We already have the seven titles for the 8th edition of Fantastic 7
1, 2, 3, 4… up to 7 titles, each selected by a major film festival, will make up the 7th edition of Fantastic 7.
The number 7 will once again be on everyone’s lips at the Marché du Film of the Cannes Film Festival. The world’s most important film festival will once again host the initiative which, led by SITGES, will unveil some of the projects that will set the course for the future of genre cinema.
Horror, science fiction, post-apocalyptic settings, black comedy, and war trauma, among others, make up this broad spectrum of a new edition of Fantastic 7, which will undoubtedly once again place the best genre cinema at the center of the conversation.
On Sunday, May 17, at 12:00 noon, in the Palais K room at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, we will present these 7 gems:
THE 2026 SELECTION
1.DEAD GROUND - by Marta Medina del Valle
Genre: Folk horror, Science Fiction
Héctor is a Spanish engineer living in Paris who left his hometown as a teenager after his parents died in a strange accident. When the company he works for sends him back to his village to fix the data center they’ve built nearby, his pregnant girlfriend, Hélène, travels with him to support him in this trip back to his roots. There, he finds that the few remaining villagers are fighting to shut the project down, as it is causing blackouts and drying up the river and the crops. When Héctor suddenly disappears, Hélène discovers that the data center has awakened something ancestral that may be the cause of the people’s vanishing.
Presented by Sitges - Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic de Catalunya
2.LAST MANKIND - by Gun Huh
Genre: Science Fiction, Horror
After air pollution wipes out all life on Earth, bioengineer Dae-seung lives in a bunker with Sina, whom he subjects to brutal experiments to create a human who can survive outside. When a survivor, Taeo, appears and vanishes, Sina discovers she is only an experiment and escapes in search of freedom.
Presented by Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival
3.ROCK, PAPER, SEA - by Randa Ali
Genre: Family Drama, Thriller
Rock paper sea is set in the summer of 2001 by the Egyptian Mediterranean, we follow Maha, an 11 year old girl with a wild imagination who learns that her beloved father, who she shares her love for writing and drawing with, will not be returning home for her birthday as he’s stuck in an oil rich country. Maha spends the summer searching for answers to the secret behind his disappearance. Her quest in finding him leads her to new discoveries about friendship, girlhood and the complexities of the adult world.
Presented by El Cairo International Film Festival
4.METALHEADS VS THE WITNESSES - by Wicho Rivera, Cabe Tejeda
Genre: Horror Comedy
Ángel, Mishiko, Daniel, and Mike, four aspiring metalheads, travel to a remote town to film a music video in a house marked by a brutal murder. Upon arrival, they encounter door-to-door preachers. Soon, townspeople begin to vanish under violent, mysterious circumstances, and the band becomes the main suspect. To survive and clear their names, they must confront a hidden cult and complete the most grotesque and blood-soaked video of their lives.
Presented by Guadalajara International Film Festival
5.THE COWARD AT KETTLE CREEK - by Noah Stratton-Twine & Jake Kuhn
Genre: Comedy, Thriller
Roy Bound, a timid and deeply cowardly horticulturist, longs only for a quiet, unremarkable life but finds himself thrust into unwanted attention after a drunken night he barely remembers. He wakes to discover he has somehow challenged the feared outlaw Lee “Guarantee” Garrett to a duel, and the town now celebrates him as a hero. Unable to escape the mounting pressure and expectations, Roy spends his final hours desperately trying, and
failing, to avoid the confrontation. His lack of skill and growing panic drive him to self sabotage, but his efforts only push him closer to the inevitable showdown. When the duel ends with Garrett dead and Roy presumed killed, he survives in secret and ultimately chooses to disappear, embracing the legend built on a version of himself he never truly was.
Presented by SXSW South by Southwest Film & TV Festival
6.TING - by Maximilien Dejoie
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Northern Italy, 1918. As she tries to escape from an institution for war orphans, Marilì forms a bond with Ting, a dark and unsettling creature born from the traumas of the First World War. After finding her father again - a deserter doctor scarred by the conflict - Marilì realizes Ting’s sinister intentions. To protect what she holds most dear, Marilì will have to confront her past and face the monstrous presence that has crept into her life.
Presented by PÖFF - Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival
7.THE VEIL - by Gabriel Motta
Genre: Drama, Horror
In a cult profiting from staged exorcisms, darkness descends when the pastor’s daughter becomes genuinely possessed, forcing her brother to confront his father’s authority. As the siblings navigate possession, secrecy, and repressed desire, psychological and carnal horror blur the line between ritual and reality. THE VEIL explores Brazil's spiritual landscape through faith, repression, liberation, family, and the cost of breaking inherited cycles.
Presented by Hong Kong International Film Festival
