Lindsay Blair Goeldner is ready to usher in Canada’s next wave of filmmaking.

The Toronto-based producer is about to debut Chandler Levack’s much-anticipated early-00s nostalgia feature I Like Movies (pictured above) at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Friday (Sept. 9) – her first as a lead producer – in addition to the world premieres of two short films she produced, Diaspora and Scaring Women at Night.

In the midst of all this, she’s also in production on Fae Pictures’ Queen Tut, directed by Reem Morsi, as well as post-production on 10 to Watch alum Christopher Yip’s series Streams Flow from a River, which wrapped in Hamilton in May, and Zarrar Khan’s feature film In Flames.

“I’ve been non-stop,” says Goeldner (pictured right). “Both 2021 and 2022 were big on-set years for me, and I would love for 2023 to have a little more balance… production’s really fun, but it’d be nice to follow it through and see where they go, meet more film festival programmers and other producers.”

Reaching this point in her career can largely be tracked to Goeldner’s participation in the Canadian Film Centre’s (CFC) Producers’ Lab in 2019. It was there that she met fellow participant Shant Joshi, president of Toronto and L.A.-based prodco Fae Pictures, with Goeldner joining as director of production and 2022 10 to Watch recipient Abdul Malik as director of development in 2020.

“The three of us really complement each other well, and we’re also very interested in similar stories,” she says. “We continue to work with other coproducers, directors, writers and filmmakers who also reflect the same ethos that we have in terms of representation and storytelling both in front of and behind the camera.”

The prodco is currently in development on three series, including Malik’s TIFF Series Accelerator project Salt; the dark comedy Degrees of Separation from writer Eva Grant; and Boundaries, a romantic series about two queer Muslim women from Fawzia Mirza.

It was also after the Producers’ Lab that Goeldner connected with Levack. The director had been working with producer Victoria Lean to secure Talent to Watch funding for I Like Movies – titled Rejects Night at the time – but when Lean had to step back to pursue another project, Levack needed another producer to steer the film.

“When I heard it was a video store-specific movie all I could do was plead my case as to why I had to be the producer of the film,” she says. “It was such a close story to my heart and also my past as a video store clerk. The greatest job I ever had was working at Queen Video on College Street.”

It turned out Goeldner, Levack and coproducer Evan Dubinsky all had a history of working as video store clerks growing up, which was a boon for ensuring the film captured all the minute details, including scanners and barcodes on the DVDs.

Production was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they eventually went to camera in March 2021 on a $250,000 budget, with additional support from the Canada Council for the Arts, as well as emergency relief funds to cover the additional costs that came with COVID safety protocols.

Mongrel Media came on board as the Canadian distributor in summer 2022. Goeldner says it was crucial to find a partner like Mongrel that understood their ambitions to release a film with a commercial feel, despite its micro-budget origins. Meanwhile, Brooklyn-based sales agent Visit Films acquired worldwide sales rights, excluding Canada, in August.

“We’re really lucky to be partnering with a distributor and sales agent that understand what we’re doing and know the audience that we’re trying to reach,” says Goeldner, adding that I Like Movies appeals to cinephiles and mainstream audiences alike, thanks to the current nostalgia around the early-00s. In fact, the film has already begun generating buzz, with Levack posting on Twitter on Monday (Sept. 5) that all three screenings sold out the morning individual tickets went on sale to the public.

I Like Movies was also part of Telefilm’s First Look sales initiative, which took place virtually this year to connect filmmakers with U.S. and international distributors. Goeldner says the event happened before they were selected for TIFF, so the team plans to reconnect with many of the buyers who’ll be attending the festival to secure additional distribution.

Goeldner is also looking to TIFF to raise the platforms of filmmakers Tyler Mckenzie Evans and Karimah Zakia Issa with their respective short films Diaspora and Scaring Women at Night. The producer says Diaspora was filmed with a $50,000 budget and evokes the same horror stylings of Jordan Peele or Karyn Kusama, while the $20,000 Scaring Women at Night presents an eye-opening perspective on transgender identities.

She looks to the example of filmmakers such as Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, whose debut feature When Morning Comes will have its world debut at TIFF two years after her short film Black Bodies turned heads at the festival, for what the power of a platform such as TIFF can do for emerging artists.

“We all kind of came up together in our respective Talent to Watch cohorts or CFC, and this group of filmmakers is very much the next generation of Canadian talent,” she says.

Goeldner says her peer group is intent on demystifying the film industry through knowledge-sharing, whether it’s about securing sales agents, distributors, or financing. The producer herself often posts videos on her TikTok account about the realities of what it’s like to be an indie film producer.

“What we’re getting rid of is the gatekeeping in film where we have to hide information or resources from each other to get ahead. That’s absolutely not the case anymore,” she says. “If anything, I think you’re seeing a generation of filmmakers who not only are trying to expand the stories that we’re seeing on screen, but how their films get sold and distributed. The traditional trajectory of those elements is changing right in front of us.”

Photo of Fae Pictures team and Goeldner’s headshot by Lindsay Duncan; pictured (L-R): Lindsay Blair Goeldner, Abdul Malik (above), Shant Joshi (below) and Lauren Saarimaki