Spotlight: Cinéfest Sudbury 2026

Business was dead, until they made a killing… To hell with the wellness revolution. Everyone’s juicing, meditating, bio-hacking, and living forever. Great news for humanity—disastrous for the death industry. In one small American town, funeral director Clyde is going broke while the living stubbornly refuse to die—until his quiet, devoted granddaughter Sam decides to take fate into her own hands. To make a killing, you have to be ruthless… and soon the obituary column is back in print and business is booming.

Featuring: Brad Austin, Ella Ballentine, Marqus Bobesich, Clare Coulter, Thomas Gough, Deborah Grover, Stuart Hughes, Tom Keat, Don Lake, Louise Claire Lambert, Matthew Lancaster, Cooper Levy, Tony Nappo, Watson Rose, Ordena Stephens-Thompson, Tymika Tafari, Steve Wilsher; Stunt Coordinator James Binkley

Premieres Thursday, September 24, 0226, at 4:30 p.m.

Yura, an ambitious Inuk multi-media artist, starts to spiral out of control when estranged childhood friend Sesi resurfaces, forcing Yura to confront the trauma she’s built her career on—and the identity she’s constructed to escape it.

Featuring: Jefferson Brown, Katharine King So, Anna Lambe, Sera-Lys McArthur, Tara Nicodemo, Alexander Nunez, Ellora Patnaik, Robert Ramsay, Star Slade; Stunt Coordinator Jason Gosbee

Premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 2:30 p.m.

Wide-eyed Julián is about to spend the summer with a grandmother he barely knows. He is amazed to discover her treasure-trove apartment, his own Caribbean heritage and the lively Brooklyn community he is surrounded by. But most surprising of all, Julián discovers that he is, in fact, a mermaid! A child discovering who he is and a grandmother who meets that discovery with love, during one joyful Brooklyn summer. Julián is a heart-warming story about family, imagination and the power of self-expression.

Featuring: Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Zariah Georgia Ellis, Stephanie Herrera, Knyght Jack, Yanna McIntosh, Kim Roberts, Manuel Rodriguez, Anthony Sardinha, Avery Star Tibayan

Premieres Tuesday, September 22, 2026, at 10 a.m.

Last Moon is a frontier nightmare set in the Old West. A former bounty hunter living under a new name believes he has buried the violence of his past on a remote farm deep in the wilderness. But when something savage emerges from the surrounding forest and tears his family apart, he is forced back into the brutal life he tried to escape. As he and his young daughter track the creature through the darkening woods a horrifying truth begins to surface. The monster hunting them is not just a wolf, but the living consequence of a massacre he committed years before.

Featuring: Joshua Bainbridge, Mina Borody, Lora Jayne Burke, Shawn Doyle, Kayla Dumont

Premieres Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 7 p.m.

Lucia, after a past of advocating for gay and trans rights, now has Alzheimer’s that is quickly worsening. She enters a retirement home that promises to respect her identity as a trans woman, but soon after settling, she finds herself facing an environment that is questioning her condition. Surrounded by cold, institutional walls that clash with Lucia’s vibrant lifestyle, she struggles to navigate her surroundings and seeks the support of new friends.

Featuring: Scott Thomas, Dana Baker, Charlie Ebbs, Deborah Grover, Sharon Hampson, Eva Everett Irving, Daniel Karp, Louise Claire Lambert, Matthew Evans Landry, Taylor Love, Duane Murray, Gordon Rand, David Andrew Reid, Jessica Salgueiro, David John Tomlinson; Stunt Coordinator Shelley Cook

Premieres Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 12:30 p.m.

Nola, a sous chef, is seeking stability after a stay in a mental health facility. After a hectic dinner shift, she crashes her bike—and wakes to find her estranged, unhoused father standing over her. As she takes him in, old wounds resurface, and her world unravels. Caught between past and present, love and loss, Nola must navigate grief, forgiveness and the fragile hope of healing.

Featuring: Alden Adair, Kwaku Adu-Poku, Basel Daoud, Brett Donahue, Aisha Evelyna, Ruth Goodwin, Gia Sandhu, Lerato Tafa, Philip Van Martin

Premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 12:45 p.m.

On one of the hottest days of the summer, a group of kids in a Toronto neighbourhood are suspended in the strange, restless space between childhood and whatever comes next. For Shay, the day begins in his cramped family apartment with his chaotic best friend Vince and his younger sister Cee Cee, who is too young to be included and too old to be ignored. Like most teenagers, Shay’s world revolves around his best friend, but lately he has been preoccupied with Nia, the girl he finally wants to ask out. Unbeknownst to Shay, Nia is carrying a secret of her own: she is moving, and her inability to find the words to tell her best friend Britney is beginning to create its own quiet rupture. As the teens meander through the day, enduring the heat and avoiding the things they are not ready to say, the power goes out. Cut off from their usual distractions, they are forced outside to occupy time in the real world, the way generations before them did.

Featuring: Hugo Assad, Milan Deng, MJ Fausta, Martin Gomes, Joe Kim, Ericka Leobrera, Trinity Lloyd, Matthew Mugoa, Obra, Kacey O’Garro, Aria Oke, Ivan D. Ossa, Kevin Reid, Arianna Shannon, Chiharu Suda, David Tompa, Jinny Wong

Premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 12:30 p.m.

Struggling to endure the decline of the fur trade, and beset with a murderous hunger, the occupants of a remote outpost in 1800s Canada recruit American mercenary, Cole Franklin, as a hired gun and guide. Tasked with leading a trading party to a nearby Indigenous village, any hope for salvation is soon dashed when the quest evolves into a terrifying fight for survival. As the half-crazed keepers of the Fort plunge their people further into mortal danger, madness ensues and the casualties stack-up, forcing Cole to put his military expertise to unlikely use: uniting the rag-tag band who remain against a dark evil, one that brings an insatiable hunger for flesh.

