Whether you enjoy discovering foreign films at festivals or catching the latest Hollywood blockbusters at your local Cineplex, Montreal has a wide range of film related events to keep cinephiles happy all summer.
With a plethora of festivals and events all across the city, one never has to worry about not having anything to do during a Montreal summer. Readers can expect in depth coverage from Forget the Box on the Jazz Fest, Infringement Festival, Folk Festival and much more. For all you cinephiles out there, Friday Film Review is happy to share some of the film related events happening in Montreal over the next few months.
First off, there’s Cinequanon Montreal. Cinequanon is a group that does free screenings every Friday in the Plateau. Look out for Friday Film Review’s review of the Cinequanon experience in the future. The group runs from now until the fall. You can check out their Facebook page.
While the official dates haven’t been announced yet, in July you can get your funny on with the 15th annual Just for Laughs Film Festival. The festival is a decent mix of Hollywood, local and indie features and shorts. This is also a good festival to check out if celeb spotting is your thing, as many come to town for Just for Laughs. The website hasn’t been updated for this year’s festival yet, but should be shortly.
The festival that this film critic is most looking forward to is the Fantasia Film Festival. Running from July 14th to August 7th, Fantasia is the premiere and largest genre festival in North America. One of the things that’s most exciting about attending film festivals is catching those films you know are never going to get a commercial theatrical release, and this festival is chock full of them. Also really worth checking out is Spectacular Optical, Fantasia’s year-round webzine, which has a lot of really interesting film related articles and interviews.
While Fantasia is a great way to discover unknown films, summer is also the time when some films get more exposure than any of us have the stomach for. While smaller films like the Ewan McGregor/Christopher Plummer drama Beginners, and the Steve Carrell/Ryan Gosling dramedy Crazy Stupid Love, will definitely be getting my money this summer, I can’t deny that I’ll also be amongst the crowds at Scotia Bank Cinema catching what is likely to be the biggest blockbuster of the summer: Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows Part 2. If comic book films are more your kind of thing, Ryan Reynolds is looking pretty sexy in his Green Lantern costume.
Finally, while I’m sadly off in Toronto while this is going on, I urge all of you in Montreal to check out the Montreal World Film Festival, taking place from August 18th-28th. From my experience attending in the past, the festival is a great way to catch the premiere of Quebec films, both in features and shorts. Whatever your preference for films though, the great thing about this city is that there’s always something to keep everybody entertained.
Fantasia photo from mcbastardsmausoleum.blogspot.com
