As the Fantasia Film Festival rapidly approaches, us over at Film Daze are delighted to have the opportunity to cover it remotely! Fantasia Festival is an iconic genre festival, specializing in an eclectic and diverse collection of films, often centered in horror, sci-fi, and various high concept genre.
Fantasia International Film Festival 2022 runs from July 14th to August 3rd 2022 in-person in Montreal, Quebec, and online. Film Daze staff writers Alisha Mughal and Veronica Phillips share their most anticipated films from the festival.
VERONICA’S PICKS
ALL JACKED UP AND FULL OF WORMS — Written and directed by Alex Phillips
All Jacked Up and Full of Worms is marketed as a micro-budget arthouse horror, centered upon a trip gone wrong after the consumption of some hallucinogenic worms. Marketed as filthy and wild, along the lines of Trainspotting meets Videodrome, All Jacked Up and Full of Worms is a top pick for me in the Fantasia premiere line-up.
THE ARTIFICE GIRL — Written and directed by Franklin Ritch, The Artifice Girl centers upon a technological AI concoction mimicking an underage girl which helps law enforcement catch predators online. The Artifice Girl is a sci-fi feature film delving into the ethics of AI, the notion of humanity in the digital age — a fascinating collection of concepts packaged in a simple and riveting premise.
PLEASE BABY PLEASE — Written and directed by Amanda Kramer, Please Baby Please is an American feature set in a twisted version of the 1960s, following a beatnik married couple seduced by a group of gender non-conforming greasers in a way that shifts their very understanding of sex and gender. Please Baby Please is being described as playful and subversive in its representations of a bygone era and our modern discussions around sexuality and gender.
ALISHA’S PICKS
MY SMALL LAND — Directed by Emma Kawawada. Focusing on a Kurdish teenage girl living in Japan and keeping her and her family’s refugee status under wraps, My Small Land looks like it will be a revelation, not only for its on screen diversity (genuinely revolutionary for the Japanese film landscape), but also for its look at what it means to belong. This movie’s premise hits a bit too close to home for me, and I can’t wait to discover what it has to say about when an immigrant can claim to belong to a place, whether this belonging is granted to them or whether they lay a claim to it for themselves. I can’t wait to see how or whether it tackles these enormous questions all as it depicts the enormity of adolescence.
SWALLOWED — Directed by Carter Smith. Body horror is the it sub-genre currently, and for good reason. We’re not only increasingly forced to come to terms with our physical fragility on this planet, but also grappling with draconian laws and tech that breach our bodily autonomy. It’s no wonder then that we feel so inclined to explore what the body can and cannot do through this subgenre of horror, that most existentially rife and rewarding of lenses. On the face of it, Swallowed looks like it’ll be about two friends smuggling drugs to make some cash before they make it to L.A., but stick through the optimism and sweetly-budding love of the first few frames of the trailer, and you’ll find that things swiftly turn Cronenbergian. Have the friends swallowed drugs or some kind of alien/bug life form? I have no idea and I can’t wait to friggin find out.
RESURRECTION — Directed by Andrew Semans. It’s already been getting quite a bit of buzz after its trailer was released earlier this year, with people wondering when Rebecca Hall will finally be recognized for her stellar acting skills. It’s really scintillating, this buzz, because, for the most part, it’s inspired by a trailer wherein very little happens. Hall narrates the unease she feels encountering a mysterious man (played by the always-amazing Tim Roth) who, we are led to believe, has wronged her in some way. It’s all gazing and deep breathing and creepy piano, punctuated by excerpts from reviews describing this film as the next best thing since 1981’s Possession. And I believe this hype, because the film comes to us from IFC and Shudder — these two companies have never led me astray. I can’t wait to watch this movie.
More information about the festival and its screenings can be found at: https://fantasiafestival.com/en
