The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 29th edition with another densely packed slate of events and programming running from July 17 through August 3, 2025, returning to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas and presented by MELS, with additional screenings and events at Montreal’s Cinéma du Musée. The festival’s full lineup will be […]
The Fantasia International Film Festival will be celebrating its 29th edition with another densely packed slate of events and programming running from July 17 through August 3, 2025, returning to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas and presented by MELS, with additional screenings and events at Montreal’s Cinéma du Musée.
The festival’s full lineup will be announced in early July, but in the meantime, Fantasia 2025 has revealed its second wave of premiere titles. Highlights include Ari Aster’s Eddington as the opening film, a trio of new releases from prolific filmmaker Takashi Miike, festival favorites like upcoming body horror movie Together, and so much more. Also be sure to catch up on the first wave of programming here.
The second wave of select titles, from the press release:
OFFICIAL OPENING FILM: EDDINGTON
Fantasia’s 29th edition will open with a special screening of Ari Aster’s EDDINGTON. In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico. Also featuring Austin Butler, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Michael Ward, and Clifton Collins Jr. EDDINGTON is Aster’s fourth feature in an extraordinary filmography of landmarks, following HEREDITARY, MIDSOMMAR, and BEAU IS AFRAID.
TAKASHI MIIKE’S NYAIGHT OF THE LIVING CAT, BLAZING FISTS, AND SHAM
A perennial of the festival’s programming since its earliest days, and recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016, maverick, genre-jumping Japanese director Takashi Miike makes his mark at Fantasia again this year with not one but three titles—including an adorable J-horror anime series, with World Premiere episodes! Adapting the manga written by Hawkman and drawn by Mecha-Roots, and debuting on Crunchyroll this summer, NYAIGHT OF THE LIVING CAT presents a premise more terrifying than a half-empty food bowl—a virus sweeping the globe, causing anyone who touches a kitty to become one themselves! Executive director Miike and director Tomohiro Kamitani deliver a furry, purring parody of the natural-horror subgenre, an animated cataclysm of cuteness!
The pair of Miike films celebrating their Canadian Premieres pack a one-two punch, starting with BLAZING FISTS, in which two teenage hoodlums aim for better lives for themselves, and fighting in the ring is how they’ll get there. A convincing coming-of-age drama with a big heart to balance out the bruises and black eyes, its cast features J-pop superstar Gackt and MMA fighter Mikuru Asakura, who appears as himself. SHAM, inspired by a true story, follows the surreal legal and media battle of a teacher falsely accused of violence against a student. Miike delivers a breathtaking legal thriller that generates as much anxiety as his best horrific works, thanks in part to the crackling performance by Go Ayano (GANTZ).
FIND YOUR FRIENDS
For her first feature, director Izabel Pakzad puts a sinister spin on party culture and the constant threat of violence facing young women, featuring a stellar cast including Helena Howard (MADELINE’S MADELINE, I SAW THE TV GLOW), Bella Thorne (DIVINITY), Zión Moreno (GOSSIP GIRL), Chloe Cherry (EUPHORIA), and Sophia Ali (UNCHARTED). Set against cinematic desert scenery, what starts as a wild girls trip quickly turns dangerous when the locals don’t want them there. As the hostile environment escalates, Amber’s friends uncover her past trauma and become fed up with toxic dynamics. Little do they know, their fun trip will transform into one of revenge—building to a jaw-dropping finale that audiences will never forget. Produced by Allison Friedman (THE MORTUARY COLLECTION, THE FIX), Gary Michael Walters (WHIPLASH, DRIVE), Andrea Iervolino (SKINCARE, FERRARI), Luca Matrundola (TO THE BONE, SKINCARE) and executive produced by Chris Hanley (THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, SPRING BREAKERS) and Eric Kohn (BABY INVASION), FIND YOUR FRIENDS presents surprising scenarios exploring how fragile the divide between the sexes really is. World Premiere.
KAZAKH SCARY TALES
Continuing a breathtaking marathon of creation, multi-time award-winner Adilkhan Yerzhanov (STEPPENWOLF, THE OWNERS, THE GENTLE INDIFFERENCE OF THE WORLD) has turned his visionary lens towards skin-crawling occult horror storytelling. A cop (Kuantai Abdimadi, MOUNTAIN ONION) ventures into a remote village to investigate a gruesome series of inexplicable events and soon finds himself in the center of an otherworldly storm of local witchcraft and death. It becomes clear that the curse of Albasty, a spirit said to devour infants, is horrifyingly real. Bringing nightmarish regional folk horror to the screen through a tense, neo-Noir Trojan horse, KAZAKH SCARY TALES was produced as an anthology series for a domestic streamer but deemed too frightening by focus groups. Fantasia will be presenting the first three episodes as a complete feature narrative, the first time that anything from the series will be shown anywhere in the world. A stunning, disturbing work featuring a cast from across Yerzhanov’s filmography, including Anna Starchenko, jury award winner at last summer’s Fantasia for her astonishing performance in STEPPENWOLF, Dinara Baktybayeva (A DARK, DARK MAN), Daniyar Alshinov (GOLIATH), Yerken Gubashev (THE ASSAULT), and Sanjar Madi (YELLOW CAT). World Premiere.
