WHAT TO WATCH THIS INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY: DGC ONTARIO PRODUCTIONS OUT NOW & COMING SOON

March 8th is International Women’s Day. To celebrate the many achievements of Canadian Women filmmakers this IWD, we’ve put together this handy list of fantastic DGC Ontario Productions focused on telling authentic and fresh stories about women, made with the invaluable contributions of our Members.

AVAILABLE NOW

Women Talking

Nominated for dozens of prestigious awards, including Oscars for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay for Director/Writer Sarah Polley, this fearless adaptation of Miriam Toews’ acclaimed novel grants us access to a tight-knit, cloistered religious colony in which women struggle to recover from an epidemic of abuse. Featuring riveting, emotionally complex performances from a stunning ensemble that includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley and Frances McDormand, Women Talking is a drama of harrowing revelations, fraught alliances, and the search for grace. Read what Picture Editor Chris Donaldson and Production Designer Peter Cosco had to say about premiering this Oscar-winning film at TIFF.

Click here for a list of all the DGC Ontario Members who worked on Women Talking

Ginny & Georgia

Ginny & Georgia, made right here in Ontario with DGC Ontario Members, is a certified hit! The second season, which dropped on January 5th, spent two consecutive weeks in the Top 10 most-viewed series on Netflix. Not only is the show popular, but it’s also a funny, charming, heartwarming series about a teen girl and her troubled but optimistic mother. Ginny & Georgia deals with everything from racism, class, abuse, self-harm, and more through a refreshingly real lens that still manages to have fun.

Read our interview with four of the DGC Ontario Directors who directed episodes of Ginny & Georgia’s second season: James Genn, Danishka Esterhazy, Sharon Lewis, and Audrey Cummings. 

Click here for a list of all the DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 2 of Ginny & Georgia. 

Alice, Darling

Anna Kendrick captures the anxious psychology of a woman in an abusive relationship as her friends try to reconnect with her while on a cottage getaway. Alice, Darling captures the apprehension and dread that haunt victims of domestic abuse. Director Mary Nighy puts particular focus on the little details that serve as warning signs, and, coupled with a meticulous performance from Kendrick, she creates a tense atmosphere that serves as a unique portrait of psychological manipulation and one young woman’s effort to overcome it.

Click here for a list of all the DGC Ontario Members who worked on Alice, Darling

Workin’ Moms – Season 7

The final season of the hit comedy Workin’ Moms explores lasting friendships, ambitious careers, raising families, and growing up. Can women have it all? Some days yes, and some days… not so much. The biggest challenge of all is striking the right balance. Over seven seasons, Workin’ Moms found a hilarious and insightful way to illustrate the struggles of urban motherhood filled with the chaos of toddlers, tantrums, careers, and identity crises.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 7 of Workin’ Moms.

I Like Movies

Globe & Mail film critic and Director Chandler Levack brings us a funny, touching, and empathetic look at a film-obsessed teenage curmudgeon pursuing his dreams and testing personal connections in early-2000s suburban Ontario. I Like Movies is a smart, funny, and ornery exploration of adolescent trauma and early onset cinephilia, relatable to anyone who grew up finding more solace in the movies than in other people.

Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on I Like Movies.

Rosie

The feature-film debut of Métis writer-director-actor Gail Maurice brings us to the fringes of 1980s Montreal as seen from the perspective of a sweet and suddenly orphaned Indigenous girl. From images of people working on the street to a scene involving sleeping rough in a car in a junkyard, Rosie captures an uncomfortable reality understood through innocent eyes and told with humour and grace. Touching on the Sixties Scoop and disconnection from Indigenous identity, Rosie is an ode to finding your chosen family when your blood relations have been removed from the picture.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Rosie.

The Swearing Jar

Director Lindsay Mackay’s The Swearing Jar is based on Kate Hewlett’s award-winning play of the same name, which she adapted for the screen. An intimate story told through music, comedy, subtly shifting timeframes, and a few tears, The Swearing Jar explores issues of love, forgiveness, and self-recrimination as a newly married woman discovers that love can happen regardless of circumstance, invariably complicating what should be straightforward. The Swearing Jar is a serious leap forward in ambition, scope, and skill, telling a complicated story with charm and humour. Check out our interview with The Swearing Jar Production Manager Kim Yu.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on The Swearing Jar.

The Spencer Sisters

This brand-new CTV series stars Lea Thompson and Stacey Farber as Victoria and Darby Spencer, a mother and daughter duo who are thrust into investigating crimes in their hometown of Alder Bluffs. After a string of bad luck, former police officer Darby Spencer is forced to return home to her estranged mother, internationally renowned mystery novelist Victoria Spencer (who insists the two look like sisters). But after the duo is thrust into solving a crime together, Darby discovers a side to Victoria she never knew and ultimately takes the plunge into the unlikeliest of ventures: becoming her partner in a private detective agency. Despite their opposing personalities, differing sensibilities, and complicated history, they discover they may have more in common than they thought.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 1 of The Spencer Sisters. 

COMING SOON

Slip Season 1

Mae works at an art museum and has been married to Elijah for thirteen years. While there is still love between them, there is little romance to be found. When Mae “slips” and has a one-night stand with charismatic musician Eric, she wakes up the next morning in a panic, only to realize she has somehow entered a parallel universe in which she and Eric are now married, and all traces of her life with Elijah have been wiped from existence. Written, directed by, and starring DGC Ontario Member Zoe Lister-Jones.

Watch our video interview with Zoe about why she loves hiring women creatives and filming in Toronto, and read our roundtable interview with some of the female filmmakers who helped bring Slip’s multiverse to life.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 1 of Slip.

