From July 16 to August 3, 2025, Montreal will become the international capital of genre films… After Cannes, before Venice, it’s the place to be.
The festival, which has grown every year since its inception in 1996, has become emblematic of Montreal, its creative energy, and its slightly bizarre but innovative films-thanks to the indie film industry!
We’ll be able to see films – most of them world premieres – that we wouldn’t necessarily see otherwise, and refresh our brains and souls with genre cinema that’s bizarre, uncomfortable, exciting, psychedelic, jouissif…
Eddington opens the festival
Genre films include horror, fantasy, weird comedies and westerns… and the genre film that’s already emblematic of the summer of 2025, even if we haven’t seen it yet, is Ari Aster’s mystifying Eddington .
This is director Ari Aster’s fourth feature – following the exceptional and acclaimed Hereditary (2018), Midsommar (2019) and Beau is Afraid (2023).
The film features an all-star cast; Joaquim Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler and Michael Ward -among others. No word yet on who will be at the opening screening, but we can’t wait to see it!
Fantasia 2025 – 29th edition of the festival
Also on the festival program is Together by Michael Shanks, starring Alison Brie and Dave Franco, which was a big hit at the Sundance Festival and which we can’t wait to see – a perfect date night film, apparently.
We’re also looking forward to the Canadian premiere of Alex Russell’s Lurker, about obsession with celebrity, and director Izabel Pakzad’s debut feature Find Your Friends, where a desert party degenerates into an anti-patriarchal twenty-something.
These are just some of the films that will have their North American premiere, Canadian premiere or world premiere at the festival…
Opening the Fantastiques Week-Ends du Cinéma Québécois is Félix Dufour-Laperrière’s animated Quebec film La Mort N’Existe Pas , about the naiveté of youth and the weight of adult responsibilities that fall upon it.
Canadian Pioneer Award
As every year, the festival will present the Canadian Pioneer Award to a filmmaker who has left his or her mark on genre cinema. In 2025, it will be awarded to Mihalka, director of the cult film My Bloody Valentine (1981).
In Quebec, he also directed La Florida (1993), L’homme idéal (1996) and Les Boys IV (2005), as well as several outstanding TV series(Scoop, Omerta, la loi du silence).
…and a J-horror trilogy by Takashi Miike
Fantasia festival regular Takashi Miike will be honored with three animated titles: Nyaight of the living cat, Blazing Fists and Sham.
In Nyaight of the living cat, the first two episodes of which will have their world premiere, a virus terrorizes the planet; if you touch a kitten, you become one! Meow!
Practical info
When? July 16 to August 3, 2025
Where? Montreal
How? For accreditations , the full program and all festival details (coming soon), visit the Fantasia website -here!
See you in July!