Halina Rejin featuring Amandla Stenberg (The Hate U Give), Maria Bakalova (Borat), and the comedian Pete Davidson (Saturday Night live); SHARP STICK, a Canadian premiere by and with Lena Dunham. Next, presented at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival and a North American premiere at Fantasia: FINAL CUT by Michel Hazanavicius is a zombie comedy displaying Romain Duris (Dans La Brume) and Bérénice Bejo (The Artist). The audience will also be able to watch the Canadian premiere of PRINCESSE DRAGON, an animation film about the unlikely friendship between a dragon and a princess by the French duo Jean-Jacque Denis and Anthony Roux; presented at the opening of the Busan Film Festival in 2021. Labelled Cannes 2020 and for its Canadian premiere at Fantasia, a film by Im Sang-Soo, HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS. Eduardo Casanova presents us with a surreal journey with LA PIETÀ (North American premiere). More so, SHIN ULTRAMAN A Shinji Higushi adaptation of the TV Show Ultraman, which had great success on its release in Japan in 1966 and has since marked many generations is now at Fantasia for its North American premiere. With two titles at Fantasia, the Japanese filmmaker, Satoshi Miki, presents CONVENIENCE STORY, a world premiere, and WHAT TO DO WITH THE DEAD KAIJU?, a Canadian premiere. A filmmaker most familiar with Fantasia, Takeshi Miike, will be presenting his most recent film THE MOLE SONG: FINAL (North American premiere); For his 29th feature, the American Mickey Reece will introduce COUNTRY GOLD (World Premiere). Presented at the Berlinale in 2022, audiences will also be able to catch Quentin Dupieux’s latest feature, INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (North-American premiere); SPEAK NO DEVIL directed by the Danish Christian Tafdrup which premiered at Sundance Film Festival this year. That’s not all! Be sure not to miss DARK GLASSES by Dario Argento, the master of the Italian Giallo who, 10 years after his last film, puts his daughter, Asia Argento, in front of the camera (Canadian premiere). Also, HUESERA, Michelle Garza Cervera’s first feature, presented at the Tribeca Film Festival, offers a haunting vision of maternity. Last but not least Fantasia will be showing, as a North American premiere, the sci-fi ecological thriller, VESPER, directed by the duo French-Lithuanian Kristina Buozyte and Bruno Samper. 

 

Screenings, panels and special events will be taking place at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens at the Cinémathèque Québécoise, Cinéma du Musée and the McCord Museum. Ticket pre-sales will open on July 9, at 1 PM. The festival website is now live with the complete lineup and schedule available to be explored at fantasiafestival.com. 

 

The 26th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival will be presented by Videotron in collaboration with Desjardins, and will be made possible thanks to the financial assistance of Telefilm Canada, the Government of Quebec, SODEC, The Ministère des Affaires Municipales et de l'Habitation, Tourisme Québec, the City of Montreal, the Conseil des arts of Montreal and Tourisme Montréal.