DEATH DOES NOT EXIST
Fresh off its world premiere in Cannes, Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s magnificent animated feature DEATH DOES NOT EXIST (LA MORT N’EXISTE PAS) will open Fantasia’s Fantastiques Weekends du Cinéma Québécois.
A group of young activists take up arms against an affluent family, hoping to plant the seed that sows a rebellion. But when things don’t go according to plan, a woman finds herself haunted by the memory of her friend, intertwined with the shadows of her doubt and guilt. In a world threatened by growing inequalities, Félix’s masterpiece embraces the naiveté of youth to tell its story, weighing the burden of one’s responsibilities and the consequences of repercussions of the path they’ve taken. Over ten years in the making, DEATH DOES NOT EXIST is as timely a film as could be, and one of the most magnificent pictures made in recent years, where every hand drawn frame is a breathtaking work of art. The film plays off color and sound to shape its story, allowing the art to take a life of its own. The revolution may be bloody and violent, filled with loss and sorrow, but it’s never been this beautiful. Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois Section. North American Premiere.
NEW GROUP
High school student Ai (Anna Yamada) sees her world collapse when a strange cult-like mentality gradually turns people around her into mindless followers who can transform simple gymnastics routines into a nightmarish dance of death. With only his second feature, co-writer and director Yuta Shimotsu (BEST WISHES TO ALL, produced by Takashi Shimizu) delivers one of the most well-scripted, masterfully directed, and incredibly creepy J-horror films of the last twenty years. Imagine a fusion between a harsh critique of Japanese society and the weird ideological movements that are growing in the Western World, portrayed in the twisted universe of legendary mangaka Junji Ito, author of the classic UZUMAKI, and you might be able to visualize all the fun this film packs. With its mind-blowing, surreal imagery in a very realistic context, a perfectly balanced and executed soundtrack, and something to say about the world we live in, NEW GROUP will only expand its number of devoted followers around the planet. North American Premiere.
EVERY HEAVY THING
Mickey Reece, the inspired maverick behind such singular cult favorites as COUNTRY GOLD, CLIMATE OF THE HUNTER, and AGNES, returns to Fantasia with EVERY HEAVY THING, a pitch-black comedy about an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Set against the unsettling backdrop of a string of disappearances, the film follows Joe (Josh Fadem, BETTER CALL SAUL), an unassuming office worker at an online periodical who becomes entangled in a conspiracy after witnessing a murder. As a colleague begins to investigate, Joe struggles to conceal the truth as his carefully constructed life falls apart. With his signature blend of lo-fi aesthetics and sharp, high-concept wit, Reece delivers another visionary exploration of Oklahoma and a darkly comic meditation on the fractured American soul. Featuring an eclectic cast including Vera Drew (THE PEOPLE’S JOKER), Tipper Newton (THE MINDY PROJECT), John Ennis (RATS!), and genre icon Barbara Crampton (RE-ANIMATOR). World Premiere.
TAMALA 2030: A PUNK CAT IN DARK
An astonishing, avant-garde anime anomaly, 2002’s eerie, erotic, and elaborately esoteric TAMALA 2010: A PUNK CAT IN SPACE, a Fantasia award-winner, remains an all-time highlight of the festival’s animation programming, and more than two decades had to pass before rumours of a follow-up TAMALA feature could at last be proven true. With TAMALA 2030: A PUNK CAT IN DARK, the mysterious Japanese writer/composer/director duo K. and kuno, known together as t.o.L (“trees of Life”), have resumed, recalibrated, and resolved their tale of the cutest girl-cat in dystopian Cat Tokyo, surpassing themselves in their control of the cryptic, complex, and cuddly chaos they’ve unleashed. The kawaii paradigm of Hello Kitty and Hatsune Miku collides with cabalistic capitalism, cataclysmic prophecy, and the ruptured realities of Lynch, Pynchon, and Philip K. Dick in a deviously dreamlike, metaphysical mind-melt of high-fructose, retro-futuristic, paranoid pop-art brilliance. Animation Plus Section. World Premiere.
