Special Report: 2025 Fantasia Curtain Raiser

The Projection Booth Podcast

The Projection Booth

Film Reviews, Film Interviews, Film History, Tv & Film

4.8 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 12 July 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Fantasia International Film Festival returns for its 29th edition, running from July 17 to August 8, 2025, and promises another electrifying celebration of genre cinema from around the world. With its full slate now unveiled across three waves of programming, Fantasia 2025 continues its tradition of championing daring filmmakers and boundary-pushing storytelling.

Among the major highlights this year is Yuji Shimomura’s highly anticipated Crazy Musashi, penned by cult favorite Sion Sono. Also debuting is the world premiere of The Beast Within by genre auteur Gabriel Carrer, while Bertrand Mandico’s surreal She Is Conan the Barbarian will receive its North American premiere following acclaim in Cannes. Other festival standouts include Kiah Roache-Turner’s creature feature Beast of War, and Macoto Tezuka’s live-action adaptation Barbara II, based on the manga by Osamu Tezuka.

Fantasia 2025 will also spotlight a robust Quebecois lineup, particularly through the Fantastiques Week-ends du cinéma québécois, which includes 77 short and feature films from emerging and established local talent. This year’s program emphasizes bold, original visions, including the premiere of David B. Ricard’s mockumentary Alien Tribute, and Alexandre Prieur-Grenier’s nightmarish Enfer en eau trouble.

The festival continues its legacy of nurturing new voices with its Camera Lucida and Axis sections, while also welcoming back returning favorites such as Larry Fessenden (Blackout), Takashi Shimizu (Immersion), and Calvin Lee Reeder (Yummy Fur).

With over 130 feature films, dozens of special events, and a strong presence of Asian, North American, and international genre cinema, Fantasia 2025 affirms itself as one of the world’s premier showcases for fantastical film.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White.
0:04.3	I want to talk about Fantasia. You are going to be hearing a lot about the Fantasia Fest,
0:10.3	hopefully over the next few weeks. Yeah, that's Fantasia, the film festival, not the Disney film.
0:15.9	Talking about Fantasia 2025, the festival of fantastic films that takes place in Montreal every year. It is coming to you starting on July 16th this year. I will not be in attendance, but I will be covering some of the movies, hopefully talking with some of the filmmakers around here. So really a lot of what I cover is going to be based upon the availability
0:39.9	of filmmakers. So doing these kind of quote unquote curtain raisers, it's a little difficult for me
0:45.3	because I'm not exactly sure who all I'll be talking to. And I don't tend to request the screeners
0:52.3	for films when I don't have the, I don't want to say guarantee,
0:57.9	but the opportunity to talk to the filmmakers.
1:02.2	Of course, being Fantasia, there is a ton of great Asian films available.
1:08.8	It's right in the name, folks, Fantasia. That's because it really
1:12.4	relies on great Asian cinema. And this year is no exception. There is a animated version now of
1:20.4	all you need is kill, which most people will know as Edge of Tomorrow, which was actually
1:26.1	based upon a relatively short book, if not a short story.
1:31.5	And there is now an anime of that that is going to be playing at the festival.
1:36.5	They're also bringing back, speaking of anime, a restored version of Angels Egg, which I haven't seen yet, but that's one movie I've been wanting to see.
1:47.1	We talked about Belladonna of Sadness a few years ago on the show.
1:50.9	Angel's Egg is one of those films like Belladonna of Sadness that's just kind of
1:55.2	lifted up as being a really beautiful anime film.
2:00.5	And from everything of the film I've seen,
2:03.5	it seems like a very correct approach to that.
2:08.1	That's also the thing is I don't tend to get excited about films that I haven't seen yet
2:14.2	because I don't have that much information. And also, I don't want that much
	...

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