Fantastic Film Festival 2025 kicks off in just two days, bringing a bold and boundary-pushing program of films, including 6 French-language films, to screens in Melbourne and Sydney. From Bertrand Mandico’s trippy split-screen experiment Dragon Dilation to Noémie Merlant’s sweltering horror-comedy The Balconettes, this year’s line-up showcases the wildest imaginations in contemporary francophone cinema.
Expect grotesque body horror from Thibault Emin (Else), gritty true crime from Fabrice du Welz (Maldoror), darkly hilarious chaos from the Guit brothers (Heads or Fails), and razor-sharp satire from absurdist master Quentin Dupieux (The Second Act). Whether you’re in the mood for the surreal, the visceral, or the darkly funny, there’s something in this French-language selection to leave a mark. Read on to discover the films.
Country: France
Director: Bertrand Mandico (Read our review of his previous film After Blue (Dirty Paradise)
Cast: Elina Löwensohn, Clara Benador, Nathalie Richard
Languages: French, English, German
The latest provocative experiment from French iconoclast Bertrand Mandico is here to split your brain in two.
Dragon Dilatation is the melding of two filmic essays shown in split-screen, with both pieces originally conceived for theatre but captured on film. The first, Petrouchka, is a re-reading of Stravinsky’s famous ballet, set in an underground world of fashion modelling. The second work, La Déviante Comédie, is a kind of companion-piece to Mandico’s 2023 film She is Conann, showing the actors in character for that film rehearsing a queer take on Dante’s Divine Comedy.
There’s a lot going on here, but Mandico fans know that his films are a lot – in the best possible way. Dragon Dilatation is bewildering, decadent, erotic, destabilising and ecstatic all at once. Expect drug-addled models in underground bunkers, a dog from hell named Rainer wearing a grotesque mask (if you’ve seen She is Conann, you’ll know) and piles of severed heads.
Country: France
Director: Thibault Emin
Cast: Edith Proust, Matthieu Sampeur, Lika Minamoto
Language: French
After a mediocre one-night stand, anxious (and aptly named) Anx and rambunctious Cass find themselves riding out quarantine together in Anx’s apartment. A mysterious epidemic has broken out, causing bodies to fuse to their surroundings. These two people, who couldn’t be more diametrically opposed, are forced to get to know each other in Anx’s claustrophobic space as they hide from the horrors outside. How long can they avoid this strange virus as it absorbs everything – and everyone – in its path?
This visually stunning body horror and feature directorial debut from Thibault Emin is an imaginative meditation on connection, intimacy, bodily autonomy and the fine line between pleasure and pain. Cinematographer Léo Lefèvre plays with colour palettes throughout the film – from vivid colour, to bleak monochrome and even a sickly yellow wash. The practical effects teams rise to the occasion here, creating some standout stomach-churning set pieces that will have you staring suspiciously at your furniture when you get home.
Country: Belgium
Director: Lenny Guit, Harpo Guit
Cast: Maria Cavalier-Bazan, Axel Perin, Michael Zindel
Language :French
Reigning princes of trash cinema, brothers Lenny and Harpo Guit return to FFFA after their gross-out feature debut Mother Schmuckers (FFFA 2021). Their latest agent of chaos is Armande Pigeon (Maria Cavalier-Bazan), a twenty-something compulsive gambler who never seems to have lady luck on her side. She’s like the lovechild of Frances from Frances Ha and Howie from Uncut Gems.
One night, Armande teams up with Ronnie and suddenly everything changes – they win it all. But when you hit a winning streak, you have to – in the wise words of Kenny Rogers – know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em…
In true Guit-brothers style, Heads or Fails is frenetically energetic, painfully funny and gleefully unhinged. But it’s also a loving tribute to the plucky hustlers in a young generation fighting to keep above water amid increasingly precarious circumstances.
