Raindance Film Festival is a vibrant celebration of independent cinema, bringing together bold new voices and boundary‑pushing storytelling from around the world. This year’s festival includes the following Canadian lineup:
Paul – documentary feature – Struggling with depression and social anxiety, Paul has found refuge in serving women who invite him to clean their homes. By sharing his gently eccentric routines on social media, he combats loneliness and takes it one day at a time.
The Issue with Tissue – narrative short – Decades after Vietnam, a haunted veteran lives in solitude, tormented by PTSD shaped by loss and the memory of his best friend’s death. The weight of the past makes each day a battle with the ghosts of a war that never ended for him.
Our Kind of Chaos – documentary feature – In the early 1990s, a group of misfit teenagers clashed with the vision skiers had for their mountains—they ended up revolutionizing snowboarding through the highly-controversial WHISKEY videos. Their story is one of excess, irreverence and rebellion—with a wake of triumphs and tragedies that put snowboarding on the map of the mainstream.
The Bear inside the Whale – documentary feature – Stan Hill Jr. is a Haudenosaunee artist living in Miawpukek First Nation Reserve, Conne River, Newfoundland. In “The Bear Inside a Whale,” he and his family discuss racism, identity, religion, creation and art, along with the cultural extinction of the Beothuk of Newfoundland. Throughout the film, we follow Stan carving a bear out of a whale vertebra. And we visit The Rooms (museum) in St. John’s, Newfoundland, where Stan talks about viewing and reclaiming Indigenous artefacts, and faces resistance from management.
Seahorse – narrative feature – Nola, a sous chef searching for stability, is barely holding her life together. After a brutal Friday night shift, she crashes her bike and wakes to find her estranged father, Cyrus, now unhoused, standing over her. Taking him in forces long-buried wounds to the surface. As past and present collide, Nola is pulled into a reckoning with grief, forgiveness, and the fragile possibility of repair.
Lucky Weekend – narrative feature – When 18-year-old Gabe discovers his best friend stole his winning lottery ticket, he scrambles to assemble a crew for a chaotic weekend mission to steal it back. Lucky Weekend captures the restless energy of youth at a crossroads—where friendships are tested and new bonds are forged.
Danze Macabre – documentary feature – In 1971, four misfits formed Le Ombre Rosse in a deconsecrated Roman church. Decades later, a homeless musician receives anonymous cassette tapes from a Tuscany monastery — and a 32-year mystery begins to unravel. Danze Macabre is a haunting portrait of genius, loss, and the music that refuses to die.