Fantasia Monique Barrino-Taylor, known professionally by her mononym Fantasia, is an American singer and actress. She rose to prominence in 2004 for her performance of the Porgy and Bess standard "Summertime" during the third season of American Idol, and eventually became that season's winner. Following her victory, Barrino became the second woman to have her first single debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, following Lauryn Hill, when her debut single "I Believe", launched atop the chart. Her accolades include two Billboard Music Awards and a Grammy Award, along with nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a BAFTA Award. In 2024, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people.
Fantasia International Film Festival is a genre film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. It focuses on niche, low budget movies in various genres, from horror to sci-fi. Regularly held in July/August, by 2016 its annual audience had already surpassed 100,000 viewers and outgrown even the Montreal World Film Festival.
Dreamgirls is a 2006 American musical drama film written and directed by Bill Condon and jointly produced and released by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures. Adapted from the 1981 Broadway musical of the same name, Dreamgirls is a film à clef, a work of fiction taking strong inspiration from the history of the Motown record label and its superstar act, The Supremes. The story follows the history and evolution of American R&B music during the 1960s and 1970s through the eyes of a Detroit girl group known as "The Dreams" and their manipulative record executive.
The Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, or BiFan, formerly known as Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival or PiFan, is an international film festival held annually in July in Bucheon, South Korea. Inaugurated in 1997, the festival focuses on South Korean and international horror, thriller, mystery and fantasy films, with particular attention to Asian cinema from East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is a non-competitive international film festival, with partial competition, awarding a number of awards.
Aggressive is a New York based design studio founded by Grammy award-winning filmmakers Alex Topaller and Daniel Shapiro. They have been described by Movie Creation Mag as "having a fascination with the wonderful, in the likes of the surrealist Rafał Olbiński" and "tenacious about pushing themselves and some overclocked hardware in order to create striking videos" by Video Static.
Curse of Chucky is a 2013 American slasher film and the sixth installment of the Child's Play franchise. The film was written and directed by Don Mancini, who created the franchise and wrote the first six films. It stars Fiona Dourif, Danielle Bisutti, Brennan Elliott, Maitland McConnell, Chantal Quesnelle, Summer Howell, A Martinez, and Brad Dourif. The film grossed $3.8 million in DVD sales.
Monstrum is a 2018 South Korean period action horror film directed by Heo Jong-ho. It stars Kim Myung-min, Kim In-kwon, Lee Hye-ri and Choi Woo-shik. The film was released on September 12, 2018. It was chosen to compete in the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival, screening there on 13 October.
Tales from the Hood 2 is a 2018 American black horror comedy anthology film written and directed by Rusty Cundieff and Darin Scott and executive-produced by Spike Lee. The film is the sequel to Cundieff and Scott's 1995 horror anthology Tales from the Hood. The segments "Good Golly", "The Sacrifice", and "Robo Hell" were directed by Rusty Cundieff. The segments "The Medium" and "Date Night" were directed by Darin Scott.
The Creator is a 2023 American science fiction action film directed and co-produced by Gareth Edwards, who wrote the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Chris Weitz. It stars John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, and Allison Janney. Set in 2070, 15 years after artificial intelligence (AI) set off a nuclear detonation in Los Angeles, which started a war of humans against AI, a former special forces agent is recruited to hunt down and kill the "Creator," who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to end the war.
Next Sohee is a 2022 South Korean drama film, directed by Jung Ju-ri and starring Bae Doona and Kim Si-eun. The film revolves around a business-oriented high school student, Sohee, who has to go on field training to her call center, and a female detective, Yu-jin, who investigates her subsequent death. It is loosely inspired by the real-life suicide of a girl on a similar temporary training program. It was selected as the first Korean closing film at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and screened as part of the Critics' Week section for special screenings.
Aaron B. Koontz is an American producer, writer and director. He is the founder and CEO of Paper Street Pictures, a film production company in Austin, Texas. He is also a producer behind The Pale Door, the Scare Package franchise, and Shelby Oaks, from YouTuber Chris Stuckmann.
The 26th Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival, an international film festival held in Bucheon, South Korea, began on 7 July 2022 with the slogan 'Stay Strange'. A non-competitive international film festival with a competitive section, opened with film Men by Alex Garland. This year the festival resumed its offline events after two years, which were curtailed due to COVID-19.
Piety, also known as La Pietà is a 2022 Spanish-Argentine film directed and written by Eduardo Casanova which stars Ángela Molina and Manel Llunell as Libertad and Mateo in a toxic mother-son relationship. It has been variously billed as a drama, "mother-son horror", and black comedy. It displays camp elements.
Relax, I'm from the Future is a 2022 Canadian sci-fi comedy film, written and directed by Luke Higginson and starring Rhys Darby and Gabrielle Graham.
Timescape is a 2022 Canadian action-adventure science fiction film about two young strangers discovering a mysterious spacecraft that catapults them millions of years into the past. The film was written, edited, and directed by Aristomenis Tsirbas. It premiered on July 31, 2022, at the Fantasia Film Festival, where it won the Silver Audience Award for Best Quebec Feature. Its theatrical rollout began on August 19, 2022 in the province of Quebec, Canada before expanding to the rest of the world.
Legions, also known as Cosa e' Mandinga, is a 2022 Argentine supernatural horror film written and directed by Fabián Forte. It stars Germán de Silva as Antonio Poyju, a powerful sorcerer who must escape from a psychiatric hospital and find his daughter Helena —who has forgotten her magical powers—in order to counter demonic forces wreaking havoc across Argentina.
Theater Camp is a 2023 American mockumentary comedy film directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman in both of their feature directorial debuts from a screenplay by Gordon, Lieberman, Ben Platt, and Noah Galvin. A feature-length adaptation of the 2020 short film of the same name, the film follows the counselors of an underfunded theater-focused summer camp in Upstate New York as they band together with the founder's son to keep the camp afloat. It features an ensemble cast that includes Galvin, Gordon, Platt, Jimmy Tatro, Patti Harrison, Nathan Lee Graham, Ayo Edebiri, Owen Thiele, Caroline Aaron and Amy Sedaris. Will Ferrell serves as a producer under his Gloria Sanchez Productions banner.
Cult Hero is a Canadian thriller comedy film, directed by Jesse Thomas Cook and released in 2022. The film stars Liv Collins as Kallie Jones, a real estate agent and stereotypical "Karen" in Owen Sound, Ontario, whose husband Brad gets drawn into a death cult led by Master Jagori, forcing her to team up with "cult buster" Dale Domazar to rescue him.
Nut Jobs is a Canadian crime comedy film, directed by Alexandre Leblanc and released in 2022. The film stars Jean-Sébastien Courchesne as Benju, a man who is recounting to his ex-girlfriend Angie the events that took place after she got fired for trying to lead a staff coup at the right-wing talk radio station where she worked; in an attempt to win her back, Benju broke into the home of Valérie, the daughter of station owner Valère, only to end up kidnapped by goons who ultimately revealed to him that the station is actually being used to transmit mind control frequencies to manipulate its listeners.
Alexandre Leblanc is a Canadian film editor and director, whose debut feature film Nut Jobs was released in 2022. The film premiered at the 2022 Fantasia Film Festival, where it was the winner of the Audience Award for best Quebec film.
