Festivals - Fantasia 2021 : Documentaries from the edge adds a duo of deep-dive docs

By Mulder, 23 june 2021

Shamanic panic! Old legends and new myths, the genesis of memetic magick, and virtual pied pipers in docs from the edge mind-bending lineup 

Woodlands dark and days bewitched: a history of folk horror (Canadian Premiere)

Winner of the Midnighter Audience Award at SXSW, Kier-La Janisse’s Woodlands dark and days bewitched: a history of folk horror navigates through over 200 films and 50 interviewees, including Robert Eggers (The Witch), Alice Lowe (Prevenge), and Piers Haggard (Blood on satan’s claw). Starting with British cult classics of the 70s, then travelling to all continents and beyond, and landing in our era alongside the films of Ari Aster and others. A groundbreaking, extensively researched work made over a span of many years, truly no stone is left unturned in this definitive documentary on the expansive genre of folk horror. 

You can’t kill meme (World Premiere)

“How do we make sense of things when we collapse the infinite fidelity of information down into pithy sentences laid over ominous imagery ?” asks filmmaker Hayley Garrigus, who, over the course of three years, from L.A. to the Nevada desert, took a deep dive into the many layers of our precarious belief system. In her debut “anti-documentary” Garrigus pushes the envelope, both stylistically and narratively, as she meets a multitude of enigmatic characters— pied pipers of the web, alt-right trolls, and “lightworkers”— who all believe themselves the new prophets of our time. You can’t kill meme is a pertinent depiction of humanity as we are forming new unstable myths. 

The 25th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival will be presented by Videotron in collaboration with Desjardins, and will be made possible thanks to the financial assistance of the Government of Quebec, SODEC, Telefilm Canada, the City of Montreal, the Conseil des arts of Montreal and Tourisme Montréal. A final wave of Fantasia 2021 titles will be announced in late July, with ticket sales commencing shortly afterwards.

For more information, visit us on the web at www.fantasiafestival.com

(Source : press release)