Perilous Ports: Tours of Northern Terrors 2023

Zombies, aliens, and platypuses — we have it all! The inaugural edition of Fantasia’s celebration of Canadian short-form genre cinema, PERILOUS PORTS: TOURS OF NORTHERN TERRORS, brings you the most exciting short films this nation has to offer! Canadian genre cinema boasts a rich lineage of exceptional storytellers, crafting narratives that push boundaries and challenge conventions. From Cronenberg to Barnaby, Harron to Villeneuve, genre films have often been our most sought-after cinematic export. With this program, you will discover filmmakers that will one day be added to this list, as each film contains unique visions and is on the cutting edge of what the short form is capable of!

Coming to terms with their dissociative identity disorder diagnosis, Kitoko Mai takes us through their different alters and how they help them cope with past trauma in Nicole Bazuin’s THRIVING: A DISSOCIATED REVERIE. In Ingrid Haas’s THE PINK, writer and mom-to-be Riley has a chance to join the “boss babe” culture. When she meets Star, she’s reassured that there’s no catch, but can Riley really trust this too-good-to-be-true situation? Hungry for power within the Bevlon community, Sofi throws a killer recruitment party. However, things take a turn when blood stains the fluffy pink carpet in Kassy Gascho’s #BOSSBABE. After getting dropped from a writers' festival for making controversial statements, an out-of-touch novelist must accept that he has become a living fossil in Joseph Carney’s METAMORPHYPUS.

In Michèle Kaye’s 3PM THURSDAYS, Being the perfect fantasy at a dive bar can lead to unexpected horrors, but for who? In Zachary Bennett’s T-BONE, a couple reminisces about their relationship, but the gulf between them may not be “insurmountable.” Through the dark streets of Paris, danger lurks in a surreal war in Sid Santiago Zanforlin’s BLACK PARIS. When personalities clash at the office, it’s not just politics at play, in Lu Asfaha’s SIGHT. Dreadlord crash lands into a comic-book convention on Earth in a race to become the leader of the world in Kate Kroll’s CONQUEST. In Abby Falvo’s *666, a summoning takes on a new meaning with one creepy phone call! After being glued into his Halloween costume by a couple of bullies, Colin Carvey must convince the townspeople that he is not the monster he has been made out to be in Aaron Peacock’s COLIN CARVEY’S LONG HALLOWEEN. An emotionally stunted son and narcissistic mother teeter on the edge of sanity when an unexpected visitor awakens dark urges within the son in Sasha Argirov’s NURTURE. After getting rejected from film festivals, a filmmaker reconstructs his film into a magical-realist meditation on generational trauma in Sean Wainsteim’s DEMON BOX. – Carolyn Mauricette