To the delight of film lovers in Montreal you cannot swing a cat without hitting a film festival.  They come back to back to back.  Due to the heavy competition festivals have had to step up their game not to be lost in the shuffle.  Fantasia has done that in spades.  It has and always will be a festival that caters to film goers who enjoy their entertainment to be a little bit left of center.  But in the past couple of years they have also made a place for themselves with the Hollywood film industry.  Films like Inglorious Basterds and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice have made their debuts at Fantasia.  This year again they made room for the small films as well as the large.

Films that will get multiplex releases like Kevin Smith’s Red State, Guillermo Del Toro’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and Steven Quale’s Final Destination 5 all had Canadian premieres at the festival.  Anticipated films like Mike Cahill’s Another Earth, Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block, Lee Tamahori’s The Devil’s Double, and Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Tree also screened.  Every film was well attended with screenings of films like Ironclad, Ip Man: The Legend is Born, The Troll Hunter, and Burke and Hare (amongst many others) were completely sold out.  The long line ups before almost each screening were a testament to how the programmers of this festival get it.

The 15th edition of Fantasia was a resounding success!  The fan base continues to grow with each passing edition.  Over the course of the festival this year over 100,000 tickets were sold.  Impressive!  And congratulations to the organizers.

Here is the list of this year’s award winning films:

Cheval Noir Award for Best Film:  Clown by Mikkel Norgaard

Best Director:  Yoshimasa Ishibashi for Milocrorze: A Love Story

Best Screenplay:  Park Hoon-jung for The Unjust

Best Actors:  Hwang Jeong-min and Ryoo Seung-beom for The Unjust

Best Actress:  Norie Yasui for Love & Loathing & Lulu & Ayano

Best Flesh Award for Best First Feature:  Bullhead by Michaël R. Roskam

Best Animation Feature Film:  Surviving Life

Best Animated Short Film:  Bobby Yeah

Best International Short:  The Suicide Tapes

AQCC Prize:  (tie) Super and Superheroes

Sequences Prize:  Heaven’s Story

L’Ecran Fantastique Prize:  Detention

Audience Awards:

Best Asian Feature:  (tie)  13 Assassins and Cold Fish

Best American or European Feature:  Attack the Block

Best Canadian or Quebecois Feature:  The Corridor

Best Animation Feature:  Redline

Best Documentary:  Art/Crime

Best Innovative Feature:  Milocrorze: A Love Story

Guru Prize for the Most Energetic Feature:  Bangkok Knockout

Best Short Film:  Legend of the Beaver Dam