There are film festivals all over the world, offering a variety of content in terms of source country, format, and genre. One of my favourites is Montréal’s Fantasia Festival (link), which seems likely to be the world’s current best genre festival. To its credit it keeps its definition of genre wide: science fiction, fantasy, horror, action, and animation all get a healthy look-in and an even focus.

The 2024 festival opens on 18 July. I’ve had a look down the program and come up with 12 films screening there that I’m desperately keen to see.

100 Yards
2023, China. Directed by Haofeng Xu and Junfeng Xu.

Andy On and Jacky Cheung star in this 1920s-set martial arts epic. Written and co-directed by the writer of The Grandmaster, 100 Yards is a widely acclaimed Chinese film enriched by Haofeng Xu’s deep academic knowledge and understanding of martial arts technique, culture, and history. (link)

98%
2024, South Korea. Directed by Byun Changwoo.

Fantasia is always a brilliant hotbed of short films, and this year I’m most intrigued by this Korean blend of disability and violent revenge in which a man exploiting the very disabled people he is supposed to be helping gets his comeuppance. (link)

Brush of the God
2024, Japan. Directed by Keizo Murase.

Keizo Murase spent his long career designing and constructing rubber suit monsters for some of Japan’s most popular kaiju franchises including Daimajin, Godzilla, Gamera, and Ultraman. Now, at the age of 88, he had made his directorial debut with a giant monster movie of his own. (link)

Chainsaws Were Singing
2024, Estonia. Directed by Sander Maran.

“Monty Python meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre meets Les Miserables” is how director Sander Maran describes his cult genre-blending mixture of comedy musical and gory horror. This Estonian cult hit is precisely the sort of film I like watching at an international film festival, because let’s be honest – where else are you possibly going to come across it? (link)

The Count of Monte-Cristo
2024, France. Directed by Alexandre De la Patelière and Matthieu Delaporte.

After last year’s two-film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, it is the perfect time for Dumas’ The Count of Monte-Cristo to receive its own high budget, contemporary adaptation as well. The film screened in competition at Cannes, and screens here at Fantasia ahead of its French premiere. (link)

FAQ
2023, South Korea. Directed by Damin Kim.

The absurd premise of this recent fantasy-comedy has me hooked: an overworked primary school students forms an emotional bond with a bottle of rice wine that appears to be communicating with her via morse code. It marks the directing debut of Damin Kim, and provides a heart-warming contrast to the bleaker films that often populate Fantasia’s schedules. (link)

HEAVENS: The Boy and His Robot
2023, Singapore. Directed by Rich Ho.

As a city-state surrounded by larger regional film industries, Singapore has often struggled to cement its own reputation for filmmaking. HEAVENS just might force an unexpected change to that. Boasting lavish visual effects, this science fiction giant robot epic looks just the sort of glossy, visually impressive blockbuster to compete internationally. (link)

Infinite Summer
2024, Estonia/Spain. Directed by Miguel Llansó.

I positively adore Miguel Llansó, the eccentric writer/director whose African/European co-productions Crumbs and Jesus Shows the Way to the Highway are among the most absurdly inventive science fictions film of the 21st century. This third feature appears to shift away from the knowing pastiche of his previous works. I cannot wait to see what direction his creativity pushes in next. (link)

Oddity
2024, UK. Directed by Damian McCarthy.

You can always rely on the British to serve up deeply effective and atmospheric screen horror. One of the latest examples is reportedly Damian McCarthy’s Oddity, in which a blind medium sets off to solve her twin’s murder. Ebert.com’s Brian Tallerico boasts that it is ‘genuinely and consistently unsettling Dread Central simply called it ‘really damn scary’. I can never pass a Brit horror without checking it out; this is no exception. (link)

Out of the Shadow
2024, Hong Kong. Directed by Ricky Ko.

I really liked Ricky Ko’s 2021 film Time, which followed an elderly hitman through Hong Kong. His follow-up piece is out this year, and I have high hopes for Out of the Shadow. It follows a young vigilante in Hong Kong’s small town of Shek O. Hong Kong has a rich, well-loved history of action and martial arts pictures, and the buzz is that this a nostalgic delight. (link)

Pendant ce temps sur Terre
2024, France. Directed by Jérémy Clapin.

The director of I Lost My Body returns with a bleak combination of live-action and animation. A grieving sister, whose astronaut brother disappeared with a trace, is given the chance to see him again – in return for five lives. It was a Berlinale selection, and has gathered broad acclaim for its atmosphere, style, and effective surrealism. (link)

Steppenwolf
2024, Kazakhstan. DIrected by Adilkhan Yerzhanov.

I am unsure if I have ever seen a film from Kazakhstan, but when you come across a film described as “a Kazakh Mad Max” it is the sort of thing that attracts your attention. It promises dystopian violence, black humour, and a Western-styled tale of vengeance. This is exactly the sort of film that festivals like Fantasia are for. (link)