Hanna Bergholm's Nightborn has won the Cheval Noir for Best Film at the 2026 Fantasia International Film Festival, with Seidi Haarla taking Best Actress for her performance in the same film. The awards were announced on 25 July 2026, as the Montreal festival neared the close of its 30th edition, which runs from 16 July to 2 August Variety.

Nightborn, a 92-minute co-production of Finland, Lithuania, France and the United Kingdom, screened on 22 July at 9:30 p.m. in the festival's Auditorium. Rupert Grint stars opposite Haarla in the film Variety; Fantasia Festival.

The Cheval Noir — French for "black horse," the festival's name for its top jury prize — has been Fantasia's marquee award since the event's early editions. A Best Film win at a genre festival like Fantasia can sharpen a title's profile for international distributors looking to acquire films for territories where they have not yet sold.

This year's edition carried an extra layer of significance: Fantasia turned 30. The festival opened with the Canadian premiere of Her Private Hell and is set to close on 2 August with the world premiere of Freaks Part II Fantasia Festival. Danish film-maker Nicolas Winding Refn also received a Cheval Noir award at this edition Fantasia Festival.

The jury spread its remaining craft honours across a notably international field. Kasper Kalle won Best Director for No Rest for the Wicked, a co-production of Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. The Best Screenplay prize went to Edwin, Eka Kurniawan and Daishi Matsunaga for Sleep No More, a Japan-Germany-Singapore-Indonesia co-production directed by Edwin. Italy collected two craft awards: Fabrizio La Palombara won Best Cinematography and Pino Donaggio won Best Score, both for Ferine, directed by Andrea Corsini. Satoshi Ueno took Best Editing for the Japanese film Beasts Clutching at Straws, directed by Hideo Jojo Variety.

What stands out in this year's slate is the spread. Winners span the Nordic countries, the Baltic region, Western and Southern Europe, and East and Southeast Asia. Nightborn alone stitches together four producing nations, and no single country dominated the craft categories. For a festival that has spent three decades championing genre cinema from outside the Hollywood pipeline, that reach tells its own story.