Fantasia Reveals Animation Line-Up For 30th Edition
This year marks the 30th edition of Fantasia International Film Festival (a.k.a. Frontières) in Montreal, Canada. The festival is North America's leading genre film festival and a haven for the weird and wonderful from around the world. It also has a well established animation strand, Animation Plus, with selections competing for the Satoshi Kon Award For Excellence In Animation.
This year's animation selection includes animated features hailing from Japan, France, Italy, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines and further afield. It features returning entrants and first-timers and a wide variety of styles and subjects.
Indie animation icon Don Hertzfeldt will host a masterclass and retrospective of his career, followed by an audience Q&A. The evening will also feature the Canadian premiere of his new film Paper Trail, winner of the Jury Prize for Creativity at this year's Sundance Festival. Hertzfeldt has previously screened nine of his short films at Fantasia, but this will be his first visit to the festival in person for nearly 20 years.
Anime fans will be well served with five brand new features. Boy-meets-girl comedy-drama in Cherry and Virgin, wartime drama in Cocoon- One Summer Of Girlhood, pop-infused anthology Grotesqqque, moving drama A New Dawn and samurai action video game adaptation Sekiro: No Defeat. There is also an opportunity to see Takeshi Koike's cult classic Redline on the big screen as part of the retro strand.
Family fare is also well represented. Brazilian feature Papaya and European co-production (Czechia, Poland and Latvia) Born In The Jungle take audiences into the rainforest.
Romance is covered too, with Annecy selection Spacetime Chronicles. Sci-Fi is blended with Eastern philosophy in Taiwanese anthology Bliss: Beyond The Edge Of Time. And cringe comedy can be found in French adult animation Blaise.
LGBTQ+ audiences are catered for with gay French comedy Jim Queen and with Filipino filmmaker Avid Liongoren's queer superhero flick Zsazsa Zaturnnah. Liongoren's previous film, steamy soap opera (with a cast of talking animals) Hayop Ka! gets a second shot at glory, after having its original screening scuppered by that pesky pandemic.
Outside of Animation Plus, French-Canadian stop-motion hit Mouvement Deluxe gets a 10th anniversary screening of its first two seasons (in French, naturally).
Animation is also represented in the Short Film Program. Circo Animato 2026 features 10 new shorts from around the world. Anime No Bento features a selection of short form Japanese animation. Fragments Of Asia includes South Korean short animation My Killer Erotic Video. My First Fantasia presents a selection of short films for young audiences, with programs in both English and French.
This year's festival runs from July 16 to August 2. You can buy tickets from here.
