The Fantasia Festival’s Frontières Co-Production Market concluded its programming with an awards ceremony that recognized six projects spanning multiple categories and genres. The market, which drew 300 delegates from 24 countries, hosted pitches from 20 official selection titles across various strands including co-production, shorts-to-features, genre lab, and music projects.
Norwegian director Vegard Dahle’s “Grandmonster,” a zombie comedy centered on an American attempting to save her grandmother from dementia at a Norwegian nursing home, received the top Outpost Award along with CAD$15,000 in post-production services. The project generated significant audience reaction during its pitch presentation on July 22. Two additional projects earned Outpost Special Mention awards: “Reset,” a sci-fi drama by U.S. directors Celine Tien and Jerry Hsu examining a program that converts elderly individuals into children for economic purposes, and “Sea Spirits,” director Edson Jean’s Haiti-set gothic folk horror depicting a mother haunted by her lost daughter.
The PurpleDOG Award for an official selection project went to “Cher,” Thailand’s first Frontières participant, described as a supernatural folk horror involving a vengeful forest spirit near a mining encroachment on sacred land. Within the Gender Equity in Media Society section of the Genre Film Lab, Canadian director Cassidy Civiero’s “Wifey”—a horror thriller about an artist undergoing female-to-male transition forced into a non-consensual marriage—received the second PurpleDOG Award.
The Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival Award, which includes an invitation to pitch at the Sitges festival in October, was presented to U.K. director Jasmine De Silva’s “Eternal Valley,” a dark comedy body horror feature based on her 2025 Fantasia-premiered short “Beauty Sleep.” Frontières executive director Annick Mahnert noted participants and industry decision-makers had responded positively to both project quality and presentation caliber.
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