Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival Unveils ‘Bookworm’ Starring Elijah Wood as Opening Film, Plus Second Wave of Titles (EXCLUSIVE)
06.06.2024 - 14:59
/ variety.com
Lexi Carson Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival has unveiled its second wave of titles, which includes Ant Timpson’s “Bookworm” as the opening night film. This year’s edition, the 28th for the festival, will run from July 18 to August 4.
More titles will be announced July 3. Other films included in the line-up are “The Beast Within” starring Kit Harington (“Game of Thrones”), which follows a young girl as she starts to question her atypical life in her family’s compound in England, and makes a shocking discovering about her dad; and “Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain,” with director Kenji Nakamura reviving the thrills of the original anime.
“Bookworm” stars Elijah Wood (“Yellowjackets”) and Nell Fisher (“Evil Dead Rise”). The official logline reads, “Mildred (Fisher), a precocious eleven-year-old bookworm, escapes her humdrum existence by immersing herself in novels where literary adventures abound, with a long-dreamed quest to capture proof of a mythological beast known as The Canterbury Panther.
When an unusual accident occurs, Mildred’s long absent father Strawn Wise (Wood), a washed-up illusionist, flies to New Zealand to look after a daughter he’s never met. When they agree to go camping despite neither being the outdoorsy type, this ultimate test in family bonding leads the duo on a string of increasingly absurd and treacherous adventures.” The Canadian Trailblazer Award will be awarded to filmmaker Vincenzo Natali, whose 1997 debut “Cube” has grown into a cult favorite over the years.
See the full list of films announced below. SECOND WAVE OF TITLES “100 Yards,” (Xu Haofeng and Xu Junfeng, China) “Azrael,” (E.L Katz, U.S.) “Brave Citizen,” (Park Jin-pyo, South Korea) “Brush of the God,”
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