As celebrated as Matt Johnson has become thanks to movies like OPERATION AVALANCHE (People’s Choice Award winner at KCFF17) and BLACKBERRY, the actor, filmmaker, and all-round maverick always comes back to his roots. In this case, those roots are characters he and Jay McCarrol created almost 20 years ago for a mockumentary web series about two aspiring musicians (conveniently named Matt and Jay) who are forever trying to land a gig at Toronto’s iconic Rivoli. Regardless of whether viewers know much about the duo’s misadventures so far, they’re in for a wildly entertaining ride as Matt and Jay mount their first big-screen quest for greatness in a time-travel comedy that’s two-parts BACK TO THE FUTURE and one-part pure anarchy. The audience prize winner in TIFF’s Madness Madness programme, this is Johnson’s wildest and funniest movie to date.

Director: Matt Johnson

Cast: Matt Johnson, Jay McCarrol, Ben Petrie, Luke Lalonde

Language: English

Runtime: 98 minutes

Content warning: strobing effects, explicit violence, homophobic language, sexual assault references, coarse language

Jared Raab, director of photography/executive producer

Jared Raab is a Canadian writer and cinematographer, best known for his collaborations with Matt Johnson on the television series Nirvanna the Band the Show and the films BlackBerry, Operation Avalanche, and The Dirties. He studied film at York University and gained early recognition with his award-winning short film The Revenge Plot (2011).  He won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Cinematography (BlackBerry) in 2024, and the horror anthology V/H/S/94 (2021).He has also directed music videos for artists including July Talk, Andy Shauf, and Alvvays, earning Prism Prize nominations for “Picturing Love” (2017) and “Clove Cigarette” (2021). In addition to narrative work, Raab has contributed to documentaries, including a nomination for Best Direction in a Documentary Series at the 2022 Canadian Screen Awards for the episode “Auto-Tune” in This Is Pop. His style often blends verité aesthetics with humor, reflecting influences from his early short films and music video background.