Norwegian director Vegard Dahle’s zombie comedy “Grandmonster” has won the top Outpost Award, and a prize of post-production services, at the Fantasia Festival’s prestigious Frontières Co-Production Market, which handed out six awards at its closing cocktail, July 25.
The film, about an American dropout who unintentionally triggers a zombie outbreak at a remote Norwegian nursing home while trying to save her grandmother from dementia, was presented with deadpan, self-deprecating humor by Dahle and producer Jon Vatne, who wore matching sweaters, at a day-long Frontières pitching event on July 22.
The project, one of the 20 titles in Frontières official selection, received a boisterous, laugh-inducing response from the packed Frontières audience of fellow pitchers and buyer and industry delegates. 300 delegates from 24 countries attended the market, including team members of projects in its official selection, Genre Lab, Shorts To Features, and Music strands.
Outpost Special Awards were presented to two titles in the Shorts to Features category. “Reset” is U.S. directors Celine Tien and Jerry Hsu’s sci-fi drama about a program that resets the elderly into children to remain economically useful; the short is screening in Fantasia’s official international short film competition. “Sea Spirits” is director Edson Jean’s Haiti-set gothic folk horror about a guilt-ridden mother haunted by her daughter, who is lost at sea and refuses to leave the country in search of her ghost.
