One-day strike at the Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal before the 28th edition

Union members of Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival, one of the largest and most prestigious genre events in the global entertainment industry calendar, began a 24-hour strike on Thursday, a week before the festival’s 28th edition.

About 60 employees took turns forming a picket line outside the festival’s offices in downtown Montreal to protest what they said was Fantasia’s “delay” in negotiations with the union.

“Fantasia wishes to maintain our freelance status for this year’s festival, even though we have been unionized since September 2023,” Justine Smith, who sits on the negotiating committee of the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel–CSN, said in a statement. “The employer’s lack of preparation for almost a year is extremely disappointing.”

If Fantasia does not reach a preliminary agreement with the union, whose members work across all areas of the organization and are demanding better wages and working conditions, further industrial action could be taken to disrupt the opening of the festival, which will take place at various locations in Montreal from July 18 to August 4.

Founded in 1996 and recognized as an industry leader by filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino and James Gunn, Fantasia regularly welcomes 100,000 guests to watch screenings of “anti-Hollywood” films from the horror, fantasy, science fiction and action genres. This year’s edition includes more than 125 feature films and 200 short films, as well as special tributes to director Mike Flanagan (Netflix’s midnight fair And The Fall of the House of Usher) and Canadian filmmaker Vincenzo Natali (Dice).

When asked on Thursday, Fantasia’s President and CEO Pierre Corbeil said negotiations would resume on Friday afternoon and he was confident an agreement could be reached.

“The strike is regrettable, but at the same time we understand that they want to put pressure on us. We feel that there is a will on both sides to reach an agreement tomorrow,” said Corbeil, adding that the two sides have been in negotiations since the beginning of the year.

The strike followed similar work stoppages at the Cannes Film Festival last spring, where festival officials said changes to local legislation had left freelancers in a financially precarious situation.

“Like many other workers in the cultural sector, event workers want to join a union because they demand better working conditions. They no longer want to be treated like mere freelancers who can be asked to do more and more work for the same initial amount,” said Annick Charette, president of the FNCC-CSN, one of the largest union federations in Quebec, in a statement.