We visit film festivals to marvel at excellent cinema. We also go to catch a glimpse of what filmmaking and media production might look like in the future. At Montréal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, which closes on Aug. 2, audiences are witnessing exactly this: exceptional films alongside a rich and dizzying media ecology of emerging practices.

From the physical artistry of Thailand’s Panna Rittikrai’s Stunt Team to a new documentary tracing the origins of the legendary Japanese superhero franchise, Ultraman, this year’s festival lineup showcase one of the festival’s founding mantras: to create bridges between the cutting-edge and the mainstream. Today’s scrappy outsider can reshape tomorrow’s industry.

As Fantasia marks its 30th year as a haven for international genre cinema, it’s worth reflecting on the shift in media that made such a festival possible. For much of the 20th century, international film festivals offered a strict diet of highbrow arthouse cinema, deeming horror, action and fantasy unworthy of such platforms.

What was once considered highbrow was decided by a filmmaker’s devotion to serve the medium over and above the market. Film festivals emerged partly to endow artistic films with prestige beyond box-office performance. Cannes, for instance, prides itself on operating “in the service of the cinematographic art.” In contrast, genre films were largely unwelcome in such settings, dismissed........

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