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Montreal genre film festival Fantasia reveals its full 2021 lineup

by Alex Rose

Takashi Miike’s The Great Yokai War: Guardians will close the festival, which features loads of promising horror titles, documentaries, restored cult classics and more.

Following first- and second-wave announcements in recent months, the Fantasia International Film Festival revealed the rest of its 2021 lineup earlier this week. The festival, which will run in a hybrid format from Aug. 5–25, revealed that the closing night film will be The Great Yokai War: Guardians by Japanese auteur Takashi Miike. It’s the sequel to the 2005 fantasy film that was also directed by Miike… and which played the festival upon its original release! 

Fantasia has announced its complete 2021 lineup

Highlights of the most recent announcements include Paul Andrew Williams’ (Unfinished Song) revenge drama Bull, the psychological horror What Josiah Saw starring Robert Patrick and Nick Stahl, Québécois luchador mockumentary (!) L’ange doré, Kazakh horror comedy Sweetie, You Won’t Believe It (which program notes describe as being a cross between The Hangover and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) and The Deep House, the latest from directing team Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (À l’intérieur, Leatherface).

Other highlights include the gory puppet comedy Frank & Zed, a new animated film from Phil Tippett (who was an animator on the original Star Wars), punk doc Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché about the late X-Ray Spex frontwoman, Sundance-selected NZ noir Coming Home in the Dark and Rebecca Hall-starring psychological horror The Night House. There will also be a number of new restorations including the cult Japanese horror Uzumaki, the Spanish zombie movie Tombs of the Blind Dead and the little-seen Cold War spy film L’inconnu de Shandigor, starring Marie-France Boyer, Howard Vernon and Serge Gainsbourg (!). 

The festival has also announced several panels and presentations that will run throughout Fantasia 2021. Highlights of that program include Turbo Kid: From Film to Video Game which unites the filmmakers behind the cult Quebec genre hit and the Outerminds team, who are currently adapting the film into a video game; South Africa Screams: Voices From the New Wave of S.A. Cinema, a conversation with leading voices in South African genre cinema; Haunting the National Consciousness: The Rise of Indigenous Horror, a presentation from academic Dr. Kali Simmons about current trends in Indigenous-led horror films, and more. 

The 2021, 25th anniversary edition of Montreal film festival Fantasia takes place in hybrid format Aug. 5–25.

For the full Fantasia International Film Festival program (and to buy tickets, which are on sale now), please visit the festival’s website.

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by Alex Rose

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Alex Rose was the Film & TV Editor at Cult MTL from 2014 to 2021. Francophones think that he is anglo; anglos think that he is a francophone. He is both, but he is not the frontman of Guns 'n Roses.