Cheat Sheets and Vengeful Villainesses at The Fantasia Film Festival
A Sneak Peek at Fantasia’s 2017 Lineup
An array of films of varying genres, cultures, and styles are at your fingertips if you just know where to look.
The Fantasia International Film Festival—easily the world’s biggest genre film festival—is on its 21st edition this year, and with it comes a collection of some highly anticipated movies.
Curious film enthusiasts milled into the Sir George Williams Auditorium this past Wednesday to get an early screening of the trailers for the movies that would be featured in this year’s Fantasia.
Three hour’s worth of footage was projected onto the large screen at the front of the room; a few trailers got some laughs from the audience while others were met with vigorous clapping. The overall feeling by the end of the trailers, however, was a buzz of excitement and chatter all around.
An interesting film that caught the attention of many was Bad Genius, directed by Nattawut Poonpiriya. This Thaï film—as one of the presenters at the beginning of this event explained—seemed to be a comedic hybrid of The Breakfast Club and Mission Impossible.
The movie follows Lynn, an honours student, who helps other struggling students by coming up with intricate ways to cheat on their exams.
Another film that caught the audience’s eye was the South Korean film, Villainess. Directed and written by Jung Byung-gil, the film follows the story of a young girl who becomes a lethal villain only to one day face the man that wronged her all those years ago.
The trailer was packed with exciting action scenes that went from wide shots to a first-person point of view of our main character chasing down her foes with a gun. Once the trailer faded out, the audience cheered and clapped as much as they could before the video faded into the next trailer.
Although there are going to be a ton of independent foreign films on the roster for Fantasia this year, there will also be a couple of mainstream movies that will be screened, like Atomic Blonde, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets to name a few.
Some independent films even have a cast with some familiar faces. A Ghost Story stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, and The Little Hours stars Aubrey Plaza, Kate Micucci, Nick Offerman and Alison Brie.
Along with some new titles coming to the Fantasia screens, there will be some old classics as well, like the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs.
There will also be some live action Japanese anime adaptations like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Tokyo Ghoul, and Death Note: Light Up the New World.
With such a vast and diverse selection of films to choose from, you’ll most likely find something that’ll peak your interest.
Fantasia International Film Festival // July 13 – August 2 // fantasiafestival.com/festival/2017
