The 27th edition of Fantasia International Film Festival (July 20-August 9) in Montreal will open with the North American premiere of Pascal Plante’s cyber thriller Red Rooms (Chambres Rouges).
The film will get its world premiere in Karlovy Vary and follows a tech-savvy overachiever who becomes obsessed with the high-profile trial of a serial killer.
As reality blurs with her morbid fantasies, she goes down a dark path in search of the final piece in the puzzle, the missing video of a murdered 13-year-old girl. Sphere Films International recently launched sales in Cannes.
Second wave titles include the international premiere of Yuval Adler’s cat-and-mouse thriller Sympathy For The Devil starring Nicolas Cage and Joel Kinnaman.
World premieres include Stay Online, Eva Strelnikova’s feature debut and “screenlife” thriller set against the backdrop of the Russian invasion as a Kyiv volunteer uses a donated laptop to help a youngster find his parents; Zach Clark’s (2016 Fantasia, Little Sister) body-swap romance The Becomers; Robert Cuffley’s AI smart home thriller Romi; and Shigeyoshi Tsukahara’s Steampunk adventure Kurayukaba.
Sundance hit Talk To Me from Australian filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou will get its Canadian premiere and centres on a group of youngsters who try to contact the dead via an embalmed hand. Sophie Wilde, Alexandra Jensen and Miranda Otto star.
Canadian premieres include Lee Won-suk’s revisionist fairy tale Killing Romance, Alice Maio Mackay’s Queer Horror T Blockers, Joe Lynch’s Tribeca selection Suitable Flesh, and anime The First Slam Dunk co-directed by Takehiko Inoue and Yasuyuki Ebara.
Stéphan Castang’s Cannes Critics’ Week selection Vincent Must Die from Stéphan Castang’s receives its North American premiere, as do Nuhash Humayun’s Bangladeshi horror Pett Kata Shaw, Robert Hloz’s Czech sci-fi noir Restore Point, and Junta Yamaguchi’s Japanese time travel story River.
Programming includes a book launch event for ‘Dark Matter Presents: Haunted Reels’, a genre fiction anthology curated by David Lawson Jr., producer and co-founder of Rustic Films. Jay Baruchel, C. Robert Cargill, Gary Sherman, Sarah Bolger, The Pierce Brothers, Justin Benson, and Aaron Moorhead will be among the authors in attendance.
The final slate of 2023 Fantasia titles will be announced in early July.
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