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Justin Simms

Directing

Biography

Justin Simms is a Newfoundland and Labrador filmmaker whose first feature film, Down to the Dirt, received the best Atlantic feature and best screenplay awards at the Atlantic Film Festival. His feature film adaptation Away from Everywhere (2016), based on the Chad Pelley novel of the same name, had its world premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival as part of Telefilm Canada’s Perspectives Canada program. His non-fiction credits include Hard Light (2011), Danny (2014) and the short Hand.Line.Cod (2016), which premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival.

Known For

Hold Fast
5.4

Two teenage boys escape an unhappy home, embarking on a perilous journey of self-discovery that takes them deep into the Newfoundland wilderness.

Hold Fast

2013
Behind the Red Door
5.4

Natalie, a gifted New York photographer, has a troubled past reflected in her art. When she struggles to make ends meet in the city, her agent, arranges an assignment in Boston for a considerable sum of money. Unable to turn it down in her dire straits, Natalie takes the job -- only to find that her estranged gay brother, Roy, is the employer. Roy wants to mend their broken past, but must convince her to stay long enough to do so.

Behind the Red Door

2003
Heartless Disappearance Into Labrador Seas
N/A

When a marriage is threatened by a long excursion for work, domestic trouble is buffeted by family and friends.

Heartless Disappearance Into Labrador Seas

2008
Away from Everywhere
3.2

A struggling writer emerges from rehab and reunites with his estranged brother, but soon descends into a tragic love triangle and is forced to confront a devastating reality.

Away from Everywhere

2017
Down to the Dirt
4.2

Thirty-year-old Keith Kavanagh (Joel Thomas Hynes) ekes his way through life in a small town. A hard-drinking hooligan, he keeps his ragged collection of poetry a closely guarded secret... as secret as his regret for the shattered relationship with his father. When Keith meets the darkly exotic Natasha (Mylène Savoie), his life is changed forever.

Down to the Dirt

2008
Party Pirate
N/A

When Tommy is fired twice in the same week and finds out his brilliant best friend and lifeline, Costa, is leaving the country for a better job, he seizes an opportunity to prove his worth by taking his friends on a trip - in a stolen boat.

Party Pirate

2023
Vegas
N/A

When Vegas, a disillusioned artist turned taxi driver, picks up an unassuming stranger, things take a drastic turn when it is revealed not everything is as it appears. Bold and electric, Vegas is a film about the beauty of living ones most expansive and authentic self.

Vegas

2022
Crackie
5.0

Life on the Rock never seemed easy, but for Mitsy it is especially rough. The teenager has been abandoned by her mother, a particularly unfit parent prone to both the bottle and the sex trade. She is left to be brought up by her mercurial grandmother Bride, who is well-meaning but oppressively suffocating. Mitsy's dreams for the future hinge on her desire to be a hairdresser, but her current emotional well-being revolves around a wee dog named Sparky, an unwanted canine misfit to whom she becomes hopelessly attached. After Bride agrees to let Mitsy take the dog in as a pet, the teen tries desperately to create a happy, safe place for Sparky to thrive.

Crackie

2009
Crocuses
N/A

On the last day of packing up her home, a woman can't shake the regret she feels about her late husband.

Crocuses

2016
73 Seconds
N/A

It's 1986, Shannon Crane means to be bound for a future she cannot know, on a day filled with possibility and hope. In her 7th grade class, Shannon has to reckon with the ordinary calamity of being herself after a simultaneous incident of being bullied, is caught between the extraordinary catastrophic event of the space challenger disaster, leaving a debris of searching, questioning.

73 Seconds

2024
No image
N/A

A glimpse into the life of a woman who, desperate to board a plane home, deals with unlikely foes: her own shoes.

Boarding

2014
No image
N/A

A grown man and a young girl compare sibling rivalries in a playground one snowy afternoon.

The Woman in White

2016
Sweetland
6.0

The story of an endangered Newfoundland community and the struggles of one man determined to resist its extinction.

Sweetland

2023
No image
N/A

After Raam, an international student, moves to Newfoundland to pursue his dreams and education, his housemate Joseph loses his job amidst the global pandemic. As they set out on a whale watching trip together, tragedy strikes leaving Raam questioning everything he knows.

Ballad of North Whale

2024
Casey
N/A

Casey's mother ensures her daughter receives the education, protection, and loving care little girls need. But an altercation with some local schoolgirls reveals that Casey's life is based on a lie.

Casey

2017
Sweet Pickle
N/A

After 30 years of salt beef and baloney, the instinctively vegan Isabel hops a bay bus to the city supermarket. But a nosy stock boy, a cashier with his laminated flip book of produce codes could wreak havoc with her newfound confidence.

Sweet Pickle

2009
Becoming Labrador
N/A

In the stark Labrador interior, a growing number of Filipino workers have recently landed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, travelling halfway around the world for jobs they hope will offer their families new opportunities and a better life. Becoming Labrador follows a handful of them as they make a place for themselves in Labrador while dealing with the unexpected costs of living far from their family.

Becoming Labrador

2019
Crown and Anchor
7.2

When James Downey returns home to Newfoundland for his mother’s funeral, he is faced with all the haunting family issues he thought he had left behind. He channeled his own inner demons from an abusive father into being a police officer but his cousin Danny’s childhood trauma has exploded into a cycle of drugs, crime and violence. James must confront his tortured past, decide who he really is, and deal with his cousin before it’s too late.

Crown and Anchor

2018
Bounce
N/A

When a boy from Darcy's cadet corps insists she attend the Trampoline Social, she sets off for a dramatic evening of self-acceptance and sweet backflips.

Bounce

2022
Hell or Clean Water
N/A

In what appears to be a Sisyphean task, Newfoundland diver Shawn Bath has devoted himself to cleaning up the ocean floor one rotting tire at a time. He's already removed 15,000 pounds of garbage single-handedly. Through decades of commercial fishing and tourism, these Atlantic harbours became trash receptacles treated with an out-of-sight, out-of-mind attitude. Driven by passion and held back by bureaucracy, this inspiring story highlights the enormity of human-caused environmental damage and the power of an individual's determination to make the world a better place.

Hell or Clean Water

2021