
Two hundred years after the first Civil War, the descendants of African American farmers who settled in rural Canada struggle to keep famine at bay. Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) and her husband Galen (Michael Greyeyes) have raised their kids to live off the land and protect their home. Their safety and comfort are interrupted when a bloodthirsty band of cannibals discovers their sanctuary.
R.T. Thorne’s extensive resume in TV and music videos comes through in his exciting debut feature about a family in peril. The Black and Indigenous cast shines with Deadwyler and Greyeyes turning in powerful performances as parents desperate to protect their family, and Kataem O’Connor as Emanuel, the eldest son, who flirts with disaster when he discovers a young woman on the other side of the fence. Building to a sensational climax, 40 Acres is a welcome piece of representational genre filmmaking and a gripping thriller in its own right.
Sept 30 & Oct 2: Q&A with director R.T. Thorne
Supported by
Media Partner
Danielle Deadwyler, Kataem O’Connor, Michael Greyeyes, Milcania Diaz-Rojas, Leenah Robinson, Jaeda LeBlanc
Canada
2024
In English and Cree with English subtitles
At International Village
At Fifth Avenue
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Taj Critchlow, R.T. Thorne, Danielle Deadwyler, Sudz Sutherland, John Lang, Mark Gingras, Andrew Frank
Producer
Jennifer Holness
Screenwriter
R.T. Thorne, Glenn Taylor
Cinematography
Jeremy Benning
Editor
Dev Singh, Sandy Pereira
Production Design
Peter Cosco
Original Music
Todor Kobakov

R.T. Thorne
Toronto-based R.T. Thorne is a versatile triple threat: he is a director, producer, and screenwriter, focused on telling stories that break new ground representing the unrepresented. Known for his bold visual style, R.T. has directed for NBC, The CW, WBTV, Netflix, Disney, and Hulu. His episodic work has taken him to three continents, earning three Canadian Screen Award nominations, and a DGC nomination. R.T. is the Chair of the National BIPOC Members Committee for the Directors Guild of Canada.
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
The Graduate
In The Graduate Benjamin (Dustin Hoffman, 30 playing 20 with masterly understatement) comes home from college and is surprised to be seduced by the wife of his father's business partner, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).
blur: To the End
Now in their late 50s, Britpopsters blur (of Song 2 fame) do a celebratory lap of Great Britain culminating in their first ever Wembley Stadium show in this appealing observational doc. A companion piece to the concert film Live at Wembley Stadium.
Midnight Cowboy
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are street hustlers on different ends of the innocence / experience spectrum who establish something more than a business partnership in the seedy world of late 60s New York City in John Schlesinger's New Hollywood classic.
Sinners
This year's unexpected box office sleeper is that rare beast, a genre movie full of bold invention and surprise. We are in Mississippi in the early 1930s, and the opening of a new blues joint on the edge of town is the signal for all hell to break out.
The Headless Woman
The pictures tell the story -- and you better not blink -- when Veronica (the superb Maria Onetto) hits something on the road home. But what? She is too traumatized, or panic-stricken, to go back and look, and her fears are too terrible to acknowledge.