Movies - Fantasia Festival

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Fantasia Festival

	Movies - Fantasia Festival

Fantasia Festival (Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, Fant-Asia) is North America's premiere genre film festival. It usually takes place in the month of July, in the city of Montreal. It is a place where distributors come to pick up genre films from around the world for North American release, and where fans come from all over North America to see films that normally would not even be screened on the Art House or repetory circuit for fear of low turnout.

Fantasia started in 1995 primarily screening asian films from Hong Kong and Japan, with Japanese anime as well. In the first years, many of the films were classics, with some from the current crop. As time went on, and the classics were exhausted, the festival expanded its focus to bring in fantastic film from around the world, not just East Asia. Fantasia has featured many North American premiers and some world premieres. There have also been films screened in pre-final-cut condition, just to be there, find distributors, or build buzz.

The festival started in the old Imperial Theatre, a grand old theatre with full balcony and backstage areas. The festival for a time also used the cinemas at Ex-Centris. When in 2002, the theatre was unexpectedly late on renovation and repairs, the festival had to be cancelled, and the next year moved to Concordia University's screening rooms.

A spinoff festival in Toronto was tried, using the Bloor street theatre, but in the end, the endeavour failed due to time constraints and planning issues.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Fantasia Festival ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Fantasia Festival; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay