SPOTLIGHT April 2026: Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Film Critic & Historian, Filmmaker, Horror Nonna

For film female critics, it can sometimes be a challenge, but for female filmmakers, saying their careers and getting films made is a challenge is an understatement. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas has fearlessly chose to do both. She has carved out an award-winning career as an author, historian, and film critic. She is now adding credits in the film industry to those successes, and is poised to balance all that as part of a full creative life. Her neurodiversity is part of what makes her so good in so many aspects of her career. We can’t wait to see what she does next, and will celebrate each new project, as it will no doubt offer new insight and add new context to whatever she finds fascinating enough to filter through that her own unique lens.

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Women @ Fantasia International Film Fest 2024 – Alexandra Heller-Nicholas reports

Women’s work is also centred elsewhere at this year’s festival, both in front of and behind the camera. The 2024 festival is foregrounding achievements of two of important women film critics working in genre criticism today. First, acclaimed critic, curator and historian Heidi Honeycutt will launch her decades-in-the-making magnum opus, I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies. Canada’s own Kier-La Janisse will be appear in-person to read the introduction from her soon-to-be-released book, Cockfighter. about the 1974 film.

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I LIKE BATS (Fantasia Fest 2022) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

Released in 1986 by Polish actor and director Grzegorz Warchol, that I Like Bats has, until now, gone broadly unchampioned is a jaw-dropping oversight; this is your new favourite cult film classic, just waiting to be discovered. Sleek, sexy and riddled with dark humor, this electrifying vampire tale has more energy and sparkle than most contemporary horror films could ever dream of.

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WOMEN AT FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022 – Alexandra Heller-Nicholas reports

Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival – one of the world’s biggest and most highly genre films festivals – returns in 2022 from 14 July to 3 August with its usual impressive line-up of world, national and regional premieres, as well as hosting a diverse array of international and local guests and signature special events. Of these latter, the unquestionable highlight of this year’s Fantasia is the awarding of the Canadian Trailblazer Award to pioneering filmmaker, author, critic, historian and curator, Kier-La Janisse.

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