In celebration of The Tragically Hip’s 40th anniversary, the quintessential Canadian band receives a deserved tribute in a docuseries helmed by Mike Downie, brother of the band’s late frontman Gord Downie. VIFF is honoured to have Mike and The Tragically Hip – Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois, and Gord Sinclair – join us for this special evening as we share the first two episodes of this definitive series, a love story between a band and the country they call home.
Drawing from archival and personal footage and featuring previously unseen performances, unreleased music, and unprecedented access to The Hip, No Dress Rehearsal is far from hagiographic. Instead, the series candidly and compellingly documents four decades of hits and misses, friendship and frustration, triumph and tragedy. Generous and unguarded, The Hip proves themselves to truly be a band of brothers. And they’re every bit as captivating onscreen as they were onstage.
Q&A with director Michael Downie and Gordon Sinclair, Jake Gold, Johnny Fay, Leslie Gailbraith, Paul Langlois & Robert Baker
Media Partner
Canada
2024
English
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Executive Producer
Jake Gold
Producer
Bryn Hughes, Kim Creelman, Dave Wells, Kalin Moon, Mike Downie, Rob Baker, Johnny Fay, Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair
Cinematography
Chris Romeike
Editor
Peter Denes
Original Music
The Tragically Hip
Mike Downie
Mike Downie is a multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker and co-founder of the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund. Downie is a writer, director, and producer of numerous documentaries including Finding the Secret Path (2018), Invasion of the Brain Snatchers (2013), and The Hockey Nomad (2003). Before his career in film and television, Downie worked as a deep shaft miner in Northern Ontario; a medical researcher at McGill University; a junior economist in Toronto; and as a windsurfing instructor in the US Virgin Islands. He holds a BSc from Queen’s University and an MBA from York University’s Schulich School of Business.
Photo by Ian Patterson
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood
Within the confines of a smoke sauna deep in an Estonian forest, groups of women gather to cleanse themselves in both body and soul, sharing in traditional sauna-based rituals, while also revealing their hurts and longings, joys and pains.
La venue de l'avenir
Four cousins are tapped to investigate an abandoned house that is their joint inheritance. As they explore, they learn their story of their ancestor Adele (Suzanne Lindon) and her foray into Paris in the age of Impressionism.
L'Étranger
Recreating 1940s Algeria in vivid, high contrast black and white cinematography, L'Etranger is erotic, enigmatic and brutal in equal measures, a masterful screen version of Albert Camus's insoluble classic of existential alienation.
The Secret Agent
Having run afoul of an influential bureaucrat in Brazil’s military dictatorship circa 1977, Marcelo decamps to Recife to live under an assumed name — but he’ll soon come to understand precisely how rampant the country’s corruption has become.
The Chronology of Water
Kristen Stewart's fearless directorial debut is based on the best-selling memoir by Lidia Yuknavitch (Imogen Poots), a chronicle of her abusive childhood, traumatized adulthood, and escapes through swimming, drugs, sex, and ultimately writing.