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.
Aleksa Palladino is an American actress and singer, perhaps best known for her lead roles in Manny & Lo, The Adventures of Sebastian Cole, Find Me Guilty, Angela Darmody in the HBO crime series Boardwalk Empire (2010–2011), Mara in Wrong Turn 2: Dead End (2007), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Midnight Swim (2014), Mary Sheeran in The Irishman (2019), and No Man of God (2021). She also played a main role in the second season of the AMC period drama Halt and Catch Fire. From 2007 to 2018, she was one half of the dreampop duo Exitmusic with former husband Devon Church, releasing the albums The Decline of the West (2007), Passage (2012), and The Recognitions (2018).
S&Man is a 2006 American pseudo-documentary film that examines the underground subculture of horror films. It contains interviews with filmmakers and other participants in the low budget indie horror scene, as well as film professor and author Carol J. Clover. The second half of the film also features a scripted plot, which stars comedian Erik Marcisak as the fictional filmmaker Eric Rost.
Hazard is a 2005 Japanese-American film mostly shot in New York City, written and directed by Sion Sono, starring Joe Odagiri and Jai West. It is the story of three youths who attempt to avenge their rights in a society of criminals and thugs.
Rubber is a 2010 English-language French independent horror comedy film written and directed by Quentin Dupieux. The film is about a tire that comes to life and kills people with psychokinetic powers.
Toad Road is a 2012 American independent horror thriller film directed and written by Jason Banker. Toad Road stars Sara Anne Jones, who died of a drug overdose shortly after the film's premiere, as a young college student that is introduced to drugs and becomes obsessed with an urban legend about a road leading to Hell. The film premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival and had a limited release in October 2013.
Marianne is a 2011 Swedish horror film, written and directed by Filip Tegstedt, that premiered at the 2011 Fantasia International Film Festival on 2 August 2011. Thomas Hedengran plays a father who is plagued by guilt over the death of his wife.
The Battery is a 2012 American drama horror film and the directorial debut of Jeremy Gardner. The film stars Gardner and co-producer Adam Cronheim as two former baseball players trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. The film premiered at the Telluride Horror Show in October 2012 and received a video-on-demand release June 4, 2013. It has won audience awards at several international film festivals.
All the Light in the Sky is an American drama film directed by Joe Swanberg and written by Swanberg and Jane Adams, who also stars in the film, along with Sophia Takal, Kent Osborne, Lawrence Michael Levine, Larry Fessenden, and Lindsay Burdge. The film had its world premiere at the AFI on November 3, 2012. The film was released on video on demand on December 3, 2013, before being released in a limited release on December 20, 2013, by Factory25.
Bag Boy Lover Boy is a 2014 comedy horror film that was directed by Andres Torres. The movie had its world premiere on July 23, 2014 at the Fantasia Festival and stars Jon Wachter as a hotdog vendor who finds himself becoming the muse of a manipulative photographer, played by Theodore Bouloukos.
Why Horror? is a 2014 Canadian documentary film directed by Nicolas Kleiman and Rob Lindsay and written and co-produced by Lindsay. A work-in-progress draft of the film was screened in August 2014 at the Fantasia Festival and the official final version was screened on 3 October 2014 at the Feratum Film Festival. The documentary explores the psychology of the reasons why people enjoy the horror genre and includes interviews by several well-known horror icons.
Wyrmwood is a 2014 Australian action-horror film directed by Kiah Roache-Turner and starring Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, Leon Burchill, Keith Agius, Berynn Schwerdt and Luke McKenzie. The screenplay concerns a mechanic who finds himself faced with zombie hordes. Roache-Turner's directorial debut, it had its world premiere on 19 September 2014 at Fantastic Fest.
George Finn is a Georgian-American actor. He is best known for his roles in the films LOL, Time Lapse (2014) and Tbilisi, I Love You (2014)
Frequencies, also known as OXV: The Manual, is a 2013 independent British science fiction romance, thriller film written and directed by Darren Paul Fisher. The film stars Daniel Fraser, Eleanor Wyld, and Owen Pugh. The film takes place in a world where human worth and emotional connections are determined by set "frequencies". The film was produced by Fisher and Alice Hazel Henley, and released on 24 July 2013.
Hellmouth is a 2014 Canadian horror film that was directed by John Geddes, based on a script written by Tony Burgess. The film had its world premiere on 17 October 2014 at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and stars Stephen McHattie as a grave-keeper that finds himself traveling to hell to save the soul of a beautiful woman. Funding for Hellmouth was partially raised through an Indiegogo campaign.
Jennifer Lafleur is an American actress. She is known for appearing in the independent films The Do-Deca-Pentathlon (2012), The Pretty One (2013), The Midnight Swim (2014), MAD (2016) and 6 Years (2015). On television, Lafleur has appeared on the HBO series Big Little Lies, Room 104 and Animals., the Showtime series Billions, American Crime on ABC, Married on FX, Chicago Fire on NBC, Workaholics and Review on Comedy Central, Childrens Hospital and Newsreaders on Adult Swim, and Major Crimes on TNT.
Tales from Beyond the Pale is a horror podcast inspired by 1930s radio dramas. It is produced by Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid for Glass Eye Pix.
One Dollar is an American mystery thriller drama television series created by Jason Mosberg that premiered on August 30, 2018, on CBS All Access. The series centers on the denizens of a small rust belt community and shifts perspective from person to person as a dollar bill changes hands. The ensemble cast consists of John Carroll Lynch, Nathaniel Martello-White, Philip Ettinger, Christopher Denham, Kirrilee Berger, Joshua Bitton, Níkẹ Uche Kadri, Gracie Lawrence, and Hamilton Clancy. On December 12, 2018, it was announced that the series had been canceled after one season.
Sarah Adina Smith is an American film writer, director, and editor. Films she has directed include Buster's Mal Heart (2016), and The Midnight Swim (2014). She also directed two episodes from the television series Room 104. Her films often center around mysticism, spirituality and psychology, and the surreal. Smith also directed several acclaimed television pilots, including Hanna, Looking for Alaska, and Lessons in Chemistry. She won the Director's Guild of America award for Movies for Television and Limited Series for her Lessons in Chemistry episode "Her & Him".
Mary Pat Bentel is a Los Angeles based independent film producer known for Amateur Night starring Jason Biggs, The Lie starring Joshua Leonard and Jess Weixler, The Midnight Swim starring Lindsay Burdge, Aleksa Palladino, and Jennifer Lafleur, Animals starring David Dastmalchian, and Austin Found starring Linda Cardellini and Skeet Ulrich. Bentel also produced This Close for Sundance Channel.
