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Exclusive: Justin Ducharme has begun production on debut feature Seventeen, revolving around the lives of three Indigenous sex workers in Vancouver.

The production has also unveiled its buzzy Indigenous cast featuring Nizhonniya Austin (The Curse), Taio Gelinas, Kaniehtiio Horn, Shannon Baker (Bones of Crows) and newcomer, singer, model, and human rights advocate Aalayna.

Set over the course of seventeen hours, the film follows three Indigenous sex workers whose lives intersect through chance, relation and the shared experience of familial and colonial displacement.

Writer, filmmaker and curator Ducharme, who hails from the Métis community of St. Ambroise on Treaty 1 Territory, has tapped into his own experiences for the screenplay.

“I’m very excited to be off the ground and working on Seventeen with such an amazing cast and crew. This project has been long in development with the support and inclusion...

"If we want respect, we have to behave respectfully!" An official Canadian trailer has debuted for an indie film titled Beans, which originally premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year to quite a bit of acclaim. Nominated for Best Picture at the Canadian Screen Awards, Beans is a coming-of-age tale set during the 78-day Oka Crisis in Quebec in 1990. Inspired by true events, the film is about a Mohawk girl on the cusp of adolescence who must grow up fast and become her own kind of warrior during the armed stand-off known as the 1990 Oka Crisis in Canada near Montreal. "Timely and touching, Beans is a powerful reminder of the resilience, beauty, and love Indigenous communities hold." The film stars Kiawentiio as Beans, and joined by Violah Beauvais, Rainbow Dickerson, Joel Montgrand, Paulina Alexis, D'Pharaoh Woon-a-Tai, Jay Cardinal Villeneuve, and Taio Gélinas. This film earned some rave reviews out...

New work from Idris Elba, Halle Berry, Mark Wahlberg, Vanessa Kirby.

It is a slimline Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year but there are still plenty of acquisition titles on offer for distributors looking to fill 2021 and 2022 slots.

Here we take a look at some of the available films that are likely to be among the more sought after prospects.

TIFF runs from September 10-19 and opens on Thursday with David Byrne’s American Utopia directed by Spike Lee. Click here for Screen’s report on the line-up, and here for the TIFF Industry Selects roster.

Good Joe Bell...