FANTASIA 30 (2026)—NIGHTBORN (2026): REVIEW

I swear, Kuura—the baby in Finnish filmmaker Hanna Bergholm’s sophomore feature Nightborn (2026)—makes Rosemary’s baby look downright angelic. With a hairy back that only a mother could love, Saga (Seidi Haarla) gives birth to a frighteningly ill-behaved infant intent on getting its own way, biting her nipples while breastfeeding until they’re swollen and bleeding. That’s enough right there to get motherhood off to a bad start, but baby’s growling for more! It will only stop shrieking if fed raw meat and animal’s blood (not your usual Gerber’s fare). Her British husband Jon (Rupert Grint, known for playing Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise) doesn’t seem to appreciate the agony of childbirth let alone the trauma of child raising suffered by Saga who is anxiously trying to love her baby’s hairy back while suspecting that this child can’t really be her’s, can it? There’s something wrong with it, isn’t there? Note to Jon: “Don’t forget to pick up the raw meat and animal blood when you’re at the grocery store!” 

Meanwhile, all that is chthonic in the Finnish woods surrounding their isolated country home speaks to the need for a paternity test. All this pain and blood and shrieking and paranoic fear resolves into one of the most unexpected smiles by film’s end. 

After having its world premiere earlier this year in the main competition of the 76th Berlin International Film Festival (where it was nominated for the Golden Bear), Nightborn arrives at Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival for its North American premiere festooned with favorable reviews from Variety (“an effective blend of Finnish mythology and Cronenbergian horror”), The Hollywood Reporter (“darkly funny and unabashedly gory”), and Slant (“pleasingly unpretentious”) and walks away from Fantasia with the festival’s coveted top honor: the Cheval Noir Trophy for Best Film, as well as the Cheval Noir for lead actress Seidi Haarla. 

As stated by the Cheval Noir jury: “ ‘It sucks my body, it destroys my career.’ When the anticipated birth and the child who should be loved become the most threatening presence to a mother, she fails to accept the child into her world. To her, the child is not a ‘him,’ but an ‘it.’ This psychological thriller explores the destruction of a woman's daily life—where everything around her could be reality, or merely an illusion. Ultimately, when she gives up everything and steps into the ‘child's’ world, we finally discover the ‘most adorable’ child in the world. The suspense keeps you glued to the screen every single second, and the emotion in the ending is bittersweet—making you smile yet feel profoundly sad. This film will stay with us for a long time.”