Fantasia Film Fest Reaches Tentative Deal With Union Workers

Following a one-day strike on July 11, the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel-CSN, representing around 60 Fantasia Film Festival workers, reached a tentative deal late Friday night to avert additional labor disruption.

The union revealed no details on the agreement in principle before union workers vote on the deal early next week. A formal ratification would clear the way for the 24th edition of the Fantasia Film Festival to kick off as planned on July 18 in Montreal.

“We are proud of the commitment and determination of our members in the negotiation process. The employer took act of our mobilization and showed open-mindedness regarding our last negotiation proposal. We are enthusiastic about the opportunity to present the tentative agreement to members at our upcoming general assembly,”  Théa Trudeau-Tremblay, a spokesperson for the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel-CSN, said in a statement on Saturday.

A representative for Fantasia confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that a tentative deal had been reached at around 10 p.m. on Friday night. Fantasia Fest organizers had no additional comment on the agreement in principle ahead of the union employees voting on the new labor deal.

The Fantasia union, aligned with the Syndicat des employé-es de l’événementiel-CSN, signed their first collective agreement in September 2023, just after the film festival’s 2023 edition. But recent efforts to establish a minimum wage for unionized Fantasia employees at the bargaining table got hung up over the genre film festival wanting to continue paying employees as freelancers, with a lump sum for working Fantasia’s 2024 edition, however many hours they work.

The union maintained the Fantasia festival wanted to introduce changes to the employees’ short-term, seasonal contracts only for next year’s 2025 edition. But after bargaining between the Fantasia union and its management resumed Friday after the one-day strike a day earlier, enough progress was apparently made in crunch talks to arrive at an agreement in principle.

North America’s largest genre festival is now 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 24th edition is then set to run to Aug. 4 in Montreal.