In summer, the days are longer, the nights are hotter, the fireflies are flashing in the dark – sometimes, it’s as if they want us to follow them.
While the humid heat of Montreal streets in July will make our heads spin, we’ll be more open with our third eye – to the strange, to the unknown, to the fantastic.
It’s not a fever dream, because we know someone who has a swimming pool on their roof, and because we know the best place to keep cool this summer in Montreal.
It’s at the Cinémathèque Québécoise, which is presenting its summer cycle; Démons et Merveilles…
Demons, Wonders and Summer Strangeness
Between July 1 and August 30,the Cinémathèque Québécoise – Montreal’s cinephile’s temple, art student’s hangout and the island’s creative mecca – presents a cycle of fantastic genre screenings, over 100 films in all.
Fantastic cinema, by definition (the simplest, from Wikipedia, because sometimes simpler is better), is a “cinematographic genre that includes films involving the supernatural, horror, the unusual or monsters”. We’ll add marvellous, which characterizes the magical, the fairy-tale and the supernatural.
It’s a pretty broad grouping, but looking at the programming for the Cinémathèque’s Demons & Wonders cycle, we can say without hesitation that this summer there will be something for everyone, and that fantasy cinema will be represented in its classics, its novelties and its most obscure and delightful films.
Programming
First, there will be the great classics of international fantasy cinema, films we saw as kids (and will be delighted to see again with our children) and which have left their mark on us through their marvellous, eerie quality or their magical realism on acid.
Our favorites are Jacques Demy’s Peau d’Âne , Wolfgang Peterson’s The Neverending Story and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth .
There will also be Hayao Miyazaki’s iconic Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away.
In terms of date films, the ones we went to the cinema to see, the ones we were obsessed with as teenagers, there’s Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride and Harry Potter. Then there’s Richard Donner’s classic The Goonies .
For the more obscure films, hard to find online and those we’ve seen a thousand times on Letterbox’d without ever watching in person, there’s also Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves , Niki de Saint-Phalle’s Un rêve plus long que la nuit and André Forcier’s Kalamazoo .
There are over 100 films in the program, and we recommend that you check out the full program of screenings in the Cinémathèque Québécoise’s Démons et Merveilles cycle,
Practical info
Where? Cinémathèque Québécoise, 335 Boulevard de Maisonneuve East
When? From July 1 to August 30, 2025, and to see the complete program with screening times for films in the Démons et Merveilles cycle, click here!
How much?
general admission adults / $13
65 years + / $11
children 5-16 / $11
students / $11
(free for Cinémathèque Québécoise members)
Enjoy the projection!