Sarah and I are well into the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. The fest runs until August 2nd, and we’re doing our best to catch as many films as possible while keeping these chats spoiler-light and pretty honest.

This time around we covered three very different movies. Sarah still refers to them as “the baby one,” “the black and white one,” and “the indigenous one,” which somehow works.

First up is Nightborn (Finnish title Yön lapsi), directed by Hanna Bergholm and starring Rupert Grint. A young couple moves into her grandmother’s old cottage in the Finnish countryside, hoping to start a family. Things get tense fast. It’s a folklore-flavored take on the “is the baby evil or is the mother losing it” setup, full of constant baby crying that acts like its own soundtrack. Super effective, really stressful, and a solid cozy-horror watch if you’re into that vibe. Easy recommend, especially once it hits Shudder.

Next is Godhead from Mark H. Rapaport (who brought HIPPO to Fantasia before). This one’s a striking black-and-white film about two eccentric twins who show up claiming to be prophets and put a priest in a brutal moral bind. The cinematography is gorgeous — every frame looks intentional. Sarah watched this one solo and had mixed feelings. She liked the setup and the look, but the dialogue and performances felt a bit theatrical and didn’t fully land for her. It’s interesting, just not a slam dunk.

Finally we get to Ancestral Beasts, the world premiere from Tim Riddell. An Indigenous woman leaves the city for her auntie’s rural cabin, looking for some peace after a family trauma. What starts as a quiet character piece slowly builds into something much more unsettling. Think generational trauma and grief given a horror twist, with strong practical effects and a slow-burn “is this real or is this her mind?” tension that pays off really well. Solid Canadian horror with a clear point of view. Worth seeking out.

We’re keeping the conversations casual — second takes, dog interruptions, and all. If you’re at Fantasia, come say hi between screenings. If you’re listening from elsewhere, throw the episode on while you plan your next watch.

More movies coming soon. Go see some Fantasia.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

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It's once again time for Go Plug Yourself and our Osheaga podcast series to have what has become their annual crossover episode!

We asked Pat (among many other things): Where are the best fries and pizza in Montreal? That question was asked by Abby Stonehouse & Dawn McSweeney back in episode 349.

Patrick Guay from evenko returns to talk about all the ins and outs of booking festivals like Osheaga, Lasso and Ile Soniq. It's a great chat where we talk about some memorable concerts, the changing landscape of live music and so much more. It's a must-listen if you're a music fan in Montreal, sit back, relax, go plug yourself and see you at Osheaga on July 31st.

Osheaga runs from July 31st to August 2nd at Parc Jean Drapeau. Check out osheaga.com for more info and tickets.

All audio clips are copyright of their respective owners and used solely with the intention of promoting and editorial previewing Osheaga.

Our intro song is Paradise Engineering (instrumental) by YACHT and is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.

Sarah is somehow still @femalewalter on Instagram. Follow her for pictures of our dogs and sometimes she remembers to post about all the arts and entertainment we take in all year long.

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Sarah and I are still deep in the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival here in Montreal.

It's time for the second episode of 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia. As usual, we’re keeping it loose, chatting about the movies we’ve seen, and trying not to spoil anything big. Our dog Clementine made us do a few extra takes again, but we got there.

In this one we talk about two very different Canadian premieres. First up is After School (also known as Straf), a Dutch dark comedy directed by Merijn Scholte Albers and Tobias Smeets. It follows Edwin (Rutger de Bekker), a music teacher who’s a total pushover and gets himself into deeper and deeper trouble after a bad decision with a nightmare student. It’s super tense, cringe-inducing in the best way, and genuinely one of the funniest straight comedies we’ve seen in a while. There's a second screening on July 25th so you still have a chance to see it at Fantasia.

Then we get into Dance Freak, from Alan Resnick and Robby Rackleff. This one’s a lot weirder — high-contrast black-and-white surreal absurdity with a ton of practical effects. Underground internet comedy vibes from the 2010s turned into a feature length film. If you’re into the wild late-night Adult Swim shorts (think Unedited Footage of a Bear, Too Many Cooks, etc), Mike Diva stuff, or Sarah Sherman’s SNL sketches, this might be your jam. I was cracking up; Sarah was mostly just staring at me wondering what the hell I was laughing at. It’s definitely not for everybody, but I had a great time with its pure absurdity.

We’ve got more screenings coming up and more episodes on the way. If you’re at Fantasia, come say hi. If not, throw this on while you’re figuring out your schedule.