Bloody Hell

Bloody Hell is a coming-of-age “traumedy” that follows 16-year-old Lindy (Maddie Ziegler), who is unexpectedly diagnosed with a reproductive condition, MRKH syndrome. The diagnosis upends her plans to have sex, her presumptions about womanhood and sexuality, her relationship with her mother (Emily Hampshire), and most importantly, herself. Bloody Hell is a semi-autobiographical feature written and directed by DGC Ontario Member Molly McGlynn (Mary Goes Round). 

Catch up with the creatives behind Bloody Hell in this roundtable interview: Director Molly McGlynn, Picture Editor Maureen Grant, Production Designer Thea Hollatz, and DP Nina Djacic.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Bloody Hell.

Jane Season 1

From award-winning DGC Ontario Director J.J. Johnson, Sinking Ship Entertainment and the Jane Goodall Institute, Jane is a new 10-episode mission-driven series for kids and families inspired by the work of Dr. Jane Goodall. Ava Louise Murchison stars as Jane Garcia, a 9-year-old budding environmentalist on a quest to save endangered animals. Using her powerful imagination, Jane takes her best friends, David and Greybeard the chimpanzee, on epic adventures to help protect wild animals all around the world because, according to her idol Dr. Jane Goodall: “Only if we understand, will we care. Only if we care will we help. Only if we help, can they be saved.” Coming April 14th to AppleTV+!

Get a behind-the-scenes look at Jane with Director and Creator J.J. Johnson, 1st AD Mary Reynolds, Production Designer Domini Anderson, and Location Manager Dason Johnson, who travelled to stunning Kenyan savannahs, tropical Costa Rican jungles, and breathtaking Albertan mountains to bring this show to life.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Season 1 of Jane.

Lady in the Lake

An adaptation of Laura Lippman’s New York Times best-selling novel of the same name, Lady in the Lake explores motherhood and femininity through a race and class-based lens. The limited series takes place in ’60s Baltimore, where an unsolved murder pushes housewife and mother Maddie Schwartz (Natalie Portman) to reinvent her life as an investigative journalist and sets her on a collision course with Cleo Sherwood (Moses Ingram), a hard-working woman juggling motherhood, many jobs and a passionate commitment to advancing Baltimore’s Black progressive agenda. Coming soon to AppleTV+. 

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Lady in the Lake.

Humane

Internationally-acclaimed Canadian photographer and filmmaker Caitlin Cronenberg makes her feature film debut with Humane, a psychological dystopian thriller that explores familiar Cronenbergian fears and themes. Humane takes place over a single day, after a global environmental collapse has forced world leaders to take extreme measures to reduce the earth’s population. When a recently retired newsman invites his four grown children to dinner to announce his intentions to enlist in the nation’s new euthanasia program, his plan goes horribly awry, and chaos erupts among his children.

Click here for a complete list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Humane.

Bria Mack Gets A Life

This upcoming Crave original comedy is directed by Canadian rising star and DGC Ontario Director Kelly Fyffe-Marshall and creator Sasha Leigh Henry, who was part of Playback‘s 2022 10 to Watch cohort. The series stars Malaika Hennie-Hamadi as the title character who finds herself leaning on her imaginary hype girl, played by Hannan Younis, as she navigates living as an adult Black woman in a predominantly white world.

Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Bria Mack Gets a Life.

Orphan Black: Echoes

An upcoming thriller and science fiction series set in the same universe as the critically-acclaimed Canadian series Orphan Black, with returning original co-creator John Fawcett on board as an executive producer and Director. Set in the near future, Orphan Black: Echoes takes a deep dive into the exploration of the scientific manipulation of human existence. It follows a group of women, led by actress Krysten Ritter, as they weave their way into each other’s lives and embark on a thrilling journey, unravelling the mystery of their identity and uncovering a wrenching story of love and betrayal.

Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Orphan Black: Echoes.

Robyn Hood

Prolific music video director and DGC Ontario Member Julien Christian Lutz, aka Director X, created this upcoming eight-episode drama with a modern, feminist take on the Robin Hood legend. Robyn Hood follows fearless heroine Robyn Loxley (Jessye Romeo) and her anti-authoritarian, masked hip-hop band, The Hood, as they call out injustices and fight for freedom and equality in the rapidly-gentrifying city of New Nottingham.

Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Robyn Hood.

Beyond Black Beauty

Directed by DGC Ontario’s Alicia K. Harris and based on Anna Sewell’s novel Black Beauty, Beyond Black Beauty from Sinking Ship Productions follows an Olympic-driven equestrian who has to move back to Baltimore from Belgium with her family and ends up bonding with a horse named Black Beauty.

Click here for a list of DGC Ontario Members who worked on Beyond Black Beauty.

Related Posts

WHAT TO WATCH AND READ THIS ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH

WHAT TO WATCH AND READ THIS ASIAN HERITAGE MONTH

This Asian Heritage Month, we’re spotlighting some of the DGC Ontario Members and Productions bringing Asian-Canadian stories to the screen in authentic, heartwarming, hilarious ways. Scroll down for some of the best new and returning DGC Ontario Productions centred around Asian-Canadians, and a collection of Wider Lens interviews with DGC Ontario Members putting Asian stories front and centre.
DGC ONTARIO CREATIVES ON HOW IT FEELS TO BE BACK AT TIFF

DGC ONTARIO CREATIVES ON HOW IT FEELS TO BE BACK AT TIFF

The 2022 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 8-18. To celebrate, we talk to some of the DGC Ontario Editors, Directors, and Production Designers behind 13 of the festival's hottest films! Find out what they're most proud of about their work on these exciting productions and how it feels to see them play on the big screen in front of an audience again.

Subscribe to get our newsletter

Scroll to Top