| Chandler Levack | |
| Birth Name: | Chandler Levack |
| Education: |
|
| Occupation: | Writer, director, filmmaker |
| Years Active: | 2010s–present |
| Notable Works: | I Like Movies |
Chandler Levack is a Canadian writer, director, and filmmaker.[1]
Levack is best known for her work as an entertainment writer, and for her feature film directorial debut, I Like Movies, which premiered in the Discovery program at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival to universal critical acclaim.
Levack was born in Toronto and raised in Brantford, Ontario.[2] In 2004, Levack returned to live in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood.
Levack dropped out of her cinema studies courses at the University of Toronto to pursue a career as a writer.[3] Since then, she has worked an arts and entertainment writer for publications including Eye Weekly, Toronto Life, SPIN, The Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star.
Levack is a two-time Juno Award nominee for Video of the Year, receiving nominations alongside Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux at the Juno Awards of 2015 for directing PUP's "Guilt Trip" music video,[4] and at the Juno Awards of 2016 for directing PUP's "Dark Days" music video.[5]
She was a Prism Prize nominee for both "Guilt Trip"[6] and "Dark Days",[7] and has also directed music videos for DZ Deathrays and Jeremy Dutcher.
Her debut as a narrative filmmaker, the short film We Forgot to Break Up, premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival,[8] and won the award for Best Canadian Short Film at the 2017 Whistler Film Festival.[9]
Levak later studied screenwriting at the Canadian Film Centre.[10]
See main article: article and I Like Movies. I Like Movies, Levack's debut feature film, premiered in the Discovery program at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival,[11] and received widespread acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 35 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10.[12] The film was named to TIFF's annual year-end Canada's Top Ten list for 2022.[13]
Levack won the $10,000 RBC Emerging Artist Award at the 2022 Calgary International Film Festival for the film.[14]
In 2023, Barry Hertz of The Globe and Mail named the film as one of the 23 best Canadian comedy films ever made.[15]
In November 2023, she was announced as the director of My Dead Mom, a short-form comedy series in production for Crave.[16]
Matthew Miller's production company Zapruder Films (which he co-founded with Matt Johnson), launched a contest to back a first-time female screenwriter with $12,000 in funding, story editor guidance, and script optioning; Levack and her feature film Anglophone were announced as the winners from 137 entries.[17] In 2024, it was announced that Levack's second feature, Mile End Kicks (retitled from Anglophone), would star Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick, Stanley Simons, and Juliette Gariepy.[18] The film's screenplay is "based on her own experiences as a young female music critic."[19]
| Year | Association | Category | Nominated work | Result | Refs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Calgary International Film Festival | $10,000 RBC Emerging Artist Award | I Like Movies | [20] | |
| Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards 2022 | Best Canadian Film | [21] | |||
| Best Screenplay for a Canadian Film |