Nicolas Cage Set for Career Tribute at Fantasia Film Festival

Nicolas Cage is set to receive a career tribute award at the 2023 Fantasia Film Festival, organizers announced on Thursday.

Fantasia earlier unveiled an international premiere for Sympathy for the Devil, which stars Cage and reunites director Yuval Adler with Joel Kinnaman after The Secrets We Keep. As part of that screening, North America’s largest genre fest will honor Cage in Montreal with this year’s Cheval Noir career achievement award after a four-decade run in Hollywood where his film credits include Leaving Las Vegas, Bringing Out the Dead, Con Air, Face/Off and Wild at Heart.

Fantasia will also close its 27th edition with We Are Zombies, from the Canadian cult film collective RKSS, led by François Simard, Anouk Whissell and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The film stars Megan Peta Hill, Alexandre Nachi and Derek Johns.

Fantasia in its final lineup announcements also booked world premieres for director Mark H. Rapaport’s comedy of discomfort Hippo, Lim Sun-ae’s Ms. Apocalypse and John Rosman’s New Life, about a mysterious woman (Hayley Erin) who goes on the run, and a fixer, played by Sonya Walger, assigned to bring her in.

There’s also first looks in Montreal for Mary Dauterman’s feature debut Booger, Austin Jennings’ Eight Eyes and The Moon, Sky and You, a feature debut about high-school lovers fighting against a hitman organization from director Hei Yau Lin.

The Fantasia Film Festival earlier announced it will open its 27th edition with Pascal Plante’s Red Rooms, a French-language thriller about a woman’s obsession with a high-profile serial killer case. The genre pic, which stars Maxwell McCabe-Lokos and Juliette Gariépy, will get a North American premiere in Montreal after bowing in competition in Karlovy Vary.

The Fantasia festival is set to run July 20 to Aug. 9 in Montreal.