FOREIGNER
For her debut feature film, FOREIGNER, Ava Maria Safai expertly harnesses the power of identity, social acceptance, horror, and comedy. It’s 2004, and Iranian immigrant Yasamin, or Yasi, is the new girl. Her high school experience is daunting, as she tries to improve her English by watching her favorite sitcom and befriends a trio of pastel-clad girls who feed Yasi’s need to fit in. Desperate for acceptance, she dyes her hair blonde and, in doing so, also attracts a demonic force. With a fun retro setting, great performances by Rose Dehgan as Yasi, Chloë MacLeod as the creepy high school “Queen Bee” Rachel, and a blend of our favorite teen horrors, FOREIGNER takes up space as a new entry to “bubblegum horror,” bringing a fresh narrative to the Canadian immigrant experience. Septentrion Shadows Section. World Premiere.
BLANK CANVAS: MY SO-CALLED ARTIST LIFE
A young woman who dreams of becoming a manga artist enters an art school where her mentor uses harsh methods to push his students into classical painting. Fearful about her tenacious teacher’s reaction toward her secret passion, she will learn to keep her ground and find her place. Based on an autobiographical manga by renowned author Akiko Higashimura, BLANK CANVAS is a beautiful hymn to believing in our passions despite bumpy roads. Mei Nagano (MY BROKEN MARIKO) delivers a stellar performance as Akiko, while Yo Oizumi (I AM A HERO) manages to balance the abusive and endearing sides of his complex and often weirdly funny character from another era. Director Kazuaki Seki delivers a poignant film that embraces the value of pop culture while respecting the heritage of fine arts and tradition. North American Premiere.
BUFFET INFINITY
First-time feature director and award-winning comedian Simon Glassman comes to Fantasia with the cosmic horror, BUFFET INFINITY! Picking from hundreds of hours of original, low-budget TV ads, Glassman tells the sinister tale of two restaurants battling it out in the town of Westridge County. Insurance ads, used car rivals, and plugs for a local religious scholar and recording artist, Langdon P. Hershey, all converge to tell the story of an expanding sinkhole, a cult, and an ever-growing restaurant that becomes unsettlingly sentient. But don’t be fooled because that sinister vibe is drowned in a special sauce that brings laughs at lightning speed, and those who love absurdist comedy like the Canadian classic SCTV or TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB! will definitely ask for seconds of this sure-to-be fan favorite! Septentrion Shadows Section. World Premiere.
CARDBOARD CITY
In Longueuil, a poet (Jean-Marc Desgent) stubbornly refuses to sell his house to a predatory, if not slightly unhinged, real estate developer (Pierre Curzi, THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE). But the fight isn’t new: In 1969, Longueuil absorbed the much larger, and poorer, city of Jacques-Cartier, where many people had constructed their homes with the materials available to them. Standing strong against the threat to his neighborhood, Desgent tells the stories of these women and men who built his city. In CARDBOARD CITY(VILLE JACQUES CARTON), Jean-Marc E. Roy (BLEU TONNERRE, CRÈME DE MENTHE) and André Forcier (ABABOUINÉ, AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE) join forces to create an oddball film where reality and fiction blend on a backdrop of poetry. Here, family photographs and archival footage share the spotlight with stellar performances from some of Quebec’s most beloved actors, including Gaston Lepage, France Castel, Sandrine Bisson, Charlotte Aubin, and Michèle Deslauriers. It’s funny, beautiful, and touching, but above all, it’s an ode to our people, our history, and our resilience. Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois Section. World Premiere.
THE GIRL WHO STOLE TIME
“This very moment of being together is the gentlest magic we have against time.” Inspired by their own experience with sudden loss, writer-directors Yu Ao and Zhou Tienan created THE GIRL WHO STOLE TIME as a heartfelt response to impermanence. Qian Xiao, a cheerful girl from a fishing village, obtains a mysterious pendant, the Time Dial, which gives her the power to control time. But her new ability attracts danger, including Seventeen, a cold-faced assassin. When their paths collide, a surprising adventure begins. With an outstanding voice cast including Liu Xiaoyu (ARCANE), Wang Junkai (THE GREAT WALL), and special appearances by Zhou Shen (SUZUME’s Chinese theme song singer) and Huang Bo (CRAZY STONE), this feature debut couples top-tier animation and a solid emotional core with the co-creators’ signature comedic style, delivering a truly moving, laughing-through-tears experience. Animation Plus Section. North American Premiere.
