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Rosie film image, director Gail Maurice

Rosie

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Set in the fringes of 1980s Montréal, Rosie is an open-hearted love letter to misfits and an ode to found families. Orphaned and alone, Rosie (Keris Hope Hill), a precocious English-speaking Indigenous girl, is unceremoniously deposited at the doorstep of her Francophone Aunty Fred (Mélanie Bray) by child services. A foul-mouthed, underemployed outsider artist, Fred is facing eviction and not exactly in the market for added responsibility. However, she’s powerless to resist Rosie’s practically paranormal positivity as the girl sees the upside of sleeping in a scrapyard and warmly embraces Fred’s street-working non-binary best friends (Constant Bernard and Alex Trahan). Much like Fred creates art from other’s trash, this band of sequined outsiders finds beauty and magic amidst their trying circumstances.

Drawing from her lived experience as a queer Cree/Métis woman, Gail Maurice brings a singular sensibility to her first feature. Her film’s buoyant charm and humour only make its passionate appeal for acceptance all the more persuasive. We’d all do well to take a page from Rosie.

 

Q&A Oct 2 & Oct 4

 

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Director
Cast

Mélanie Bray, Keris Hope Hill, Constant Bernard, Alex Trahan, Josée Young, Jocelyne Zucco, Arlen Aguayo Stewart

Credits
Country of Origin

Canada

Year

2022

Language

In English, French, and Cree with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
Content Warning

Coarse language

14A

Open to youth!

90 min
Drama LGBTQIA2S+ Women Directors

Book Tickets

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Credits

Executive Producer

Mark Slone

Producer

Gail Maurice, Jamie Manning

Screenwriter

Gail Maurice

Cinematography

Celiana Cárdenas

Editor

Shaun Rykiss

Production Design

Joshua Turpin

Art Director

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Director

Gail Maurice headshot, Rosie director

Gail Maurice

Gail Maurice is a Cree/Michif-speaking actor and an award-winning independent filmmaker. She is a recipient of the Hnatyshyn Foundation Indigenous Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Chalmers Arts Fellowship, and was selected for the 2020 Netflix-Banff Diversity of Voices Initiative. Her films have screened at Sundance, the Smithsonian Institute, ImagineNATIVE, and have also aired on CBC, APTN, and Air Canada’s Enroute. Rosie, her feature debut, was supported by ImagineNATIVE’s inaugural screenwriting lab.