Ending with the sold-out screening of the Canadian premiere of THE WORLD’S END, presented by director Edgar Wright and actor Nick Frost, the Fantasia International Film Festival confirmed a record attendance, boasting more than 125,000 festival-goers for its 17th edition, surpassing last year’s record of 109,000 (a 15% increase). Over the course of its three-week film marathon, it presented over 131 features from 31 countries and more than 220 shorts from across the globe.

Fantasia’s 2013 edition opened with the North American Premiere of Takashi Miike’s SHIELD OF STRAW and closed with the Canadian Premiere of Edgar Wright’s THE WORLD’S END. A lifetime achievement award was given to Polish filmmaker Andrzej Zulawski. World Premieres included Joe Swanberg’s 24 EXPOSURES, Nobuo Mizuta’s THE APOLOGY KING, Don Mancini’s CURSE OF CHUCKY, Richard Stanley’s L’AUTRE MONDE (The Otherworld), Richie Mehta’s I’LL FOLLOW YOU DOWN, Robert Morin’s LES 4 SOLDATS, Lloyd Kaufman’s RETURN TO NUKE ‘EM HIGH Vol 1, K. King’s ZOMBIE HUNTER, Eddie Mulins’ DOOMSDAYS, Anthony DiBlassi’s MISSIONARY, Renaud Gauthier’s DISCOPATH, Cody Calahan’s ANTISOCIAL, Darren Paul Fisher’s OXV: THE MANUAL and James Sizemore’s THE DEMON’S ROOK. Director Bryan Singer met with the fans for 2 hours to talk about his new X-Men movie Days of Future Past.

The 2nd edition of the Fantasia Industry Rendez-Vous was a resounding success, with four jam-packed days of meetings, pitch sessions, conferences and networking cocktails that were all at full capacity. The Frontières International Co-Production Market presented 24 film projects from Canada, the United States, many European Countries, Mexico and New Zealand. Attendance at the Rendez-Vous was up significantly from last year, with 280 participants in 2013: 90 from the United States, 40 from Europe, 75 from Quebec, and 60 from the rest of Canada. The great variety of participants allowed for more than 600 hundred meetings to take place around the Frontières projects and other business interests. We have it on good authority that many new production partnerships, directly resulting from encounters at Frontières, will be announced in the near future.