#John Carpenter to Get Fantasia Lifetime Achievement Award and Masterclass

The horror master John Carpenter is set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at this year’s Fantasia Film Festival. Carpenter, known best as the director of genre classics such as Halloween and Escape from New York, is being honored as part of this year’s version of the long-running festival. Like many major events still pressing forward this year, Fantasia will be digital. Even so, Carpenter will not only be receiving the organization’s highest honor, but the filmmaker will also be giving a master class, covering his entire career.

Fantasia made the announcement recently in updating its programming schedule for the upcoming event. Few details were made available, but John Carpenter will be presented with the Fantasia Lifetime Achievement Award during the festivities. The fest also says they will explore his recent resurgence as a touring musician and play you his latest single.

In conjunction with the award, the festival will also present a masterclass from John Carpenter. He will discuss everything from his own festival origin story to his sprawling career, touching on many of the movies from his impressive run as a filmmaker, which spans more than four decades. This was one of the cornerstones of the 2020 festivities as Fantasia announced its final wave of programming.

Even though the event will be digital this year, Fantasia is taking a unique approach. They are trying to keep the festival feel alive and are limiting tickets to each screening, anywhere between 600 and 1,200, in addition to adhering to strict start times. The virtual screenings will be held in real-time. Neil Marshall’s latest, The Reckoning, is set as the opening movie. New Zealand comedy The Legend of Baron To’a was announced as this year’s closing title.

John Carpenter’s career as a feature director kicked off in 1974 with Dark Star. He followed that up with Assault on Precinct 13 before moving on to his most famous work with 1978’s Halloween. The movie gave us one of horror’s most recognizable icons in Michael Myers and birthed a franchise that is still running to this day, with 2018’s Hallowen becoming the highest-grossing slasher movie of all time. Halloween Kills is set to hit theaters next year.

Some of the filmmaker’s other classics include The Fog, Christine, Big Trouble in Little China, The Thing, The Live and Prince of Darkness. John Carpenter’s last feature directorial effort was 2010’s The Ward. In recent years, Carpenter has been focusing more on his music. In addition to his duties as director, Carpenter often crafted the scores for his movies and is responsible for the now-iconic Halloween theme, among many others. Carpenter also provided the score for the most recent entry in the franchise.

The Fantasia Film Festival runs August 20 through September 2. World premieres will include Undergods, The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw, Kriya, The Undertaker’s Home and Come True. Even though the event will be completely digital this year, it will still only be accessible to those who live in Canada. For those who wish to purchase tickets, or for full programming information, head on over to FantasiaFestival.com.

Topics: Fantasia