Named to TIFF’s annual year-end Canada’s Top Ten list of 2022.
Written and directed by Canadian filmmaker Chandler Levack, “I Like Movies” is set in the early 2000s in Burlington, Ontario. Hyper-ambitious teenage cinephile Lawrence Kweller (Isaiah Lehtinen) dreams of attending film school at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. In order to raise the hefty tuition fee, he gets his dream job at the local video store, Sequels. Wracked with anxiety about his future, Lawrence begins alienating the most important people in his life, all while developing a complicated friendship with his older female manager. As graduation looms ever closer, a series of painful realizations force Lawrence to realize that he is a pretentious snob.
Chandler Levack, who herself grew up in Burlington, crafts a touching and empathetic look at what it’s like to use your obsession as a way to distance yourself from the sometimes harmful, reality of life and others around you.