Fae Pictures Hits TIFF Holding Three-Pic Slate Including Anti-Capitalist Horror ‘Good Fast Cheap’ Starring ‘I Like Movies’ Actor Isaiah Lehtinen

EXCLUSIVE: Shant Joshi’s Fae Pictures will hit Toronto with three pics on its slate.

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The company, which frames its focus as ‘decolonizing Hollywood’ and has previously released arthouse flicks Framing Agnes and In Flames — has picked up anti-capitalist horror spec Good Fast Cheap and action-comedy pic Toughen Up and become the lead producer on Maya Bastian’s Tamil-language pic The Devil’s Tears .

Good Cheap Fast comes from newcomer Evan Tognotti and will star I Like Movies actor Isaiah Lehtinen in the lead role. The film is set over the course of a graveyard shift at a strange and haunted gas station. Lehtinen’s credits include a role in the Russo Brothers’ Deadly Class and mini-series When the Streelights Go Out , while his role in Canadian pic I Like Movies won the title of TIFF Rising Star in 2022.

Toughen Up is from writer Brandon Hackett and has been developed at the Whistler Screenwriters Lab. The Canadian Film Centre Norman Jewison Film Program Writers’ Lab and Warner Bros. Discovery Access x Canadian Academy Writers Program are developing it further.

The film is billed as an action-comedy in the style of John Wick but features a lead character who is a gay Black high-school drama teacher.

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Fae was previously attached to the third film on the slate, The Devil’s Tears , as an executive producer, as we exclusively reported in October last year. Anand Ramayya’s Karma Film was set as lead producer before today. Karl Janisse at Blackout Media is also producing, and Ramayya and Kelly Balon at Karma Film are executive producing. Both Fae and Karma are South Asian-Canadian-owned production outfits.

The Maya Bastian-directed Tamil-language film is set in a Sri Lankan village where a blood-red rain dismantles all societal order. Fae will present the film at TIFF at the Gold House Pitch and the Nouveau Marché at the Festival du Nouveau Cinema.

Fae’s Joshi and New York-based VP of Production Lindsay Blair Goeldner, who worked with Lehtinen on I Like Movies , will be meeting agents and managers for mid-level directors for Good Fast Cheap and Toughen Up . Further finance and co-producers are being sought for The Devil’s Tears . Fae plans to access Canadian, Irish and Singaporean soft money for all three, along with private equity financing.

“Despite concerns around industry and market contractions, we’re seeing very clear demand from audiences to imagine new socially relevant and kinetic cinematic experiences from the most talented creatives on and off screen, and we think all three projects definitely fit the bill,” said Joshi.

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