Skip to main content
Rosie film image, director Gail Maurice

Rosie

This event has passed

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

 

Presented by

   

Media Partner

Global BC Logo

Community Partner

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

This event has passed.

Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre

The Sun Never Sets

Dir. Joe Swanberg
102 min

At the suggestion of her much older (divorced) boyfriend, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) takes a summer to reevaluate her life and date other people. She's reluctant at first, but then reconnects with an old flame... A gentle indie comedy from Joe Swanberg.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Union County

Dir. Adam Meeks
97 min

In this authentically grounded addiction recovery drama, Will Poulter and Noah Centenio are foster brothers trying to get out from their dependence on opioids through a progressive government program in Ohio.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

PULP: What Do You Do For an Encore?

Dir. Garth Jennings
90 min

Always the coolest of the Britpop bands, Jarvis Cocker's Pulp commemorated 40 years of music and friendship with a reunion tour and film, with Sing director Garth Jennings at the helm.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Hanging by a Wire

Dir. Mohammed Ali Naqvi
78 min

The Himalayas, Aug 22, 2023: a cable car bearing 8 passengers (six of them schoolkids) is left dangling 900 feet above the ground when two out of three cables snap. This nailbiting documentary recounts the increasingly frantic rescue attempts.

VIFF Centre - Lochmaddy Studio Theatre

The Second Ascent: An Ultra Trail Running Story + Gary Robbins Q&A

Dir. Megan Robinson
52 min

After losing its globally recognized ultra trail running race in Whistler, race director Gary Robbins and his tight-knit team scramble to build a new 100km event in Valemount, a small mountain village betting its future on outdoor recreation.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

Once Upon a Time in a Cinema

Dir. David Gleeson
92 min

A fateful night in the history of the local fleapit in East Limerick, Ireland, a night when Richard Gere is on screen but the cinema is on its last legs... An Irish Cinema Paradiso, but with lots more laughs.

VIFF Centre - VIFF Cinema

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

Somerville Black

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.