The good news keeps coming for Montreal cult collective RKSS.

Fresh from their successful closing of Fantasia Film Festival 2023 with “We Are Zombies” which won Gold Audience Award and Best Quebec feature, they will be premiering “Wake Up” at this year’s Fantastic Fest.

“Wake Up” comes from the team who gave us the “Rec” franchise. And RKSS were fortunate to be brought in to helm the new film.

“We Are Zombies” will also be presented at Fantastic Fest.

This means RKSS will have two films in the official selection of the world renowned genre festival.

Congratulations to Productions 1976’s Nicolas Comeau, director-writer Raymond St-Jean and Woolf+ Lapin’s Martin Girard!

Telefilm Canada announces production funding for seven French-language feature films
09 August 2023

Telefilm Canada announces seven French-language feature film titles receiving funding under the Production Program (second round of decisions in the big budget stream), for a total of $3.8 million.

Deux femmes en or (comedy)
Director: Chloé Robichaud
Screenwriter: Catherine Léger
Production: Vieille Amérique Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers
*coproduction Canada/France

Kaboul Montréal (drama)
Director: Bachir Bensaddek
Screenwriter: Marie Vien
Production: Caramel Film Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers

Le train (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Marie Brassard
Production: Microclimat Films Inc.
Distribution: Axia Films

Nervures (horror)
Director: Raymond St-Jean
Screenwriters: Martin Girard and Raymond St-Jean
Production: 1976 Productions Inc.
Distribution: Axia Films

Cap Farewell (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Vanja d’Alcantara
Production: Corporation de développement et de production ACPAV Inc.
Distribution: Maison4tiers
*coproduction Belgium/Canada/Netherlands

L’héritier des secrets (drama)
Director: Mohamed Nadif
Screenwriters: Mohamed Nadif and Olivier Coussemacq
Production: Objectif 9 Inc.
Distribution: Filmoption International
*coproduction Morocco/Canada

Ma mère, Dieu et Sylvie Vartan (drama)
Director and screenwriter: Ken Scott
Production: 9492-2663 Québec Inc (Christal Films Productions Inc.)
Distribution: Opale Films
*coproduction France/Canada

The stars at Fantasia are its genre auteurs, such as this year cult Canadian collective RKSS which closes the festival with “We Are Zombies,” starring Megan Peta Hill, Alexandre Nachi and Derek Johns.

They are also conducting a masterclass at the festival.

Congrats RKSS!

Fantasia Film Festival runs July 20 to Aug. 9.

Also unspooling from July 26-29 within the Fantasia International Film Festival is the large Frontières industry forum, packed with the presentation of genre projects, led by their directors and producers with little cast attached.

Congrats to Robert on his first feature, which had a very successful premiere at Karlovy in early July 2023, where the Czeck director was awestruck by the two standing ovations.

Variety’s Guy Lodge opines “director Robert Hloz’s whopper of a calling-card debut may offer a more credibly subdued, budget-constrained visual of the mid-21st century than the lavishly built “Blade Runner 2049” — unless we’re in for a drastic design (r)evolution over the course of the 2040s — but its ideas are sky-high in concept. Robert Hloz shows Hollywood-level chops in a resourceful, niftily plotted vision of a near future where human life can’t always be saved, but it can be rebooted.”

Screen Daily calls it a “stylish, high-concept self-contained piece of storytelling.”

Following its home premiere in Karlovy Vary’s Special Screenings section, it will make its North American debut at the genre-specific Fantasia Festival.

Meredith Hambrock’s latest novel, Other People’s Secrets, got her nominated for this Las Vegas writing residency during which she will be working on her next literary mystery novel, Woman Found Floating, about the crew on a superyacht and all that unfolds when they rescue a mysterious woman they find floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.