Go see some Fantasia films kids.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sarah and I are back for the 30th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival (July 16th to August 2nd).

We have turned our usual post-movie rambling once again into a podcast this year, so welcome to 9to5.cc Goes to Fantasia 2026. Each episode we’ll chat about the films we catch, share what we thought and give you honest reviews and opinions of the films we saw.

We kick things off with You Are the Film, the North American premiere from Makoto Ueda (the screenwriter of Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes). It’s a short, super breezy time-bendy movie that plays with reality in clever ways. We both loved the small-cast energy, the quirky humor, and how it keeps surprising you even after you think you’ve figured out the rules. Sarah’s takeaway about the weird cafe order may be the best part of her review.

Sarah checked out Tight Lettuce, a world premiere she caught solo. It’s a raw, funny, and sometimes heavy look at a grown son and his dad’s complicated relationship, with addiction in the mix. Really strong performances, especially the dad played by Emmanuel Bilodeau. An amazing standout of Quebecois cinema.

We recorded the whole thing in our usual back-and-forth style (complete with Clementine barking and forcing a second take). It’s loose, honest, and exactly how we talk about movies in real life.

So throw the episode on while you’re waiting in line or planning your schedule. We’ve got more films coming soon.

Go see some Fantasia.

The Fantasia International Film Festival runs from July 16th to August 2nd 2026 at Concordia University.

The song during our intro and outro is “Until I Sleep” by Henry Homesweet and is licensed under a Attribution 2.0 UK: England License.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you haven’t seen the clip of Conor McGregor doing a flying jumpkick and then immediately blow his knee out at UFC 329 then you can probably go ahead and do that now. Or don’t. It’s like 15 seconds long. We do talk about it for a long time though because despite being an absolute crazy person the man is somehow always interesting.

Another interesting man? Sam Neill. He certainly didn’t have the most prolific of careers but he was in a LOT of stuff that I enjoyed. Even if he did nothing other than Jurassic Park, Event Horizon and In the Mouth of Madness he would still sit comfortably as one of my favorite actors on just those three performances alone.

Finally, we catch up on a few movies we’ve watched recently like The Bride!, The Union and Jack Ryan’s Ghost War. A bunch of perfectly cromulent films that our reviews of may or may not convince to watch or avoid them.

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Head over there to get access to over 150 episodes of Garbage Time our bonus show and now there’s new ways to support us!

You can still subscribe to the “I Love 9ES” level to get access to every episode of Garbage Time, but we know a recurring monthly subscription can be a pain so if you want to listen to just ONE episode of Garbage Time you can now do so.

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There’s more! We'll be curating the back catalogue of Garbage Time to make collections at special prices. The first collection is out now and collects the 5 episodes where we went over Rolling Stone's Top 150 Sci Films.

Anyways, on the latest episode of Garbage Time we talk about Hot Rod (lol), Scott getting access to his kid’s PS5 and some old video games to scratch that nostalgia itch.

Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).

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The Montreal podcast that asks Dawn McSweeney & Abby Stonehouse (both repping the World's Smallest Comedy Festival): "How would you re-design the Montreal Canadiens logo?" That question was asked by Wassim El-Mounzer and Simon Peacock a few episodes ago (perhaps when the Habs were still in the playoffs, this has been a bit of a summer).

Anyways Montreal, we've got big news and you're hearing about it here first kids. The gang at World's Smallest are doing it again. The World's Smallest Comedy Festival is returning for it's 4th edition August 10th through 17th. Troy Stark and I are joined by Dawn McSweeney and Abby Stonehouse to talk about all the great shows and comedians that will be filling out an incredible 8 nights of comedy in August. Of course we also talk a lot about musicals and Disney movies. World's Smallest will be launching a brand new website at worldssmallest.club this coming Monday July 13th that will be jam packed with all things World's Smallest Comedy so check that out soon or just type "World's Smallest Comedy Montreal" in your favorite search engine and that will work too.

To keep tabs of what Dawn and Abby have going on (in addition to the shows that they're producing for the World's Smallest Comedy Festival) you can follow Dawn at @mcsweeney514 on Instagram and Abby is @abbypstone_mtl over there as well.

https://www.instagram.com/abbypstone_mtl/

https://www.instagram.com/mcsweeney514

World's Smallest will be launching a brand new website at worldssmallest.club this coming Monday July 13th that will be jam packed with all things World's Smallest Comedy so check that out soon or just type "World's Smallest Comedy Montreal" in your favorite search engine and that will work too.

Enjoy the show!

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