Fantasia International Film Fest launches genre filmmaking support program |

The Fantasia International Film Festival is taking things up a notch for its 16th edition in 2012, embarking on a new venture that will contribute to the future of cutting-edge genre filmmaking: Frontières, the Fantasia International Co-Production Market. Frontières 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.

The event will curate 12 standout projects by filmmakers from Canada, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States. The 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 is establishing the first international co-production market to connect Canada with Europe, Scandinavia, Australia and the United States, in an environment focused specifically on genre films. Only two other co-production markets are specialize 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.

Frontières will be held from July 26-29, 2012, during the Fantasia Festival. Over the course of 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, select 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, with a late deadline of March 5, 2012. Selected projects will be announced in early May 2012. Directors wishing to apply to the market should consult the application guidelines RIGHT HERE.

The Fantasia International Film Festival will be held from July 19 to August 7, 2012.