Fantasia International Film Festival 2025 - Week 2

Doc’s Fantasia Fest Journal
Week 2: Features
The Fantasia International Film Festival runs until August 3rd

Get tickets HERE 

By “Doc” Hunter Bush, Staff Writer and Podcast Director

The Fantasia International Film Festival is always an amazing opportunity to sample films from around the world that might otherwise not be exhibited so prominently. Though there are exceptions--for instance Ari Aster’s latest film had its Canadian premier here on July 16th, and genre legend Takashi Miike is involved in three films at this year’s fest--most of the films here don’t have a built-in audience and generally lack the marquee names of Hollywood productions, but what they lack in mainstream recognizability, they more than make up for with creativity and unique filmmaking choices.

Below, I’ve chosen four films to highlight that I hope you’ll keep an eye out for in the future.

Transcending Dimensions
Written and directed by Toshiaki Toyoda

A mysterious disappearance, a finger-chopping cult, a hired killer, and a conch shell that opens the path to higher planes of existence all collide under the stylish direction of Toshiaki Toyoda as the film Transcending Dimensions. In a story where nothing and no one is exactly what it seems, or at least not for the reasons you might think, you’re forced to be patient and allow it to reveal its secrets around you. Transcending Dimensions feels like a Kiyoshi Kurosawa mystery with a dash of David Lynch, aided by a legitimately fantastic soundtrack (no lie; this flick turned me on to the amazing band Sons of Kemet) and some truly dazzling visuals. I can’t say I fully understood all of it, but I loved going along for the ride.

Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey (Kakukaku Shikajika)
Written by Date-san, Akiko Higashimura
Directed by Kazuaki Seki

Akiko Higashimura’s autobiographical manga series comes to the big screen as an emotionally engaging bit of melodrama that’s as much about the struggles of the creative process and issues of self-worth as it is about the Gruff Mentor cliché. Mei Nagano anchors the piece with a light but magnetic performance as Akiko and plays incredibly well off of the, at times, comedically hard-nosed painting instructor Hidaka, played by Yô Ôizumi who you’re as likely to know from his voice work as his live-action appearances. Somehow, despite never really throwing any huge curves my way, I was fully engrossed in this simple, sweet, personal story. Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey is one of the more purely heartwarming things I’ve seen at Fantasia this year.

Stuntman
Written by Anastasia Tsang, Oliver Yip
Directed by Albert Leung, Herbert Leung

I quite liked this debut feature from the Leung Bros., while I acknowledge that it’s a little messy. In that way, the experience of watching Stuntman is a lot like watching the stunts of the era that it holds in such high esteem: maybe not quite perfect, or painless, but impactful and decidedly real-feeling. Stuntman follows a once-renowned director and stunt coordinator, “Heartless” Sam Lee (Wei Tung) as he takes one last job which calls into stark relief his lifetime of issues both on-set and in his personal life. It is at times unpleasant to watch, not for any graphic or triggering reasons but because you want to like Sam and watching him torpedo his good will in ways that feel almost deliberate is just heartbreaking, but ultimately a fitting love letter to the gonzo stunts of the 1980s and the performers who embodied the “Hong Kong spirit”. Imagine Sammo Hung making The Wrestler (2008, dir. Darren Aronofsky) about stunts and you’ll have a decent idea of the sense of humor and character pathos this flick delivers alongside the stuntwork.

Rewrite
Written by Makoto Ueda, based on the novel by Haruka Hôjô
Directed by Daigo Matsui

One of the films I caught during the 2023 Fantasia Fest was River, which introduced me to writer Makoto Ueda’s interest in the “tiny loop” concept--he collaborated with director Junta Yamaguchi on two films exploring the idea of small scale time loop adventures, the aforementioned River, and Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (2020)--leading to Rewrite being very high on my Want To Watch list. Ueda, working this time with a new director and adapting someone else’s story, is still in the playground he seems to enjoy so much. One day in the school library, high schooler Miyuki (Elaiza Ikeda) discovers that new transfer student Yasuhiko (Kei Adachi) is actually from 300 years in the future! Over the next 20 days, as she shows him the sights of her era and finds out that he was drawn there after reading a young adult romance novel set at the time, they begin to fall awkwardly, tenderly in love and Miyuki vows to write the novel that he will one day find in the future: The Perfect Loop. But ten years later, on the day she expects a timey-wimey visit from her younger self, young Miyuki never shows. Now, with her high school reunion looming ever closer, Miyuki must figure out exactly what really happened in that halcyon summer all those years ago. Ueda’s familiarity with the tropes of time travel allows Rewrite to play in that space while focusing on telling an effective emotional story, one about personal growth, about being happy with what you have, and learning to accept the past.