Don McKellar

A game designer on the run from assassins must play her latest virtual reality creation with a marketing trainee to determine if the game has been damaged.

In the upscale Toronto strip club Exotica, dancer Christina is visited nightly by the obsessive Francis, a depressed tax auditor. Her ex-boyfriend, the club's MC, Eric, still jealously pines for her even as he introduces her onstage, but Eric is having his own relationship problems with the club's female owner. Thomas, a mysterious pet-shop owner, is about to become unexpectedly involved in their lives.

A little boy found wandering the streets is taken in by Bob and Joan, a kindly couple. The boy is cold, wet and desperate for shelter, but Bob and Joan are perplexed by his claims that he was once a rat. Meanwhile, rumours are rife at the newspaper about the prince's new love: a girl who captivated everyone at the palace ball.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Camille is a professor at a Protestant college and is in a long-term relationship with Martin, a respected minister and fellow professor. When Camille meets Petra, a bold and flamboyant performer in a circus troupe, she is inexplicably drawn. Pursuing Petra, Camille throws her whole conservative life into disarray.

A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse from Thunder Bay, Ontario to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way.

An ambitious reporter probes the reasons behind the sudden split of a 1950s comedy team.

Manhattan prosecutor Nick is charged with looking into the untimely death of city resident Matt, a musician who had AIDS. As she questions Matt's loyal family members — mother Lila and sister Dana — she comes to learn that his closest pal, health-care worker Brian, is an ardent believer in assisted suicide and that he threw Matt a big party before his death. This presents a dilemma for the humane but dutiful Nick.

Four young office workers have a bet going to see who can last the longest without going outside. In the maze that is the downtown core of a large city, glass skywalks connect apartment buildings, office towers and shopping malls. Its day 28 of the bet and over the lunch hour, as the office prepares for the company founder's retirement party, things start to seriously unravel.

An experimental filmmaker takes a job as a driver for a foul-mouthed child actor and his ambitious stage mother.

300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.

A music promoter sends a young woman on a road trip in search of a band who hasn't been showing up for their gigs.

Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

After she ends up in prison and loses custody of her son, a woman struggles to assimilate outside her former life and remain clean long enough to regain custody of her son.

Inside the Canadian diplomatic compound in New Delhi, a mischievous cook affects the lives of her employers and fellow staff.

Ten years after ending their partnership as rock musicians, two women become re-acquainted in the course of one night.

The new manager of a full-body massage parlor must make sure his employees do not grant sexual favors to clients.

Josephine has her eye on Joe, a hot-headed, petty criminal who taps phones for a living. When she finally worms her way into his heart she realises it's not a nice place to be. But is it too late?

Two ex-revolutionaries living underground have their lives turned upside down by a sexy young radical who goes from smashing SUVs to fighting gentrification with firebombs.

Toronto filmmaker Alan Zweig analyzes the phenomenon of record collecting.

Mica is born smelling of fish that soap and doctors can't remove. Problems increase starting school as no one'll be his friend. He sees a therapist. His life seems doomed until he meets Laura.

Alessa Woo (Lee) is an ambitious art dealer who meets her match in gifted painter Ben Crowchild (Beach) in this romantic comedy.

A festival is a concentration of hope. Audiences hungering for something startingly new, famously familiar or just plain "good". Actors hoping their well-conceived sincerity and ritual entrances have that special glow. Press and critics poised to love or hate lucidly. And proud, desperate filmmakers looking for that little blessing on their latest self-projection. All squeezing together for a few days, in a few rooms wondering whether this will truly be the perfect place at the perfect time. Of course, it rarely is. Mostly it's just a collection of almosts. Delicious, shared almosts.

A boy with an alcoholic father befriends a jazz musician.

A dark, wryly funny film about a game show run by smug pseudo-intellectuals that awards money to the contestant with the most pathetic life. The "contestants" are unaware they're even playing the game: the show's producers infiltrate houses, install surveillance cameras and broadcast footage for viewers to judge in such existential categories as doubt, alienation and disillusionment. A biting critique of the culture of surveillance as entertainment.

The disappearance of a young Cree woman in Toronto traumatizes her Northern Ontario family, and sends her twin sister on a journey south to find her.

Freda Lopez, an aspiring musician, travels with her husband to the beautiful beaches of Georgia where she befriends Camilla, an odd and exotic elderly woman who plays the violin. When the two embark on a journey together, Camilla reclaims a lost love and makes peace with herself and her son, while Freda discovers inner resources she never knew she had.

A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

A conversation about guilty pleasures turns into one man's quest to find others on a library waiting list, while simultaneously examining the fate of the famous Hollywood bomb Ishtar (1987).

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo Ma as he travels to Canada to perform Bach's Cello Suites.

With his partner, a celebrity performance artist publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. An investigator from the National Organ Registry obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission — to use the artist's notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.

This docu-drama spans fifteen turbulent years in the political and personal life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, one of the most enigmatic and polarizing Prime Ministers in Canadian history. The film explores the many facets of his character and his vision for his country which has both inspired and frustrated Canadians.

