The Fantasia International Film Festival, also known as Fantasia Fest, is an annual film festival founded in 1996 and held primarily in Montreal, Canada. It specializes in genre films, including fantasy, horror, science fiction, and cult cinema, drawing over 100,000 attendees each year. Fantasia is frequently cited as the leading genre film festival in North America and is considered one of the top three genre festivals worldwide. The festival's mission is to promote genre and independent cinema, having launched the careers of many modern auteurs. Since 2012, it has also hosted the Frontières cinema market, which helps promising projects find producers and distributors. The festival began with a focus on Asian cinema and continues to feature a significant selection of films from Asia.