WELCOME TO FANTASTIC FEST

Important dates for the Fantastic Fest 2008
March 4, 2009: Earlybird Submission Deadline
May 6, 2009: Regular Submission Deadline
July 17, 2009: 2009 Festival submissions closed.
July 16, 2009: First wave of festival content posted
August 6, 2009: Second wave of festival content posted
September 3, 2009: Final wave of content and schedule posted
September 13, 2009: Fantastic Fest Online begins
September 23, 2009: Fantastic Fest Badge Pickup Begins at Alamo South Lamar
September 24, 2009: Fantastic Fest begins
October 1, 2009: Fantastic Fest closing night party

About Fantastic Fest
Fantastic Fest is a week-long festival featuring the best in new science-fiction, fantasy, horror, animation, crime, Asian, and all around badass cinema. The event was created to offer exposure to genre films which are often overlooked by the traditional festival circuit. We strive to offer acquisition, media and exhibition opportunities for undistributed films as well as to spotlight upcoming genre theatrical releases and give audiences a chance to see 35mm prints of repertory classics.

Fantastic Fest is held each year, primarily at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on South Lamar in Austin, Texas. The Alamo Drafthouse was named the best cinema in America by Entertainment Weekly and features food and drink served to your seat without any disruption of the movie experience.

During his Keynote Address at the International film Festival Summit in Las Vegas, Variety president and publisher Charlie Koones listed Fantastic Fest in a list of "10 Film Festivals we Love," which he described as "interesting and exciting" events, not listed in order of importance. In addition to our festival, the list included industry heavy-hitters such as Cannes, Toronto and Telluride.

We strive to make the festival the most friendly, fun and exciting experience as possible for our out of town guests and visiting filmmakers. In addition to showcasing over 65 premiere genre features and 35 shorts, we host plenty of parties throughout the week as well as outings to local Texas institutions and always one serious barbecue run.

"The best film festival I've ever been to, at the best theater in the world. Everyone at Fantastic Fest really cared about the filmmakers, and worked incredibly hard to make every screening memorable. Thanks to everyone for making this first-time short film director feel like a Hollywood superstar."- Phil Mucci, director, THE LISTENING DEAD.

"Fantastic Fest has made my whole career. Everything related to the future of Timecrimes and mine as an american directors comes through your festival. I know that some directors have a particular festival attached to their whole biography. Now I know mine."
- Nacho Vigalondo, director, TIMECRIMES (worldwide rights to TIMECRIMES were purchased by Magnolia Releasing following the world premiere of the film at Fantastic Fest 2007)

Tickets for the 2008 Fantastic Fest
2009 VIP Badges went on sale during the 2008 Festival and sold out in just over two hours. Regular Festival Badges, daytime-only badges and Second-half badges are available on the ticket page of this website. Closer to the festival, we will open up more VIP badges for sale, but they will only be available as an upgrade to 2009 regular badge holders.