FANTASIA’S 25TH EDITION ANNOUNCES FIRST WAVE OF PROGRAMMING FOR UPCOMING VIRTUAL FILM FESTIVAL
Richard Bates Jr.’s KING KNIGHT, Tsutomu Hanabusa’s KAKEGURUI 2: ULTIMATE RUSSIAN ROULETTE, Mark O’Brien’s THE RIGHTEOUS, Daigo Matsui’s REMAIN IN TWILIGHT, Edoardo Vitaletti’s THE LAST THING MARY SAW, and Shunji Iwai’s THE 12 DAY TALE OF THE MONSTER THAT DIED IN 8 among the first titles announced for the festival’s 25th edition taking place August 5 – 25, 2021
The Fantasia International Film Festival is proud to announce the first wave of programming for its upcoming 25th edition, set again to take place as a virtual event accessible to audiences across Canada. The festival will run from August 5 – 25, 2021 and will include scheduled screenings and premieres, panels, and workshops, with films once again hosted on the leading-edge platform created by Festival Scope and Shift72. As the summer approaches, Fantasia organizers will be following advice from local health authorities in Montreal with respect to the possibility of adding a limited range of physical events as well. In celebration of the key role that Japan’s culture has played across Fantasia’s history, the festival’s 25th edition will be featuring an enhanced focus on Japanese cinema.
Following the earlier news of the festival’s opening film, the world premiere of Julien Knafo’s Quebec-set zomcom BRAIN FREEZE starring Roy Dupuis and Iani Bédard, details on the first wave of feature films are revealed today, with the full lineup to be announced in late July.
STEADY YOUR GAZE FOR THE LAST THING MARY SAW
Brace yourself for THE LAST THING MARY SAW, a breathtaking period occult drama set in an isolated farmhouse in the winter of 1843, where a young woman is under investigation following the mysterious death of her family’s matriarch. It soon becomes apparent that ageless forces are at play, from within and without. An eerie and hypnotic nightmare vision from debuting writer/director Edoardo Vitaletti, starring Stefanie Scott (INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3), Isabelle Fuhrman (ORPHAN), Judith Roberts (YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE), and Rory Culkin (LORDS OF CHAOS). WORLD PREMIERE.
GO ALL-IN WITH KAKEGURUI 2: ULTIMATE RUSSIAN ROULETTE
Welcome back to Hyakkaoh Academy, where the students engage in compulsive gambling to climb the social ladder, but this time around the return of a demented alumni will wreak a new kind of havoc on the school. KAKEGURUI 2: ULTIMATE RUSSIAN ROULETTE, written and directed by Tsutomu Hanabusa (PROJECT DREAMS), raises the stakes beyond money and clout to a game of life and death. This highly creative, colorful, and thrilling manga adaptation makes a reinvented poker game as engaging as a championship match. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE.
RICHARD BATES JR. INVITES YOU ON A GONZO SPIRITUAL QUEST
Richard Bates Jr. has been a longstanding member of the Fantasia Family with fest favourites EXCISION, TRASH FIRE, TONE-DEAF, and SUBURBAN GOTHIC. We’re thrilled to announce his return with the outlandish KING KNIGHT, an outsider’s outsider comedy starring Matthew Gray Gubler and Angela Sarafyan as Thorn and Willow, husband-and-wife high priest and priestess of a coven of witches in a small California community. When Willow unearths a secret from Thorn’s past, their lives are thrown into turmoil in this kooky, clever treat, decked with a wild cast that includes Nelson Franklin, Johnny Pemberton, Barbara Crampton, Ray Wise, Andy Milonakis, and the voices of Aubrey Plaza and AnnaLynne McCord. WORLD PREMIERE.