Fantasia Fest President Responds After Staff Seek To Unionize In Search Of Better Conditions; Emboldened By Hollywood Strikes, Could Other Festival Workers Follow Suit?
deadline.comEXCLUSIVE: North America’s largest genre festival, Fantasia, is currently in full flow, but amid two Hollywood strikes, its staff are speaking out about what they deem to be horror conditions. “The SAG-AFTRA strike set the perfect tone,” one staff member told us this week after a petition for union certification was filed to represent about 50 workers at the Montreal event, which wraps next Wednesday.
Organizers told us today that talks would begin with workers’ representatives “shortly after the end of the festival”. The three-week long festival, well-liked for its informal and down-to-earth vibe, is known as a mecca for genre movies and filmmakers.
Guests at the event have included Guillermo del Toro, John Carpenter, Eli Roth, Mark Hamill, John Landis, Robert Pattinson, Nicolas Winding Refn, Takashi Miike and Ti West.
The festival’s standing is such that its Frontières program has cemented a seven-year collaboration with the Cannes market. But many of the staff that power the venerable festival aren’t happy.
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