Featuring: Craig Lauzon, Pamela Allison Mattews, Peter Millard, Mara Pasley, Aaron Poole, Caroline Raynaud, Nabil Traboulsi, Philip Van Martin; Stunt Coordinator Hubert Boorder

Premieres Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 8:45 p.m.

With her personal life falling apart, a burnt-out ad exec is pushed by her fiery mother into the one challenge she never thought she’d have to take on: her family’s annual Korean Thanksgiving Chuseok celebration. Sunny Park is one half of a flailing new ad agency with her hotshot creative director partner Dean. Having spent her whole adult life sublimating her needs to take care of one self-absorbed man after another, Sunny’s life is turned upside down when she discovers Dean is cheating on her. Incensed, she takes her precocious 12-year-old daughter with her back to her parent’s place in Koreatown above their little restaurant. But she walks into a burgeoning crisis when her demanding and critical mother, Youngja, asks her to take over her famous annual Thanksgiving Chuseok celebration. With only a month to go, Youngja presses Sunny to take up the mantle and learn the recipes and invites all of their relatives. And to top it all off, her mother puts her on a collision course with her handsome chef neighbour. Feeling pressure from all sides, Sunny and her mother clash while her daughter tries to referee. Things come to a head when Dean reappears with an offer and Sunny finds herself having to re-evaluate who she is.

Featuring: Austin Ball, Yoseph Chang, Pamela Estrada, Vicki Kim, Georgette Lee, Mark Lutz, Nicole Stamp

Premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 11:30 a.m.

After a robbery goes bad, Clare escapes with a duffel bag carrying a life-saving organ and meets with her dying brother Danny. With police closing in and time running out, she hijacks a cosmetic surgery clinic, forcing an unwilling surgeon to attempt an impossible transplant. As the night spirals into violence, betrayal and desperation, Clare must outrun both law enforcement and ruthless criminals while gambling everything on one final chance to save her brother.

Featuring: Sean C. Affleck, Claire Cavalheiro, Daniel De Santo, Kylee Evans, Kris Holden-Reid, Joris Jarsky, Mary Kitchen, Sean Rey, Jamie Spilchuk; Stunt Coordinator Jason Gosbee

Premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 9:15 p.m.

After a freak accident leaves her speaking with a Bosnian accent, a North American woman is suddenly seen as a stranger by everyone around her—forcing her to live the immigrant experience she’s never meant to have.

Featuring: Rachael Ancheril, Lara Arabian, Cynthia Ashperger, Greg Bryck, Steve Byers, Jasmin Geljo, Varun Guru, Aharon Jinjihashvili, Kimberly-Sue Murray, Paulino Nunes, Mladen Obradovic, Janet Porter, Johnathan Sousa; Stunt Coordinator Plato Fountidakis

Premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 12:15 p.m.

When 70-something Melanie hosts a reunion of her ex-hippie friends, she is shocked to discover they’ve all inherited the property where they once lived communally 50 years ago. Joined by Lyla, the daughter of their deceased friend, the former hippies find themselves reconnecting with the past and struggling to understand what it was all about.

Featuring: Joshua Bainbridge, William C. Cole, Barry Flatman, Terri Hawkes, Dan Iaboni, Peter MacNeill, Tommie-Amber Piri, R.H. Thomson, Barbara Williams

Premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 4:45 p.m.

A mother and son search for the perfect vantage point to witness a rare cosmic phenomenon.

Featuring: Michela Cannon, Henry Falk

Short Circuit II: The Elements; premieres Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 6 p.m.

Three Amish guys on their first binge of freedom find themselves on the run from a bumbling highway patrolman.

Featuring: Lou Mauro, Miia Piironen; Stunt Coordinator & Animal Wrangler Sue Parker

Short Circuit II: The Elements; premieres Wednesday, September 23, 2026, at 6 p.m. / CTV Best in Shorts on Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 12 p.m.

A commitment-phobe with a strict no-sleepover rule spirals into panic when her favourite casual fling spends the night.

Featuring: Colin Platt, Isabella Shibuta

Short Circuit III: Love Unfiltered; premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 3 p.m.

Over his summer break, Marco signs up for a lifeguard training course, where he becomes entranced by his polar opposite, Xavier. When the two partner up for CPR and in-water drills, Marco must decide whether to act on his feelings or potentially let his queer joy pass him by.

Featuring: Jordan Belliveau, Holly Cinnamon

Short Circuit III: Love Unfiltered; premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 3 p.m.

Eva desperately wants to cry following a painful break up. But her AI companion, Margaret, won’t let her.

Featuring: Dalmar Abuzeid, Hannah Emily Anderson, Maddy Foley, Andrea Palovic

Short Circuit III: Love Unfiltered; premieres Friday, September 25, 2026, at 3 p.m.

Happy is an allegory about the pains of depression and the fear of coming out. Highlighting the challenges that the lead, Jason, faces when dealing with extreme depression and the pressures that correspond in a heteronormative culture.

Featuring: Kato Alexander, Golden Madison, Andrew Meikle

CTV Best in Shorts; premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 12 p.m.

A young professional is faced with finding a new job. Little does he know what lies ahead.

Featuring: Tara Andrea, Carter Belanger, Dean Belanger, Jennifer Tocheri

CTV Best in Shorts; premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 12 p.m.

Darla and Eddie are transient siblings who make their living performing supernatural for-hire jobs, with Eddie using his rare gift to communicate with ghosts and restore their connection to the living world.

Featuring: Corey Dixon, Katisha Shaw, Bruce Laurence Stanfield

Sudbury’s Shorter Superstacks; premieres Saturday, September 26, 2026, at 7:30 p.m.