The Fantasia Film Festival is facing union strike action as the 24th edition of North America’s largest genre festival gets set to open on July 18 with a world premiere for Elijah Wood’s Bookworm and later an international premiere for The Count of Monte Cristo.
The Fantasia union, aligned with the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel-CSN, signed their first collective agreement in Sept. 2023, just after the film festival’s 2023 edition. But efforts to establish a minimum wage for around 60 unionized Fantasia employees have yet to reach agreement at the bargaining table.
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So organizers with the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel–CSN held a 24-hour strike on July 11 in front of the Fantasia headquarters on Maisonneuve West in Montreal, and additional pickets lines are threatened next week.
The three week genre fest is set to open with a world premiere for Bookworm, the Elijah Wood and Nell Fisher starrer from New Zealand filmmaker Ant Timpson. There are also international premieres for Alexandre de La Patellière and Matthieu Delaporte’s Cannes title The Count of Monte Cristo, and Matthew Fifer’s Haze, starring David Pittu and Brian J. Smith.
Thierry Lariviere, a spokesperson for the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel–CSN, told The Hollywood Reporter the genre film festival wants to continue paying employees a lump sum for working Fantasia’s 2024 edition, however many hours they work. Lariviere added Fantasia has agreed to some changes, but only for next year’s 2025 edition.
That leaves the film festival at an impasse as bargaining resumed on July 12, with an additional scheduled day on July 15. Organizers of the Fantasia Film Festival could not be reached for comment on Friday.
The Montreal film festival like other indie film showcases hires employees on short term, seasonal contracts. “Employees are not freelance anymore and the law imposes every work hour should be paid over the minimum wage of CAN$15.75 (US$11.55). Workers want a raise and to be paid for every hour,” Larivière insisted.
Ahead of Fantasia’s upcoming edition, set to run July 18 to Aug. 4, union members voted overwhelmingly for five strike days in all to press their claims at the bargaining table.
“Like many workers in the cultural world, event industry employees want to join a union because they are demanding better working conditions, namely, to be recognized as workers in their own right, and to be paid for all hours worked, just like everyone else who has to pay rent and buy groceries. And stop being treated as mere freelancers, from whom more work can always be demanded for the same initial lump sum”, Annick Charette, president of the FNCC-CSN union, added in a statement.
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