In the Warsau ghetto of 1943, one man's struggle to keep his family together leads him to the ultimate crisis of faith and one final chance at redemption.

A businessman gets caught up in an assassination plot when he travels to Cuba.

A political activist helps take care of a group of America’s most wanted fugitives, including a well-known, recently radicalized heiress.

In this short animation, Oscar®-winning director Chris Landreth uses a common social gaffe - forgetting somebody's name - as the starting point for a mind-bending romp through the unconscious. Inspired by the classic TV game show Password, the film features a wealth of animated celebrity guests who try (and try, and try) to prompt Charles to remember the name. Finally, he realizes he will simply have to surrender himself to his predicament.

A young jury member becomes infatuated with Leslie, a troubled teenager and former homecoming princess, who became a follower of Charles Manson's cult and is now on trial for murder.

A man claims to have found a dinosaur skeleton in a vacant lot next to his apartment building.

An uptight insurance man and his film-censor wife become a kinky couple's landlords.

Shadowed by the death of her mother, Julie Kumagai's life with her widower father is marked by pained, turbulent exchanges. Indifferent to a break-up with her boyfriend and the lure of a long-planned trip, she finds some refuge in her workplace where she meets Tetsuro, a young Korean man newly emigrated from Japan who is obsessed with all things American. But together they discover no easy resolutions.

Ever more bizarre criteria are used to eliminate couples from a secret dance event.

Rosie Ming, a young Canadian poet, is invited to perform at a Poetry Festival in Shiraz, Iran, but she’d rather be in Paris. She lives at home with her over-protective Chinese grandparents and has never been anywhere by herself. Once in Iran, she finds herself in the company of poets and Persians, all who tell her stories that force her to confront her past; the Iranian father she assumed abandoned her and the nature of Poetry itself. It’s about building bridges between cultural and generational divides. It’s about being curious. Staying open. And finding your own voice through the magic of poetry. Rosie goes on an unwitting journey of forgiveness, reconciliation, and perhaps above all, understanding, through learning about her father’s past, her own cultural identity, and her responsibility to it.

A multi-dimensional interface between a comic book artist, a novelist, and a film director. Each lives in a separate reality but authors a story about one of the others.

A naïve but internet savvy 22 year old navigates the reality of her boring, small town Canadian life juxtaposed with the fantasy of her provocative and powerful Instagram celebrity.

Johnna's dad changed the world. Or so he says. Whilst Johnna and her dad are talking, they can't seem to connect, each growing more and more frustrated with one another, revolving around one another in their own orbits.

A devoted wife and mother is forced to reassess her reverence for her husband after she finds another woman’s thong in his laundry.

Tortured by the memory of a childhood trauma, a woman returns after a decade to her family's fly-in hunting lodge to assist her siblings with their dying father, only to find herself stuck in a life threatening nightmare.

Still living at home with his avant-garde actress mother, constantly rejected by art schools, and without a lover, aspiring painter Andrew decides to enter a contest in hopes of winning a six month stay in Kenya. Though things aren't great for Andrew, neither are they wonderful for his lesbian friend Lucy who constantly bickers with her lover Ingrid. Lucy complicates Andrew's life when she introduces him to the suspicious-looking, enigmatic Jerry.

This compelling documentary explores Canadian film culture and tries to discover what defines Canadian film through interviews with notable filmmakers.

A road movie romance that conjures a heady concoction of free love and end of the world conspiracy.

A devout community suffering from a plague is torn apart by a beautiful young woman and the forces of witchcraft, black magic, and possession.

Frank Farrelli takes on the job as a middle man in the God-forsaken town of Karmack, USA, a community in a depression so deep that they need a middle man to professionally communicate more of the bad news.

Author Ayn Rand becomes involved with a much younger and married man, to the dismay of those close to her.

Ex heroin junkie, Daniel Léger, gets involved in a drug deal with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. When the deal goes sour, Daniel gets thrown into a Thai prison and slapped with a 100-year sentence. While he tries to survive his Bangkok incarceration, the news of his conviction captures the attention of Globe and Mail journalist Victor Malarek, who decides to go after the shady undercover cops responsible for wrongly accusing Daniel.

At 14, Amanda is a perfect swimmer and a great student. When the factory where his father works closes and he must go to work in another city, she feels very sad. One morning she meets the McRea, a very nice elderly couple who, like her, cannot live without the sea, although in another sense.

As bass guitarist for a garage-rock band, Scott Pilgrim has never had trouble getting a girlfriend; usually, the problem is getting rid of them. But when Ramona Flowers skates into his heart, he finds she has the most troublesome baggage of all: an army of ex-boyfriends who will stop at nothing to eliminate him from her list of suitors.

Based on the short ghost story of the same name by Algernon Blackwood from 1909, The Occupant of the Room centers on a schoolteacher whose late-night arrival at a hotel in the Alps leads to a sleepless night full of uncanny occurrences.

