The 16th edition of Frontières’ International Co-Production Market will take place from July 24 to 27, at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Frontières’ lineup includes 20 projects, with Spanish director Caye Casas’ Sueños son – described as a black comedy with horror elements – and German filmmaker Till Kleinert’s musical thriller Turn On the Bright Lights among the most notorious projects that will seek financing.
In previous years, Frontières have welcomed projects that are now beloved genre movies, such as Julia Ducournau’s Raw (Grave, 2016), Lorcan Finnegan’s Vivarium (2019), Valdimar Jóhannsson’s Lamb (Dýrið, 2021), and Hanna Bergholm’s Hatching (Pahanhautoja, 2022).
Here’s Frontières’ full 2024 lineup:
Blood: The Devil in Helsinki (Viivi Huuska)
In Helsinki, a female vampire artist uses her art to cope with her past, drawing a male detective into a complex relationship amid an investigation, when the appearance of Mina Maru, her painting’s subject, catalyzes a journey of revenge, self-discovery, and redemption, uncovering their dark fates.
Fall (Steffen Geypens)
A murderous city doctor takes a fresh start in the remote town of Fall where everyone seems to be consumed by their darkest secrets and no one is innocent.
Flots (Eric Tessier)
Florence, an 8-year-old girl, leads her family and friends on a descent into Hell from which no one will emerge unscathed.
Gargoyle (Kurt Walker)
While on graveyard shifts at a cemetery and a video game studio, a brother and sister find themselves suddenly haunted by uncanny beings and together they must collaborate to survive the night.
Ginger (Sophie Mair, Dan Gitsham)
Relocating to the North Yorkshire Dales after a life changing accident and the death of their unborn child, Grace and Abel cross paths with a beguiling organism which gradually exploits their emotional and sexual desires, leading to violent tragedy and rebirth.
Grave (Anna Pieri Zuercher, Pietro Zuercher)
Deathly circumstances force a depressed gravedigger and a butcher-turned-hitman together on a frantic and absurd journey, to finally discover an unlikely and powerful friendship.
He Who Sows Misery, Reaps Wrath (Patrice Laliberté)
Montreal, 2040. As a luxury condo tower collapses in a gentrifying neighborhood, a less fortunate teenager wants nothing more than to find the electric bike she was robbed of in order to keep her job as a grocery delivery girl, a quest that proves more complicated than expected when violent riots break out between residents and police forces.
Inheritance (Evgenia Kovda)
A group of rich kids spend the weekend at a country house and accidentally set off a mysterious device that brings Soviet communists back to life, forcing the kids to confront their country’s violent past.
Jude (Robyn Grace)
An overprotective single mother struggles to accept her home-schooled son’s rebellious desire for independence, friends and romance; but when teenagers around the globe begin a mysterious pilgrimage toward an interstellar spacecraft, she must relinquish her parental needs to decide the fate of the human race.
Little Lying Wild (Samantha Aldana)
The moon falls from the sky in rural Belize, and Carmen (13) finds the body of a young girl killed by a Mayan monster – but when no one in the village believes her, she sets out on her own to solve the crime and stop the monster from killing again.
Plasma (Daniel Aspillaga)
A mother sacrifices her daughter, and as her flesh rises to the skies, it begins to influence the bodies of the world, which will mutate and find themselves.
Recreational Vampire (Benjamin Roberds)
After a head-on collision, two couples hitch a ride with a monstrously suspicious RV and now must fight for their lives to make it out alive.
Romanticizing Monsters (Berkley Bradey)
A driven journalist and podcaster who profiles serial killers, finds herself captured by the one she’s been investigating.
Scorpia (Sarah Watts, Mark Slutsky)
In the mid-1980s, struggling computer game programmer SCORPIA accepts an invitation to the manor house of an enigmatic, all-women game developer cult, where the lines between play, magic and body horror blur.
Smook (Dwight Fagbamila)
When Louise returns to her hometown with her family to care for her father, she is confronted with a chilling family secret. Mysterious forces in the house unveil a connection between the secret and her own past, putting her family in increasing peril. The greatest danger? Louise herself.
Sueños son (Caye Casas)
Jesus has a wish for his 56th birthday: he wants his dreams to come true. What he doesn’t know is that this wish will end up transforming his life into a nightmare.
The Heirloom (Le Hoang)
A man at the bottom rung of society fails to realize he’s inherited the power to summon tormented ancestors to do his revenge killings, but when they soon become untethered to his control, he must stop them before his loved ones are at risk of being their next victims.
The Hive (Rioghnach Ní Ghrioghair)
A vapid influencer is caught up in a botched kidnapping plot and discovers the monster she really is when the whole ordeal is live streamed.
The Long Way Down (Giacomo Talamini)
A group of teenagers descends into the depths of a long-abandoned mine in the Italian Alps for a speleotherapy session. Trapped after an earthquake, their consciousness is ravaged by disturbing visions which seem to be a product of the mine’s sinister will.
Turn On the Bright Lights (Till Kleinert)
Guilt-ridden by the suicide of a former contestant, a juror on a pop idol show has to fight off a mysterious new candidate set out to destroy his life.