The best new genre films from Fan­ta­sia Film Fes­ti­val 2018

Every year the Fan­ta­sia Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val in Mon­tréal offers a sneak-peak at the best and bright­est upcom­ing genre cin­e­ma. From micro-cin­e­ma to mega-block­busters, the fes­ti­val runs over 20 days and fea­tures 125 fea­tures and 220 shorts. A mas­ter­class in cura­tion and organ­i­sa­tion, the fes­ti­val is a marathon that some­how leaves you hun­gry for more.

This year’s edi­tion was par­tic­u­lar­ly strong in fea­tur­ing a care­ful blend of genre-bend­ing auteur cin­e­ma and more con­ven­tion­al genre out­ings. While there were many famil­iar names in the line­up – Takashi Miike, Sion Sono, Joe Dante – many of the bright­est dis­cov­er­ies were from new­com­ers and emerg­ing film­mak­ers. Here’s a quick look at some of our high­lights, an amuse-bouche of great cin­e­ma that genre fans can look for­ward to over the com­ing months.

Recent­ly picked up by Net­flix for dis­tri­b­u­tion, Cam is a rev­e­la­tion. In their fea­ture debut, direc­tor Daniel Gold­haber and screen­writer/­co-author Isa Mazzei, Alice (a fan­tas­tic Made­line Brew­er), a cam­girl, is con­front­ed with the ghost in the machine when it seems as if an imposter has tak­en over her account. This year’s Fan­ta­sia fea­tured a num­ber of films that inves­ti­gate the hor­ror of our tech­no­log­i­cal lives, each approach­ing the screen expe­ri­ence from dif­fer­ent points of view.

Cam suc­ceeds in part because of its bal­anc­ing of dif­fer­ent points of view, in par­tic­u­lar as Alice con­structs her campy and erot­ic screen image for her ador­ing pub­lic. A sin­cere­ly fan­tas­tic por­tray­al of sex work, Cam is vis­cer­al, polit­i­cal and innovative.

While it has yet to secure dis­tri­b­u­tion, Timur Bekmambetov’s Pro­file is the best effort in the recent string of desk­top films termed ​‘screen­life’. An adap­ta­tion of a mem­oir by a French jour­nal­ist who used Skype to inves­ti­gate West­ern bride recruit­ment for ISIS, the film is a moral inves­ti­ga­tion of mod­ern life. More so than oth­er screen­life films such as Unfriend­ed and Search­ing, it utilis­es the desk­top as an expres­sion of char­ac­ter and ten­sion to dev­as­tat­ing effects.

As the line between real and online life becomes increas­ing­ly blurred, the inti­ma­cy of Pro­file is uncom­fort­able and con­fronta­tion­al. At times down­right avant-garde, its use of frames with­in the wider pic­ture is star­tling and exper­i­men­tal, chal­leng­ing pre­con­ceived tropes of visu­al style and screen space. One of the all-time great por­traits of jour­nal­ism I’ve ever seen on screen.

For those unfa­mil­iar with the work of Joel Potrykus, he can be best described as the slack­er king of Amer­i­can indie cin­e­ma. Relax­er is his most ambi­tious project yet and is basi­cal­ly The Exter­mi­nat­ing Angel meets The Big Lebows­ki, with a healthy dose of Pac Man. Set before Y2K, Abbie (Joshua Burge) is chal­lenged by his old­er bul­ly broth­er to not leave their couch until he beats the unbeat­able lev­el 256 on Pac-Man.

Burge, long-time Potrykus col­lab­o­ra­tor gives the per­for­mance of a life­time in a sur­vival dra­ma more har­row­ing than The Revenant. An absur­dist com­e­dy brim­ming with plas­tic pop cul­ture and dime-store deca­dence, Relax­er is a holy text for Amer­i­can low-cul­ture enthusiasts.

Since it had its world pre­miere in Toron­to last year, Bod­ied has been mak­ing the fes­ti­val rounds and accru­ing enthu­si­as­tic but guard­ed raves in its wake. Joseph Kahn, whose pre­vi­ous fea­tures Torque and Deten­tion have entered the con­tem­po­rary cult-pan­theon, self-fund­ed this bat­tle rap musi­cal the­sis which tack­les race, cen­sor­ship and iden­ti­ty in Amer­i­ca. Focused on a white pro­gres­sive stu­dent who inad­ver­tent­ly becomes a rap star as he dis­cov­ers the more out­landish, per­son­al and racist he takes his rhymes, the more the crowd goes wild.

Kahn takes down just about every­one in this film, but takes par­tic­u­lar aim at reac­tionary PC cul­ture. Out­landish, hyper­ac­tive and con­fronta­tion­al, the film thrives in a zone of ten­sion that cir­cum­vents out­right cringe only because it’s ridicu­lous­ly fun­ny. The final act, which avoids easy inter­pre­ta­tion and moral­i­ty as a rule, forces the audi­ence to reck­on with the ambi­gu­i­ties of liv­ing, work­ing and com­mu­ni­cat­ing in a diverse social cul­ture, as the film posi­tions overt sen­si­tiv­i­ty and out­rage as new tools to avoid dif­fi­cult cul­tur­al conversations.

Orig­i­nal­ly cre­at­ed as a web series, Bap­tiste Gaubert and Jérémie Hoarau’s Cri­sis Jung is a testos­terone-fuelled hero’s jour­ney blend­ing Jun­gian ther­a­py and ​’80s pop imagery. After his lover is torn to pieces, her head used as a fig­ure­head on some primeval pyra­mid, Jung trans­forms into a love­less force of nature as he quests to avenge his love by con­fronting the enor­mous, fire-shit­ting behe­moth Lit­tle Jesus, a Gre­cian Titan of blood and shit.

As each chap­ter runs through lessons such as com­pas­sion and char­i­ty, the tit­u­lar Jung defeats a series of increas­ing­ly per­verse video-game style boss­es, that chal­lenge him to be a bet­ter man. Mix­ing the obscene with ele­ments of clas­sic lit­er­a­ture, Cri­sis Jung is an over­stim­u­lat­ing decon­struc­tion of iden­ti­ty, desire and hero­ism that will leave you breathless.

Over the years Fan­ta­sia has fea­tured a num­ber of ground­break­ing doc­u­men­taries and this year it was the turn of People’s Repub­lic of Desire. Direct­ed by Hao Wu, the film explores the livestream cul­ture of Chi­na and its trag­ic con­se­quences for view­ers and users alike. The film uses inno­v­a­tive visu­al effects to artic­u­late the inner work­ings of the sys­tem, which relies on dif­fer­ent tiers of fans, patrons and com­pa­nies to bol­ster par­tic­u­lar media stars popularity.

One of the most dis­heart­en­ing films of the year, it por­trays a new wave of online celebri­ties who are expect­ed to present an aspi­ra­tional front to the world, as they often strug­gle with debt and per­son­al bills. The women espe­cial­ly are held to unat­tain­able stan­dards, where a rumour can see their small empire crash­ing down from one day to the next. As we live more of our social lives online, the People’s Repub­lic of Desire is a dystopi­an vision of a lone­ly and des­per­ate future.

For more on this year’s fes­ti­val vis­it fan​tasi​afes​ti​val​.com