Messing around with the genre's big boys!

There have been a couple of interesting developments this last week or so. First of all, I’ve been informed that mine and director Paul Campion’s next movie project together, DARK HOLLOW – an adaptation of Brian Keene’s best-selling horror novel of the same name – has officially entered the Fantasia Co-Production Market.

A quick explanation is perhaps needed here.

Basically, Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, which is widely acclaimed as one of the largest and most influential genre film festivals in the world, is now embarking on its 16th edition with a major new industry-driven venture: The Fantasia Industry Rendez-Vous.

The Industry Rendez-Vous will feature the new Frontières International Co-Production Market. Frontières is the first international co-production market to connect North-American with Europe and Australasia, in an environment focused specifically on genre film production.

It will also include the Fantasia Film Market, making its official debut in 2012 to support the sales efforts of the features that will be part of the festival’s programming.

The Industry Rendez-Vous will be held from July 26th to 29th 2012, within the three-week body of the Fantasia Festival. Over the course of these four days, a Frontières pitch session, various meeting and networking sessions will be held, and a series of conferences will be organised to assemble the participants around current industry topics. These events will be coupled with the regular Fantasia schedule of public screenings and parties.

The projects to be presented in the market have now been chosen and feature an amazing array of filmmakers, from gifted newcomers to renowned maestros, as well as numerous established international producers. The selection of the first edition of Frontières will consist of 14 projects, of which DARK HOLLOW is only one. But it’s pretty nice to be mentioned in the same breath as some of those who’ll be in there alongside us: Bruce McDonald with his sequel to Pontypool; Stuart Gordon with Purgatory; Hobo With A Shotgun director Jason Eisener with Turbo Kid; and Keep Quiet from Jorge Michel Grau, who won great praise at Cannes in 2010 for his Mexican cannibal horror, We Are What We Are.

For more details, including all the other contenders, check these articles in the HOLLYWOOD REPORTER and SCREEN DAILY

Exciting stuff, I think.