Nash The Slash was deliciously surreal, verging on demented. A mummy wrapped in surgical bandages, an invisible man in full formal white tuxedo and top hat buzz-sawing his violin through endless reams of electronics, melodies and distortion. His music and image were demanding. His life was rock fantasy. ‘NASH THE SLASH RISES AGAIN!’ uncovers the sinister Canadian electronic music innovator. A classically trained violinist and multi-instrumentalist, he created music that was an unlikely combination of prog-rock, punk-rock, classic-rock, psychedelic fused with techno and industrial before they had names. The end result is an unearthly life drenched in film history, enveloped in a wall of sound that would do Phil Spector justice. A career embodied in artistic integrity, courage and the price-tag that comes with it. ‘NASH THE SLASH RISES AGAIN!’ unwinds the bandages of a ground-breaking, mad musical scientist whose career decomposed before the world caught up.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

An experimental filmmaker takes a job as a driver for a foul-mouthed child actor and his ambitious stage mother.

Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

A small fishing village must procure a local doctor to secure a lucrative business contract. When unlikely candidate and big city doctor Paul Lewis lands in their lap for a trial residence, the townsfolk rally together to charm him into staying. As the doctor’s time in the village winds to a close, acting mayor Murray French has no choice but to pull out all the stops and begin The Grand Seduction.

Don McKellar’s autobiographical, wryly comic short looks at Toronto International Film Festival–goers’ fierce desire to get into a screening.

Don McKellar’s autobiographical, wryly comic short looks at Toronto International Film Festival–goers’ fierce desire to get into a screening.

A creative and driven teenager is desperate to escape his hometown and the haunting memories of his turbulent childhood.

An experimental filmmaker takes a job as a driver for a foul-mouthed child actor and his ambitious stage mother.

Commissioned by the Toronto International Film Festival to mark the event's 25th anniversary in September 2000, the "Preludes" program consisted of ten short films by Canadian directors which were inspired in some way by the festival. Each film screened as a prelude to a feature film in the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival program. The full "Preludes" anthology was screened on the web in November 2000, and was given theatrical retrospectives at the TIFF Lightbox in the subsequent years.

New carpet factory footage intercut with old porn creates a brief but telling glimpse into the human psyche.

A collection of vignettes highlighting different aspects of the life, work, and character of the acclaimed Canadian classical pianist.

Bruno wakes up in bed next to Caroline, his long time crush. But tomorrow she's off for school in France, and maybe she only granted this miracle as a parting gift for her long time friend. So tonight is Bruno's last chance. And tonight, as it happens, Broken Social Scene, her favourite band, is throwing a big outdoor bash. Maybe if Bruno, with the help of his best pal Blake, can score tickets and give Caroline a night to remember, he can keep this miracle alive.

A music promoter sends a young woman on a road trip in search of a band who hasn't been showing up for their gigs.

A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse from Thunder Bay, Ontario to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way.

A naive Canadian barber who knows US popular culture inside and out meets a flamboyant roadie who needs someone to drive her and her "brother's" corpse from Thunder Bay, Ontario to New Orleans. Chaos ensues after the barber agrees to drive her, the corpse, and the drugs stashed within all the way.

Ever more bizarre criteria are used to eliminate couples from a secret dance event.

Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.

Bruno wakes up in bed next to Caroline, his long time crush. But tomorrow she's off for school in France, and maybe she only granted this miracle as a parting gift for her long time friend. So tonight is Bruno's last chance. And tonight, as it happens, Broken Social Scene, her favourite band, is throwing a big outdoor bash. Maybe if Bruno, with the help of his best pal Blake, can score tickets and give Caroline a night to remember, he can keep this miracle alive.

New carpet factory footage intercut with old porn creates a brief but telling glimpse into the human psyche.

Ever more bizarre criteria are used to eliminate couples from a secret dance event.

Various citizens of Toronto anxiously await the end of the world, which is occurring at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.

A filmic love letter. One out of two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Festival Film in Paris

A filmic love letter. One out of two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Festival Film in Paris

A filmic love letter. One out of the two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Film Festival in Paris.

A filmic love letter. One out of the two. Premiered at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival; Screened at the 2007 Pocket Film Festival in Paris.

The disappearance of a young Cree woman in Toronto traumatizes her Northern Ontario family, and sends her twin sister on a journey south to find her.

Relationships can be an endless cycle of breakups.

Relationships can be an endless cycle of breakups.

Breadwinner Man-su, who has worked diligently at a company for 25 years, is suddenly laid off. In charge of his family's living, Man-su struggles to be re-employed, but soon learns that there are tons of competitors with similar qualifications out there. Increasingly pressured, Man-su eventually makes up his mind to eliminate his competitors to secure his position. His everyday life slowly begins to crumble, and despite being riddled with guilt and fear, Man-su doesn't stop fighting to protect his family.

300 years of a remarkable musical instrument. Crafted by the Italian master Bussotti (Cecchi) in 1681, the red violin has traveled through Austria, England, China, and Canada, leaving both beauty and tragedy in its wake. In Montreal, Samuel L Jackson plays an appraiser going over its complex history.