News

Brazilian writer-director Rafael Toledo’s horror western “Shallow Hell” has won the PurpleDOG Official Selection Award and the Outpost Mtl Award at the Fantasia Festival’s prestigious Frontières Co-Production Market, which handed out seven awards at a closing cocktail July 25.

At the event, Toledo told Variety the response from industry delegates in his back-to-back one-on-one meetings during the market has been encouraging. “People are seeing the universal elements in the story,” he said. “This is my first experience of a genre market, and it’s been amazing.”

Montreal writer-director Anouk Whissell’s ‘Holi Womb’ also picked up two awards, including the Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival of Catalunya Award, which gives the recipient an opportunity to pitch their project at the prestigious event next October, and an Outpost Mtl Special Mention Award.

More than 300 delegates from 25 countries attended the market, including team members of projects in its official selection, Genre Lab,...

News today from Variety is that Mongrel Media have boarded Anouk Whissell's psychological horror, Holi Womb, for Canadian distribution. The news comes ahead of the project’s bow at the opening pitch session at Frontières on July 23rd. Holi Womb unfolds at a holistic retreat in Poland for single mothers-to-be, where pregnant Grace starts experiencing distressing hallucinations and noticing the strange behavior of the staff. Anouk's brother, Yoann-Karl Whissell (Whissell Films), also part of Rkss, is on board as a producer. Maja Jacob (Maja Jacob Films) and Benoit Beaulieu (Slykid) join them. Marc Lapointe serves as executive producer. “With ‘Turbo Kid’ and ‘Summer of 84,’ Anouk showed she could play in genre with wit and precision,” Mongrel Media co-president Andrew Frank told Variety. “‘Holi...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Psychological horror project “Holi Womb,” from Montreal writer-director Anouk Whissell, famed for her part in collective Rkss (“Turbo Kid”), has been picked up by Mongrel Media for Canadian distribution. The acquisition comes ahead of the project’s bow at the opening pitch session on July 23, of the Fantasia International Film Festival’s Frontières Co-Production Market.

“With ‘Turbo Kid’ and ‘Summer of 84,’ Anouk showed she could play in genre with wit and precision,” Mongrel Media co-president Andrew Frank told Variety. “‘Holi Womb’ is a bold leap – a fierce, unapologetically feminist vision that reclaims body horror with brains, blood and beauty.”

The second feature collaboration of Whissell and New Brunswick-based producer Maja Jacob, “Holi” unfolds at a holistic retreat in Poland for single mothers-to-be, where pregnant Grace starts experiencing distressing hallucinations and noticing the strange behavior of the staff.

The project, which has secured development funding from Telefilm Canada, was conceived...

Exclusive: Organisers at Frontières Co-Production Market have received a record 180-plus project submissions for the upcoming 2025 edition in Montreal (July 23-26) that runs in conjunction with Fantasia International Film Festival (July 16-August 3).

The four-day event brings new projects from around the world led by a healthy Canadian contingent that includes Karl Lemieux’s supernatural horror Le Majestic from Metafilms, whose Peak Everything premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight last month; Anouk Whissell’s psychological horror Holi Womb, about a spa with a horrifying past; and Austin Birtch’s creature feature Mystery Of The Mothman,centred on a Vietnam veteran caught up in a conspiracy.

Vertical has acquired U.S. rights to fantasy thriller The Lost Daughter, a gothic mystery directed by Emmy winner Austin Andrews and Andrew Holmes, marking the writer-director duo’s second feature film. The film is slated for release in early 2025 in select theaters.

Based on Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie’s dark fantasy Mary Rose, the film stars Paloma Kwiatkowski (Riot Girls), David Mazouz (Gotham) and Camille Sullivan (Hunter Hunter), with Golden Globe nominee Adam Beach (The Power of the Dog) and Donal Logue (Zodiac).

Kwiatkowski plays Lily, a young woman drawn by a haunting melody to a remote tidal island. When she returns to the mainland at the next low tide, 25 years have mysteriously passed.

As Lily reunites with her estranged son Jared (Mazouz), who harbors his own ties to the island, she uncovers terrifying secrets and discovers that escaping the island’s grasp could come at a devastating cost.

The Canadian film In God I Trust by director Maja Zdanowski has been disinvited by the Beijing Film Festival from its 2019 event next month amid a growing diplomatic feud between the U.S. and China over the Chinese mobile phone maker Huawei Technologies. 

Toronto-based Zdanowski told The Hollywood Reporter she received an official invitation March 25 for her film to screen in competition in Beijing. "It's a great pleasure to inform you the excellent film In God I Trust is selected by the committee of the Beijing International Film Festival to screen in Forward Future Section and ...

The Canadian film In God I Trust by director Maja Zdanowski has been disinvited by the Beijing Film Festival from its 2019 event next month amid a growing diplomatic feud between the U.S. and China over the Chinese mobile phone maker Huawei Technologies. 

Toronto-based Zdanowski told The Hollywood Reporter she received an official invitation March 25 for her film to screen in competition in Beijing. "It's a great pleasure to inform you the excellent film In God I Trust is selected by the committee of the Beijing International Film Festival to screen in Forward Future Section and ...