I ran up the steps in the Hall Building, hurrying from the basement where I’d just seen Geek Girls in the D.B. Clarke Theatre to reach the big Hall Auditorium in time to catch my second film of the day. The doors of the auditorium were still open, and I raced in and found a seat just as the movie began. It was called Mumon: The Land of Stealth (Shinobi no kuni), and I settled in knowing I had two…
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The Fantasia International Film Festival is one of the largest genre film festivals in North America, typically drawing more than 100,000 viewers each year. Fantasia plays movies from around the world, across any number of genres: fantasy, science-fiction, horror, crime, western, and many more. Matthew David Surridge has covered the festival for us each year from 2014 on. Below is a list of Black Gate’s reviews from Fantasia: Fantasia 2021 Introduction and preview for Fantasia 2021 Beyond The Infinite Two…
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With another year’s worth of Fantasia reviews now finished, I thought I’d take the time once again to look back at what I saw and write a general overview of the films as a whole. Doing so this year, though, leads to thoughts about film on a slightly larger scale than just Fantasia alone. I saw a bit more than fifty movies this year at Fantasia. That includes films from a range of genres, but I want to write here…
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The body has a memory, memory activated by the time of year and the weather and the repetition of physical activity. Every year now as summer passes its midpoint, walking through Montreal evokes for me a sense of wonder and anticipation: a physical remembrance of the Fantasia International Film Festival. I’ve covered Montreal’s genre film festival for Black Gate the last three years, walking downtown during the days of the festival and then walking back at night marveling at the…
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