Collective Delusions

Fantasia’s showcase of the best the Underground section has to offer, Collective Delusions examines the strange, bewildering landscape of films made on the outskirts of normality and tradition. This year’s selection will take you on a wild ride that features vengeful Jack-o'-lanterns, canine dreams, and ominous ball-pits.

In Trent Shy’s lo-fi revenge flick PUMPKIN BOY, bored kids in the American suburbs wreck havoc against the neighbourhood pumpkins until a Jack-o'-lantern has enough and is ready to fight back. In Aelfie Oudghir’s BOWLING 4 EVA, a dark comedy about mental illness featuring delicious early Internet aesthetics, Kristina is an over-medicated teenage girl who spends her days trolling online and bowling with her grandfather. The world is burning in SKIN, Cyrus Gainer’s queer post-apocalyptic sci-fi horror about Kai, who uses an online dating device that simulates touch, as they search for love and intimacy at the end of the world. Local directors Kelly Kay Hurcomb and James Watts pay homage to indie sleaze with MESSY LEGEND, a dark and hilarious portrait of an unstable and ageing party girl who hits the streets of Montreal for one last night of drunken debauchery. In their dreamy experimental short, director David Cuevas lulls the audience in a space of self-reflection with AVULSION, a film secretly shot during the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Daniel Howard-Baker’s BALL-PIT. WEDNESDAY. LEMONADE. is a surreal, whimsical film, shot on digital and VHS, about the past and future colliding as a young boy is sucked into an alternate dimension and greets his older self. In the wordless ENGRAM, director Keaton Smith crafts a visceral cinematic ride as a dog experiences auditory hallucinations of his master after coming in contact with an alien entity. In the Brazilian queer fantasy, DOLLHOUSE, director George Pedrosa brings to life the three prophets of pink which seduce with glistening bodies and dark desires. In BITCHES KILL BITCHES, Hannah Panov’s pink-toned campy horror music comedy, channels adolescent angst into a musical tale of dreamy feminine revenge. With SUCCESSFUL MAN, director Jeremy Duncan crafts a clever and existential comedy about a man trapped in increasingly absurd stock-footage scenarios. In SLEEP LIMBO, Evan prepares for sleep in this musical comedy as he’s greeted by an unexpected visitor. – Justine Smith