Country: Belgium, France
Director: Fabrice du Welz
Cast: Anthony Bajon, Sergi López, Béatrice Dalle
Language: French
This brutal and gripping police procedural thriller is loosely based on a serial killer case that rocked Belgium in the 1990s and led to a full reform of the country’s police force.
Paul Chartier (Anthony Bajon, Teddy, FFFA 2021) is a hot-tempered young police recruit, who is assigned to a surveillance operation with the codename ‘Maldoror’. This secret unit has been formed to keep watch on the prime suspect in the case of an abduction of two young girls. But when the operation fails due to incompetence and inaction by Chartier’s colleagues, the young cop decides to take matters into his own hands, becoming completely consumed by the case in the process.
Anchored by a towering performance by Bajon, Maldoror is a nail-biting, labyrinthine true crime thriller that explores the nature of evil and our willingness to confront it, no matter the personal cost.
Country: France
Director: Noémie Merlant (we’re more accustomed to seeing her in front of the camera such as in Paris, 13th district, The Innocent, A Difficult Year, One Year, One Night as well as the remake of Emmanuelle which screened at the Alliance Française French Film Festival this year)
Cast : Noémie Merlant, Souheila Yacoub, Sanda Codreanu
Language: French
Star of Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Tár, Noémie Merlant directs and acts in this vibrant, gory horror-comedy, which she wrote in collaboration with her Portrait of a Lady on Fire director Céline Sciamma.
Marseille is struck by a sweltering heatwave. Roommates Nicole, a shy romance novelist, and Ruby, a sex-positive cam-girl, are visited by their friend Élise (Merlant), an actor currently playing Marilyn Monroe in a film, who’s flustered from getting constant phone calls from her possessive husband.
Nicole has been quietly admiring their handsome neighbour across the street (Lucas Bravo, Emily in Paris) from her balcony. So, extraverted Ruby takes charge and charms the hunky neighbour into inviting the three women over to his apartment for drinks. What they hoped would be a night of sexy, sweaty flirtation turns violent, and the Balconettes must band together as the situation reaches boiling point.
The Second Act (Le Deuxième Acte)
Director: Quentin Dupieux (you may have seen some of his previous titles at the Alliance Française French Film Festival in past years: Smoking causes coughing, Incredible but true, Mandibles)
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Vincent Lindon, Louis Garrel
Language: French
The court jester of French absurdist comedies – and DJ by night under Mr. Oizo – Quentin Dupieux is back with a meta-textual piece about cinema itself that doesn’t just break the fourth wall, it takes a sledgehammer to it.
Florence (Léa Seydoux, The Beast, One Fine Morning) is madly in love with David (Louis Garrel, The Innocent) and wants to introduce him to her father, Guillaume (Vincent Lindon, Both sides of the blade, Another World). But David is put off by Florence’s neediness, so he decides to try and palm off Florence to his friend Willy (Raphaël Quenard, The ties that bind us, Final Cut, November) instead.
That’s the story. Or is it? Within the first few minutes of the film, we learn that Florence, David, Guillaume and Willy (in the capable hands of an A-level French cast) are all actors in a movie-within-the-movie making a cheesy romantic film that they can’t stop complaining about. From here, Dupieux pokes fun at his industry and nothing is off limits – from cancel culture to #MeToo, from artificial intelligence to selling out for Hollywood.
KEY INFO FOR FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL 2025
WHAT: Fantastic Film Festival 2025
WHERE: Select cinemas in Melbourne and in Sydney
WHEN: 24 April – 16 May 2025
HOW: Purchase your tickets via the film links above or purchase a festival pass for Lido here, for Ritz here.
HOW MUCH:
Individual tickets:
- $25 full price,
- $19.50 concession
Passes:
- 5 film pass $85 ($17 per ticket)
- 10 film pass $155 ($15.50 per ticket)
- VIP film pass $255 (Valid for 1x redemption on every film including Special Events)
- (Read the conditions for the passes before you purchase)
