Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

Photos by Jeff Harris.

It’s the 1980s in a working-class neighbourhood of Montréal. Fred is an artist whose day job is working at a sex boutique. Adopted as a child, she ran away from home at 16 and never looked back. Now she’s best friends with Flo and Mo, two gay streetwalkers who make up her current family. But she’s thrown for a loop when a social worker shows up at her door with a six-year-old girl, who says Fred is her closest living relative.  What??

She tries to explain she’s close to eviction, living hand-to-mouth, she’s a Francophone while Rosie only speaks English, and knows absolutely nothing about raising a child. But who can resist a cutie-pie like Rosie?

ROSIE is a new, feel-good comedy/drama about life on the edge in 1980s Montreal. It deals with chosen families, marginalized groups, homelessness, and indigenous and queer people in urban settings. (Both Rosie and Fred were adopted  as indigenous kids into white families)

The film is directed by actor and filmmaker Gail Maurice. It may be her first feature, but you’ve probably seen her unforgettable roles on TV shows like Trickster, and in movies like Night Raiders.

I spoke to Gail in Toronto via ZOOM.

ROSIE is having its World Premiere at #TIFF22 on Sept. 9th.