Fantasia 2025 starts Wednesday

Starting Wednesday one of the great film festivals in the world FANTASIA starts. Running from July 16 until August 3, the festival brings the greatest genre, inde and off the beaten path films to Montreal. 

I love this festival. Every year it gives me a chance to discover any number of titles that end up on my best of the year list. I was brought into the Fantasia fold by film director Ted Geoghegan, who essentially pulled me aside and incited that I needed to be covering the festival. A decade and a half or so later I still make sure that my schedule is reasonably clear so I can make a stab at seeing films.

This year the festival is beginning with the  new Ari Aster film and then marches on for over two weeks that are packed from top to bottom with some of the greatest mind-expanding films you can imagine before ending with Genndy Tartakovsky's FIXED.

I can't wait to see what goodies I will find. And of course I will report on what I find.

Because of the way life is going I'm going to leave this curtain raiser here. I don't have it in me to ramble on just to fill column space.

However, before I go, I need to leave you with some sort of recommended/ we've reviewed previously list. To that end here is a list of films I have seen or will see (some of the films are playing at Japan Cuts and NYAFF). What follows are a list of the films that had reviews run at Unseen Films (I've seen probably another half dozen films which I didn't write up):

SHAM 
DEATH DOES NOT EXIST 
DOG OF GOD 
JAPANESE AVANT GARDE PIONEERS (At Japan Cuts)
BLAZING FISTS (At Japan Cuts)
BRIGHTER SUMMER'S DAY FOR LADY AVENGER 

REFLECTIONS IN A DEAD DIAMOND 
TRANSCENDING DIMENSIONS 
ANGEL'S EGG 
DOLLHOUSE (At NYAFF)
HOLY NIGHT DEMON HUNTERS 
ONCE UPON A TIME IN DRAGONVILLE 
OMNICIENT (At NYAFF)
THE REBIRTH 
VIRGIN OF QUARRY LAKE 
MAYA GIVE ME A TITLE

And with that I am going to head off and watch some more movies.

AND a full review will run on the 17th but you will want to see HOLD THE FORT at the fest because its going to be a blast with an audience

For tickets and more information go here.