Editor

The 16th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival has drawn to a close and our team is delighted by the great success of this year’s edition. The juries have finished deliberating on this year’s competitions and are pleased to announce the following winners:
 
Feature Film Jury
President: Gabriel Pelletier, with Jay Baruchel, Sylvain Krief and Maggie Lee.
 
Cheval Noir Award for Best Film: DOOMSDAY BOOK by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung
The film impressed the jury by the intelligence and originality it displayed in its efforts to imagine the near future and its impending doom through a collection of short films, all the while displaying mastery in every artistic aspects of the production.
 
Best Director: Jason Banker, TOAD ROAD
Best Screenplay: Alberto Marini, SLEEP TIGHT
Best Actor: James Davidson, TOAD ROAD
Best Actress: Majiana Jankovic, BEAST
 
Special Mention: AnnaLynne McCord, EXCISION
With her fearless performance in Excision, AnnaLynne McCord has created something beautiful, horrifying and altogether truthful. Her staggering work is a thesis statement on acting and a gift to the audience.
 
First Feature Jury
President: Jorge Michel Grau, with Michael Biehn, Travis Crawford, Anne Delseth, Jeff Deutchman and Sonya Kim.
 
New Flesh Award for Best First Feature: CRAVE by Charles de Lauzirika
This impressive debut captivated the jury with its remarkable production value. Its efficient storytelling and intelligent internal dialogue, generously embracing the author’s personality, provided a riveting portrait of a road to madness.
 
Special Mention: THE KING OF PIGS by Yeon Sang-ho
The jury wanted to highlight this rewardingly intense, merciless and grueling look at bullying and violence, that provides a powerful message that’s still sadly relevant today, in any culture.
 
Animation Jury
President: Robert Morgan, with Patrick Doyon and Érik Goulet
 
Satoshi Kon Award for Achievement in Animation: THE KING OF PIGS by Yeon Sang-ho
For its shocking and haunting narrative, finely tuned screenplay and confident visual style, punctuated with acidic hallucinatory visions. A distinctive and powerful vision of school-as-hell, and its devastating effects on later life.
 
Best Animated Short Film: IT’S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY by Don Hertzfeldt
For its perfect marriage of form and content - An amazing trip of a film that creatively uses animation to explore memory, mortality and all of those little fears about our lives that sneak up in the early hours of the morning when we can’t sleep.
 
Special Award for Technical Accomplishment: BYDLO by Patrick Bouchard
 
International Short Film Jury
President: Samuel Archibald, with Ant Timpson and Marc Walkow
 
Best International Short: VIDEOBOY by Stian Kristiansen
A touching yet disturbing coming-of-age story, beautifully shot and superbly cast, that makes homage to horror films of the ‘80s and captures that era with great accuracy.
 
Special Mention: LEYENDA by Pau Teixidor
A classic fairy-tale-gone-real that goes into great extremes of both realism and onirism, superbly photographed and edited, and boasting impressive performances by the young actresses.