Volume 25, Issue 7 / July 2021

Fantasia International Film Festival, 2020 (and a 2021 look see)

Fantasia 2021 is upon us (August 5). Last year the festival went all virtual. With things improving on the COVID-19 front Fantasia is transitioning slowly back to pre-COVID norms, but doing it —rightly I will add— judiciously. So this year they are holding selected theatrical screenings at their original venue, the Imperial theatre, some events at the Cinéma du Musée, some free outdoors screenings at the Place de la Paix, some live virtual panels available on their Youtube channel, while keeping the majority (roughly 80%) of screenings online. In this special all-Fantasia issue we take a look back at Fantasia International Film Festival, 2020, with a quick sneak peek at the 2021 edition. Myself and Frédéric St-Hilaire each contribute a general report and I add a second report on some select Canadian films that played at Fantasia 2020. Randolph Jordan gets over the absence of one of Fantasia’s favorite sons, Takashi Miike, by digging deep into the films and mouth watering special features across Arrow Video’s Graveyards of Honor box set. David Hanley interviews Philippe McKie about his feature film debut at this year’s festival. A Concordia graduate, McKie has been living in Tokyo for several years, and has already featured at Fantasia in 2017 with two short films. This year, 2021, he will be present at Fantasia for the North American Premiere of his debut feature film, Dreams on Fire, which is the result of McKie’s deep immersion into the Tokyo dance scene. The interview covers a range of issues pertaining to the film’s visual style, approach to the subject matter, use of music, selection of dancers, and other aspects. And David Hanley concludes with a preview of the Canadian films on offer for 2021 at Fantasia (Donato Totaro, ed.).

Fantasia Website