LUCID
After coming to Fantasia as a short film selected for the Frontierés Market Shorts to Features Lab in 2022, directing duo Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall expand the world of Mia Sunshine Jones in their darkly trippy feature, LUCID. Mia is a rebellious art student who struggles to create the ultimate project for a demanding professor. Desperate to find her artistic voice, she takes Lucid, a candy elixir, to access her creativity, but taps into something much darker. Starring Caitlin Acken Taylor, who reprises her role from the short, and Georgia Acken (star of the 2023 Fantasia hit THE SACRIFICE GAME), Milligan and Fendall create a surreal nightmare with a vintage look that fully embraces the 90s grunge era with a punk art aesthetic. Using live on-set music, an eclectic cast, and loads of experimental and haunting visuals, the World Premiere of LUCID will be a nightmare-come-true. Septentrion Shadows Section. World Premiere.
JULIET & THE KING
Complications abound for a lovestruck monarch, a Parisian actress, and her playwright pal bringing Shakespeare to the Persian stage in the charming, animated musical comedy JULIET & THE KING. Following the bloody, mythic fantasy THE LAST FICTION (2018), the second feature film from Iranian animator Ashkan Ragozar and his team at Hoorakhsh Studio is something lighter and brighter. It’s a lively historical flight of fancy about Nasser-al-Din Shah, Iran’s first ruler to visit Europe, in 1873, saluting his open mind and appetite for the arts, though Ragozar doesn’t spare him bouts of cartoon buffoonery. The frisky spirit of Shakespeare’s complicated ensemble comedies is ever-present, as are the exquisite delights of classical Persian aesthetics, as JULIET & THE KING counters the Orientalism in Western animated visions of West Asia and celebrates cross-cultural curiosity with love, laughter, and catchy tunes! My First Fantasia/Animation Plus Sections. International Premiere.
OLD GUYS IN BED
OLD GUYS IN BED tells the story of Paul (Duff MacDonald), a 60-year-old film historian, who meets a man (Paul James Saunders) on a dating website. Unfamiliar with these new ways of making connections, he discovers a world that is both promising and confusing, one that will serve as his gateway through a modern and unpredictable journey of love. Directing his first feature at the age of 73, celebrated Quebec actor Jean-Pierre “JP” Bergeron (STICKY FINGERS), active for almost 60 years on both the big and small screens, has delivered an atypical romantic comedy that is tender, daring, and profoundly human. Bergeron had been directed by some of Quebec’s most important directors, from André Forcier to Robert Morin, Ken Scott to Robin Spry, and with OLD GUYS IN BED, he explores rarely-tread territory with great humor and heart. Les Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois Section. World Premiere.
ADDITIONAL SECOND WAVE TITLES
‘Together’
DOG OF GOD (Latvia) – dirs. Raitis Ābele and Lauris Ābele
Dire omens and sexual perversions, clerical fanaticism and collective madness – the diabolical dark fantasy DOG OF GOD is an eerie, animated folk chiller from the Baltic region in which malevolent moments and sinister sights abound. The black humor that Baltic artists wield so boldly is as much a constant presence as the creeping sense of dread. Official selection: Tribeca Film Festival 2025. Animation Plus section. Canadian Premiere.
DUI SHAW (Bangladesh) – dir. Nuhash Humayun
Following 2023’s folk-horror anthology PETT KATA SHAW, four new fearful fables from the leading light of genre film in Bangladesh, this time redirecting focus towards social ills plaguing South Asia. Each of DUI SHAW’s segments is strikingly distinct in theme and tone, ranging from gritty and gruesome to haunting, hilarious, mythic, and magically musical. Official selection: SXSW 2025 Canadian Premiere.
JAPANESE AVANT-GARDE PIONEERS (France) – dir. Amélie Ravalec
The harrowing ghastliness of butoh dance, the freak-show surrealism of angura theatre, shockingly raw photography, and confounding-yet-dazzling psychedelic poster design—a dive into the twisted shadows writhing under the rising sun in the 1960s, charting an underground art movement that still echoes hauntingly today. Documentaries From the Edge Section. Canadian Premiere.
LIFEHACK (UK) – dir. Ronan Corrigan
Ronan Corrigan’s thrilling debut feature is a bold new entry into the Screenlife genre. After scamming the daughter (Jessica Reynolds) of a ruthless crypto millionaire, a group of digital troublemakers (Georgie Farmer, Yasmin Finney, Roman Hayeck-Green, and James Scholz) find themselves entangled in a heist for their lives. Produced by Timur Bekmambetov (SEARCHING). Official selection: SXSW 2025, Overlook Film Festival 2025. Canadian Premiere.
