As if the Fantasia International Film Festival couldn’t get any bigger, the 2012 event, running July 19-August 7, 2012, will mark the debut of the Fantasia Film Market and the associated Frontières, Fantasia International Co-Production Market. From the official press release:
Gearing up for its 16th edition in 2012, the Fantasia International Film Festival is widely acclaimed as one of the largest and most influential genre film festivals in the world. Taking things up a notch, Fantasia is proud to embark on a new venture that will contribute to the future of cutting-edge genre filmmaking worldwide: Frontières, the Fantasia International Co-Production Market.
The event will be part of the Fantasia Film Market, which will make its official debut in 2012 to support the sales efforts for the features that will be part of Fantasia’s programming.
Frontières will curate 12 standout projects by filmmakers hailing from Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States. These projects will be presented to international producers, sales agents and distributors with the objective of creating working relationships that will allow these projects to see the light of day.
Fantasia innovates by establishing the very first international co-production market to connect Canada with Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States in an environment focused specifically on genre films. Indeed, only two other co-production markets are specialized in genre cinema: The Network of Asian Fantastic Films of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan), focusing on Asia, and the Baltic Event Film and Co-Production Market of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, focusing on Eastern-Europe, Scandinavia, the Balkans and Russia.
“Fantasia has always been tremendously popular with its local audience and we’ve happily seen its industry presence grow over the years. The launch of a film market is a natural step in the long-term vision we have for our event,” said Pierre Corbeil, President of the festival. “Over the years, we’ve established friendships with so many fascinating talents and key players in the international industry and have long felt that we should establish a way to better connect them. I can’t wait to see which projects take flight from this!” commented Mitch Davis, Festival Co-Director. “Frontières will further Fantasia’s position as one of the vanguard film festivals of the world by contributing to the development of new genre film works and the fostering of co-production relationships for Canada. Its possibilities are very exciting,” added Stephanie Trepanier, Market Director.
Frontières will be held from July 26 to 29, 2012, within the 3-week body of the Fantasia Festival. Over the course of these four days, various meeting sessions will be held and a series of conferences will be organized to assemble the participants around current industry topics.
To participate in the market, the selected projects will have to be market premieres and will need to be applicable to an international co-production environment where there would be a Canadian production element. The market is open to both seasoned directors and directors looking to produce their first feature film project.
The early-bird application deadline is January 9,2012. The late deadline is March 5, 2012. The selected projects will be announced in early May 2012. Directors wishing to apply to the market should consult the application guidelines at http://fantasiafestival.com/pre2012/en/film_market.
The Fantasia International Film Festival will be held from July 19 to August 7, 2012.
