The annual Fantasia festival in Montreal has been one of the best places to discover new genre cinema for over a decade, and now it has launched an initiative to get unproduced screen projects off the ground: Frontières, an international co-production market.

The event was announced this morning, and will take place at Fantasia beginning at next year’s edition, which runs July 19-August 7, 2012. Frontières will select 12 features from around the world that are seeking backing, to make their market premieres at Fantasia, and present them to international producers, sales agents and distributors. “Fantasia has always been tremendously popular with its local audience and we’ve happily seen its industry presence grow over the years,” says festival president Pierre Corbeil. “The launch of a film market is a natural step in the long-term vision we have for our event.”

Adds festival co-director Mitch Davis, “Over the years, we’ve established friendships with so many fascinating talents and key players in the international industry and have long felt that we should establish a way to better connect them. I can’t wait to see which projects take flight from this!” And market director Stephanie Trepanier says, “Frontières will further Fantasia’s position as one of the vanguard film festivals of the world by contributing to the development of new genre film works and the fostering of co-production relationships for Canada. Its possibilities are very exciting.”

Frontières will take place July 26-29, and is open to both veteran filmmakers and newcomers; those wishing to apply can check out the application guidelines here. The early-bird application deadline is January 9 and the late deadline is March 5, with the selected projects to be announced in early May 2012.

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