Genre Gems Film Festival Announces Impressive Feature Lineup

Celebrating Bold Genre Cinema, October 1 to 5, 2025

Ottawa, ON, Sep 17, 2025 – The inaugural Genre Gems Festival will bring five days of adventurous forms of genre cinema to Ottawa, running October 1 to 5, 2025. From horror to comedies and beyond, the festival will spotlight a carefully curated programme of acclaimed titles from Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Fantasia, Locarno, and TIFF, many making their Ottawa premieres.

Due to the recent success of Hollywood genre films at the box office, the festival aims to provide a counter-cultural slate of standout discoveries from the festival circuit. Adjacent to its curatorial spirit, the programming team is composed of experienced Gen-Z and millennial industry professionals. They have previously worked at festivals such as TIFF, Hot Docs, Fantasia, Blood in the Snow, the Ottawa International Animation Festival, the European Union Film Festival, and International Film Festival of Ottawa.

Our 2025 Lineup:

Genre Gems will screen fifteen features from around the globe at its inaugural edition. Featuring a wide-variety of eclectic cinematic works, the diverse programme directly reflects upon the world we live in today.

“Cinema can be a sobering reminder of our current realities,” comments David Cuevas, the Festival Director. “While we don’t expect immediate change, we hope the curated films ignite integral discussions amongst our festival audience. The films at Genre Gems reflect upon topics such as mass deportation, artificial intelligence, late-stage capitalism, social media, neoliberalism, and creative authorship. We’re specifically looking for films that creatively tackle these subjects through their respective genres.”

Genre Gems consists of four different programs to differentiate the fifteen features. With The Canadian Connection, the section highlights renegade Canadian talent and their ambitious genre reveries. In Cinema Simuclara, the selected films directly reflect upon the lifeblood of the cinematic medium — providing a rich assortment of stories that ponder upon our present film culture. For fans of road movies, our section Hit The Road! curates different interpretations of a road-movie formula, featuring memorable protagonists at their core. Finally, with Vanguard Visionaries, the selected films exist within the blurred lines of traditional genre cinema. The section utilizes their offkilter frameworks to discuss darker themes about the world. Without further ado, here are the selected films that will screen at this year’s Genre Gems Film Festival:

The Canadian Connection - Ambitious Homegrown Cinema:

● Dead Lover - Grace Glowicki - Canada - 86 min (Opening Night Film)

● Buffet Infinity - Simon Glassman - Canada - 99 min

Cinema Simuclara - Bold Self-Referential Filmmaking:

● Zodiac Killer Project - Charlie Shackleton - UK & USA - 92 min

● The Regulars - Fil Freitas - UK - 106 min

● The Ice Tower - Lucile Hadžihalilović - France, Germany & Italy - 118 min

● Dracula - Radu Jude - Romania, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Brazil & UK - 170 min

● The Hyperboreans - Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña - Chile - 62 min

● Resurrection - Bi Gan - China & France - 160 min (Closing Night Film)

Hit the Road! - Imaginative Re-interpretations of the Beloved Road Movie:

● Mare’s Nest - Ben Rivers - UK, France & Canada - 98 min

● The Blue Trail - Gabriel Mascaro - Brazil, Mexico, Chile & Netherlands - 87 min

● The Last One for the Road - Francesco Sossai - Italy & Germany - 98 min

● Sirāt - Oliver Laxe - Spain, France & Morocco - 115 min

Vanguard Visionaries - Offkilter, Thought-Provoking Genre Cinema:

● The Piano Accident - Quentin Dupieux - France - 92 min

● Dreams - Michel Franco - Mexico & USA - 95 min

● A Useful Ghost - Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke - Thailand, France, Singapore & Germany - 130 min

Festival Details:

With a focus on quality over quantity, Genre Gems aims to connect Ottawa’s vibrant film community with daring new voices in cinema and to engage younger audiences eager for innovative storytelling.

Genre Gems is designed for cinephiles who crave discovery, curating a lean but powerful lineup of the world’s most talked-about genre films, bringing global cinema to Ottawa in an intimate, community-driven setting.

The first edition of the Genre Gems Film Festival will take place at the Mayfair Theatre and ByTowne Cinema from October 1 - 5, 2025. General Admission tickets are $15 CAD. Festival passes are $150 CAD ($120 early-bird). Early Bird passes go on-sale August 22nd at 6:00 PM. The special rate ends on September 18th.

For more information, visit www.genregems.ca or follow @GenreGems on X, Facebook and Instagram.

About Genre Gems:

Running from October 1 to 5, 2025, the inaugural edition of Genre Gems aims to deconstruct, destigmatise, and promote adventurous storytelling within the context of genre cinema. From horror films to westerns, the carefully curated programme will spotlight hot festival titles from Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Fantasia, Locarno, and TIFF for prestigious Ottawa premieres.