LURKER (USA) – dir. Alex Russell
When a twenty-something retail clerk (Théodore Pellerin, NINO) encounters a rising pop star (Archie Madekwe, SALTBURN), he takes the opportunity to edge his way into the in-crowd. But as the line between friend and fan blurs beyond recognition, access and proximity become a matter of life and death. A stunning feature debut, at once unsettling and entertaining, tense and captivating, LURKER is a brilliant deconstruction of fame and need in Instagram-driven times. Official selection: Sundance 2025, Berlin International Film Festival 2025, New Directors / New Films 2025. Canadian Premiere.
NOISE (South Korea) – dir. Kim Soo-jin
After the disappearance of her younger sister, a woman with a hearing impediment experiences bizarre happenings and frightening encounters when mysterious noises echo throughout the building. With brilliant sound design and perfectly-dosed jump scares, first time director Kim Soo-jin blends real-life anxieties with stark, supernatural elements to create genuine tension that never lets go. Official selection: Sitges Film Festival 2024, Kosmorama Trondheim International Film Festival 2025. Canadian Premiere.
REFLECTION IN A DEAD DIAMOND (Belgium-France) – dirs. Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani
Award-winning mad geniuses of radical genre storytelling, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani (AMER, LET THE CORPSES TAN) have created an electrifying ode to ‘60s Euro-spy films, telling the tale of a retired agent (Italian screen legend Fabio Testi) plagued with suspicions that past enemies are finally coming for him. An astonishing act of volcanically imaginative filmmaking that stands at the very top of an unwaveringly brilliant filmography, the thriller features Yannick Renier (CARNIVORE), Koen De Bouw (DOSSIER K.), Maria de Medeiros (PULP FICTION), and the incredible dancer and choreographer Thi Mai Nguyen. Official selection: Berlin International Film Festival 2025, Tribeca Film Festival 2025. Canadian Premiere.
THE SCHOOL DUEL (USA) – dir. Todd Wiseman Jr.
In a near-future “Free State of Florida,” gun control is outlawed, and school shootings are at an all-time high. When an opportunity for notoriety arises, a tormented 13-year-old (Kue Lawrence, MARSHMALLOW) enlists in a controversial and deadly state-sponsored competition. A heartbreaking vision of the future, it co-stars Christina Brucato (THE MENU) and Oscar Nuñez (THE OFFICE). Winner of the 50th Anniversary Canal+ jury award at the 2024 Deauville Film Festival. Canadian Premiere.
THE SERPENT’S SKIN (Australia) – dir. Alice Maio Mackay
Fantasia alumni Alice Maio Mackay (T-BLOCKERS, CARNAGE FOR CHRISTMAS) returns to the festival with her sixth feature THE SERPENT’S SKIN, a supernatural romance that follows Anna, a young woman who leaves her transphobic small-town, and develops a romance with a tattoo artist who she shares a supernatural connection. After accidentally unleashing a demon, they must work together to defeat the evil that’s killing their friends. A colorful but tender exploration of love, gender identity, and personal growth. Official selection: Frameline Film Festival 2025. Underground Section. Canadian Premiere.
TOGETHER (USA) – dir. Michael Shanks
Years into their relationship, Tim and Millie (Dave Franco and Alison Brie) find themselves at a crossroads as they move to the country, abandoning all that is familiar in their lives except each other. With tensions already flaring, a nightmarish encounter with a mysterious, unnatural force threatens to corrupt their lives, their love, and their flesh. A smart, shocking marriage of body horror and troubled-relationship study. Official selection: Sundance 2025, SXSW 2025. Canadian Premiere.
TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS (Japan) – dir. Toshiaki Toyoda
A nihilistic hitman in search of a missing monk confronts a sadistic sorcerer in this potent blend of film noir, sci-fi, supernatural combat, deadpan comedy, and existential weirdness. A gleefully offbeat brain-twister peppered with mysticism and mayhem from the director of BLUE SPRING and 9 SOULS. Official selection: Rotterdam International Film Festival 2025, Golden Horse Fantastic Film Festival 2025 Canadian Premiere.
THE WAILING (Spain) – dir. Pedro Martín-Calero
Several generations of women, separated by time and space, are stalked by the same terrifying curse. One of the scariest films of the last year, vibrantly told in a multi-chapter structure, taking place in Spain and Argentina across periods decades apart, showcasing a trio of striking lead performances from Ester Expósito (VENUS), Mathilde Ollivier (OVERLORD), and Malena Villa (EL ANGEL). Official Selection: San Sebastián International Film Festival 2024, BFI London 2024, Hong Kong International Film Festival 2025. Canadian Premiere.
