Fantasia Film Fest announces third and final wave of programming, including Her Private Hell, starring Sophie Thatcher
- Brian Fanelli
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
The Fantasia Film Festival has announced its third and final wave of programming. The festival's 30th edition will run from July 16-August 2, 2026 and returns to the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screenings and events at Montréal’s Cinéma du Musée. The festival's website now has the complete lineup of over 125 features and 200 shorts available to be explored. Ticket pre-sales are now open and available.
Her Private Hell, starring Sophie Thatcher, will have its Canadian premiere at the festival, and it's been chosen as the opening night film. Directed by Nicolas Winding, the movie is set in a fog-basked, futuristic city, and it's described as "a hallucinatory fairy tale death trip," as well as a "deeply personal and obsessive" film that explores memory and mortality through the influences of Neo Noir and Giallo. Besides Thatcher, the movie also stars Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Kristine Froseth, and Dougray Scott. Winding will also be honored with the Cheval Noir Achievement Award.
Freaks Part II, directed by Canadian filmmakers Zach Lipvosky and Adam Stein (Final Destination: Bloodlines), will be the closing night film. The synopsis reads: several years after a traumatic escape, we meet Mary (Amanda Crew), and her daughter Chloe (Lorelei Olivia Mote), as they live on the road and hide their powers and identities. The mother and daughter duo are hunted by the Abnormal Defense Force, paramilitary police that exterminate "freaks" like Mary and Chloe. Driven by revenge, Mary is determined to find the ADF officer who killed her first child.
Other third wave Fantasia highlights include a Takashi Shimuzi tribute
This year, Fantasia will celebrate J-horror maestro Takashi Shimuzi with the premiere of two new films. The first film is titled Village of Eight Gravestones. The synopsis reads that after the death of his mother, young Tatusya visits the rural village where she lived. During his travels, he encounters private detective Kosuke Kindaichi, who's been searching for him at the behest of the Tajimi clan, a family with a dark past. Tatsuya's grandfather once committed a gruesome massacre that scarred the villages, and because of this, they're hostile towards Tatsuya and his family. The movie is also described as folk-horror and a bloody horror thriller.
The other new Shimuzi film set to premiere at Fantasia is The Mouths. The description reads that a rumor circulates about a cursed tree standing in the center of an apparently haunted cemetery. A group of university students tempt fate by visiting the spot in the middle of the night. This doesn't go well for the group, and their adventure transforms into a waking nightmare, with ghostly figures. The film is adapted from the novella A Questionnaire about the Mouth by Sesuji. Additionally, Shimuzi will be honored with the Cheval Noir Career Achievement Award.
Other films included in the third wave announcement are the Belgium feature Attack on Paradise, which is described in the press release as "one of the most pulverizing action films in ages," Grotesqqque, an animated film from Atsushi Nishigori, the crime caper Permanent Damage, the werewolf movie When You Open the Door, and plenty more.
For a full list of the films playing at Fantasia's 30th edition, and to preorder tickets, visit the festival's website.
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