HISTORY
Elche International Fantastic Film Festival – FANTAELX was founded in 2013 by Fran Mateu, its current director, with the aim of bringing audiences and filmmakers together in a space for cultural exchange around the fantastic genre. After its initial success, the festival took a step forward in its second edition, becoming an international competitive event that began to receive short films from all over the world. From then on, and over the years, the festival also began to pay tribute to emblematic works of the fantastic genre in its various forms of expression, and gradually added new activities to its program: book presentations, its “Transversal Section” (which addresses gender, queer and LGTBI+ issues in the fantastic genre), its orbital actions (divided into “Fantastic Days”, “Roots of Valencian Fantastic Cycle” and “Activities in schools and educational centres for children and young people”), and screenings of feature films in competition starting with its twelfth edition, among others.
As an added bonus, starting with its sixth edition, the International Congress of Fantastic, Audiovisuals and New Technologies was incorporated into the festival, with the support of Miguel Hernández University in Elche and the Vice-Chancellor’s Office for Culture, as well as the participation of the Centre for Arts Research (CíA), the Department of Art and the Massiva research group, thus achieving academic dissemination and research in the fantastic genre.
Currently, the festival has consolidated a network of synergies between different organisations. On the one hand, through more institutional entities, such as the Valencian Institute of Culture (IVC), the Provincial Council of Alicante, the Department of Culture of the City Council of Elche, and Visit Elche; but also thanks to other organisations of different kinds, such as the l’Aljub shopping centre, the Cinema Paradiso film merchandising shop, and the Ali i Truc bookshop, among others. The festival also collaborates with other national and international film festivals, such as the Festival de Cortometrajes de Terror y Fantástico 1000 Gritos from Buenos Aires (Argentina), the Cortesina Fest, the Sant Joan d’Alacant Film Festival and the Skyline Benidorm Film Festival, the latter two of which are qualifiers for the Goya Awards. Similarly, since 2023, the festival has also expanded its activities to other municipalities, such as Catral, in collaboration with the Catral Film Club Association, whose usual facilities also serve as the venue for the event.