In the summer of 2021, Khaleel Seivwright, a carpenter, decided to build tiny homes for Toronto’s homeless population. Soon afterwards, the city told him that he wasn’t allowed to build them, citing safety issues, despite a lack of available shelter beds. Someone Lives Here, which won the Audience Award for Best Canadian Documentary at Hot Docs 2023, is deftly told by first-time documentarian Zack Russell, who captures this Kafkaesque story in a humane and empathetic way. We see how people living in the tiny homes were harassed by some members of the public who were worried they would bring down the area’s property values. Police-enforced evictions reach a dramatic climax as organizers in favour of the tiny homes lock arms in the face of violence and arrests. An important story for our time, as housing insecurity across Canada reaches new heights and people look to find solutions in the face of bureaucratic road blocks.
Audience Award, Best Canadian Documentary, Hot Docs 2023
Presented by
Series Media Partner
Canada
2022
Northern Lights
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits
Executive Producer
William Goldbloom Marianna Khoury, Tinu Shina, Will Lomoro
Producer
Zack Russell, Andrew Ferguson, Matt King, Marianna Khoury
Cinematography
Chet Tilokani
Editor
Marianna Khoury
Original Music
Bram Gielen
Director
Zachary Russell
Zack Russell was born and raised in Toronto, Canada. He has directed and written for television, and made two award-winning narrative shorts. His first short film, She Stoops to Conquer, premiered at SXSW and went on to win the 2016 Canadian Screen Award. His work has been screened at film festivals around the world, including TIFF, SXSW, VIFF, and New Orleans. Someone Lives Here is his first feature documentary.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Film Studies: The Making of a Monster: James Whale's Frankenstein & Universal Horror
Classic film scholar Michael van den Bos dissects and examines director James Whale's highly influential first sound version of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. After his illustrated lecture we'll watch the movie together.
Predators
"Punk'd for pedophiles." That's what Jimmy Kimmel called Chris Hansen's true crime/reality TV show, To Catch a Predator (2004-07). Two decades on, David Osit examines why the show made such an impact, for good or ill, and sits down with Hansen himself.
Frankenstein
Frankenstein and Guillermo del Toro might have been made for each other. The movie does not disappoint, a ripping yarn of grand adventure, spectacle, hubris, passion and XXL body parts, a tale of the fantastic that rings the imagination. Screening in 35mm.
Bride of Frankenstein
Funnier, more outrageous, and just as goth as the 1931 hit, this is a black comedy about mad scientists playing god, the monstrous craving for a mate, about the ultimate male-order bride, and her indelible response to being married off to a mouldier man.
Fréwaka
A Dublin nurse is sent to a remote Irish village to care for a reclusive woman. Haunted by a dark past, her night terrors invade her reality. Aislinn Clarke delivers a chilling, feminist folk horror that favours atmosphere over jump scares.