Tributes

2024 Cheval Noir Career Award: Mike Flanagan

Sunday July 21, 5PM, Cinéma du Musée

For his imaginative and heartfelt horror visions, for his boundary-breaking achievements in making dark and soulful character-driven genre television commercially viable without compromises, for the extraordinary work he’s done in popularizing landmark authors to a new generation, Fantasia will be awarding our 2024 Cheval Noir career award to the great U.S. filmmaker Mike Flanagan.

He is an artist we’ve adored since his first visit here with the Canadian premiere of his haunting 2011 indie debut ABSENTIA, a foundational feature that contains all the core elements that have come to define the artist’s work: a unique perspective on occult possibilities, engrossing slow-burn storytelling approaches, inventively cinematic aesthetics and above all else, deeply compassionate horror narratives built on agonizingly personal themes of loss. These elements have been consistent throughout his career, regardless of whether the work is a standalone creation or an adaptation of classic literature.

While it may strike some as odd to be bestowing an achievement award to an artist who’s almost certainly not yet reached a mid-career place, Flanagan has been so extraordinarily prolific and consistently brilliant in his output that he’s already accomplished several lifetimes of creation. Beyond being one of the most inspired storytelling voices of his generation, Mike Flanagan is a bona fide, culture-shifting master of horror.

2024 Canadian Trailblazer Award: Vincenzo Natali

Tuesday, July 30, Cinema J.A. DeSeve

Fantasia will bestow our 2024 Canadian Trailblazer Award to visionary filmmaker Vincenzo Natali, whose landmark 1997 debut CUBE blew open the doors on what became a new wave of individual and provocative Canuck genre works (including John Fawcett’s GINGER SNAPS, Jen and Sylvia Soska’s AMERICAN MARY, and countless more). Natali went on to make the equally idiosyncratic science-fiction films CYPHER and NOTHING. He’s had his biggest hit to date with the brilliant sci-fi/horror creation SPLICE; helmed the intriguing ghost story HAUNTER, and the nightmarish Netflix Original IN THE TALL GRASS, based on the novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill; and has since been busy on blockbuster series like NBC’s HANNIBAL, FX’s THE STRAIN, HBO’s WESTWORLD, BBC America & Bell Media’s ORPHAN BLACK, Starz’s AMERICAN GODS, and Netflix’s LOCKE & KEY, HEMLOCK GROVE, LUKE CAGE and GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S CABINET OF CURIOSITIES.

Vincenzo Natali will receive Fantasia’s 2024 Canadian Trailblazer Award on Tuesday, July 30 before the World Premiere of the Canadian Film Centre’s new 4K restoration of CUBE. Joining us for the festivities with be one of the filmmaker’s key creative collaborators from across his career, actor David Hewlett.

Prix Denis-Héroux 2024 - Career Award: Érik Canuel

Monday July 22nd, 6 :30 PM , Théâtre J.A. de Sève

Throughout a highly productive career that has included numerous feature films, commercials, music videos and episodes of major television series, Érik Canuel has always been proud of his status as a genre director. The proof is that all his films reflect a particular genre: thriller, romantic comedy, crime drama, action comedy, period piece and black comedy. Érik Canuel was not only a director of genre films, he was a director of all genres. Like Jean-Claude Lord, Yves Simoneau, André Melançon and Roger Cantin, he was an artist who broke down doors to allow generations to enter the genre. He legitimised genre film in Quebec. The Festival is proud to present this award posthumously to Érik Canuel.

Prix Denis-Héroux 2024 : Career Award: Cinépix (John Dunning & André Link)

Sunday July 28th, 1 PM , Cinémathèque Québécoise

Genre cinema in Quebec and Canada is the legitimate offspring of these two producers and distributors, who believed in many artists, including David Cronenberg, Ivan Reitman, Denis Héroux, Claude Fournier and so many others. Cinépix is without a doubt the first commercial film studio in Canada, and it's worth comparing the work of Dunning & Link with that of American producer Roger Corman. The very first film produced by Cinépix, Denis Héroux's VALÉRIE, was to change the history of our national cinema, and signalled a social and sexual revolution as well as the end of the church's stranglehold on our cinematographic production. Their biggest commercial success - and the first real Canadian box-office success - was Ivan Reitman's MEATBALLS (1979). Fantasia is pleased to present this award to the two founders of Cinépix.

Prix Denis-Héroux 2024 - Career Award: André Forcier

Sunday August 4th, 6 :30 PM, Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (H-110)

Few directors can boast of having created a fantastic universe of rare consistency over more than 50 years. His work is firmly rooted in South American magic realism, with its elements of fantasy, and yet it is rooted in a very Quebec reality. He has transformed our distinct language into a filmic language that is sometimes crude but always poetic. André Forcier's work is unique and immense, and we are proud to present him with the Prix Denis-Héroux.