Sleepless Nights
What are Sleepless Nights?
Our Sleepless Nights are a series of events that are the life-blood of our organisation.
At Sleepless Cinema we refuse to gatekeep;
we are here to present and elevate incredible short films created by exceptional Canadian talent.
We aim to help navigate complex topics through our panel discussions while also appreciating the Canadian-ish Film Classics you know and love.
Happening Next
VVITCH (2015)
Sleepless Cinema proudly partners with Soulpepper to bring you another Sleepless Night!
Join us January 20th at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts at 50 Tank House Lane, Toronto - Doors open at 6:30 & the screening starts at 7:00 pm!
Admission is free!
The Short Film
cancer szn (2024)
Film Summary:
Patty, a modern witch, harbours a suffocating obsession for her former friend, Elaine. When she learns that Elaine's new girlfriend, Lauren, shares the same birthday as her, she casts a body-swapping spell that grants her the relationship of her dreams. But love is more than skin deep.
Zach Green is a Calgary-bred, Montreal-based writer-director with an unquenchable thirst for genre-bending queer cinema. Zach’s films resituate personal memories of queer becoming into heightened, fantastical contexts. They strive to connect spectators to their senses, conjuring cinematic style that is dreamlike, melodramatic, and anxiously attuned to his characters' bodies.
In 2023, Zach became the first ever MFA in Screenwriting and Story Design at Toronto Metropolitan University, where he wrote his first funded short, cancer szn, under the mentorship of Oscar-nominated filmmaker Atom Egoyan. The film has since played at festivals internationally, including Chattanooga Film Festival, Final Girls Berlin, and the Calgary Underground Film Festival. They are currently in development on their first feature, Bizarre Love Triangle, with support from the Telefilm Development Program.
The Panelists
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster
Lisa Marie Cumming
Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster is a theatre director and actor. She is presently an assistant professor at York University’s School of Art, Music, Performance & Design and a co-artistic leader with The Howland Company. Courtney has performed with the Shaw Festival, Soulpepper, Public Recordings, Canadian Stage, Citadel Theatre, Blue Bridge Repertory, Cahoots, Native Earth, Tarragon and beyond. Her theatre direction includes The Orphan of Chao (Shaw Festival), Hypothetical Baby (Howland/Nightwood) Three Women of Swatow (Tarragon, 4 Dora nominations), The Home Project, (Howland Company/Native Earth/Soulpepper, 5 Dora nominations), The Wolves (Howland/Crows – Outstanding Ensemble Win, Toronto Critics Awards, Outstanding Production – MyEntWorld), 52 Pick-Up (Howland – Best of Fringe), and Everybody (York University). Courtney has formerly served as assistant artistic director at Tarragon Theatre and as a resident artist at Soulpepper Theatre. She is an alumna of the Loran Award, and holds a BFA from UBC and an MBA (Social Enterprise) from MUN.
Photo Credit: Dahlia Katz
Lisa Marie is an editor/assistant editor in the local film and tv industry with a specialty in quality assurance. She got her BAA in Film and Media Production from Humber college and graduated in 2016. In 2024, she travelled to LA for the world premiere of the film “CARVED” at the SCREAMFEST horror film festival, which she did additional editing for. Otherwise, she has credits on films/show such as: The Boys (S4), Avatar: The Last Airbender (S1), Life After People (series – 2025), Haunted Museum (series – 2021) and Beautiful Scars (doc – 2022), among several others. She is also the co-creator/producer/host of the film-centric podcast “Quality Control Chicks”, co-hosted with her friend Janae, which explores mistakes in film and tv. You can find them on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Youtube.
Photo Credit: Kaylee Perkins photography
Sarah Barrable-Tishauer
aka Me Time
Karyn Little
Me Time is a DJ and narrative world-builder whose work weaves immersive theatre, music, and ritual into participatory experiences. As co-founder of Bass Witch Coven, she creates events and spectacles that bring queer feminist fairytales to life through fire performance and the power of Mother Bass. Her practice centres the dancefloor as ‘more than a party’, honouring its roots as a dreamspace to rehearse more liberated futures. Recent projects include R.A.V.E., an immersive rave-opera commissioned by Outside the March for Luminato Festival, and Brightside, a nature ritual and movement experience on Toronto’s greenest dancefloor. Me Time invites audiences to step inside living worlds where music, movement, and imagination become tools for personal discovery and collective transformation.
Photo Credit: Joshua Best
Karyn Little is a Toronto-based horror and surrealist writer and community builder. She holds a BA from the University of Windsor and post-graduate certificates in Creative Writing and Creative Book Publishing from Humber College. Her writing has appeared in Dark Poets Club, Rebelle Society, and the To Write Love on Her Arms blog. She is the creator of The Room That Waits for You, a Substack publication devoted to writing at the intersection of mental health and horror. Karyn’s work sits within literary and elevated horror, with a focus on psychological unease, interiority, and emotionally driven storytelling.
Stay Tuned!
The Next Sleepless Nights is Coming Soon!
Sleepless Nights of the Past
The Fly (1986)
The Short Film
Lavenza (2024)
Film Summary:
When Lavenza, a 19th-century noblewoman, overhears her husband complaining about her looks, she turns herself into his ideal wife by thrifting the body parts from all the women he desires.
Lauren Eden is a 24-year-old writer and director based in Oshawa. She recently graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University with a BFA in Film Studies. In her final year of university, she produced a short animated film, Frida in the Sky (2023). The animation has screened in festivals globally, winning numerous awards and was shortlisted for the Student Academy Awards in 2023. Her most recent comedic short, My Digital Boyfriend (2024) was a finalist in Season 17 of the CBC Short Film Face Off and is currently screening on CBC Gem. Her directorial debut is Lavenza (2024), inspired by Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and old Hollywood cinema. The film is currently in its festival run and has been recognized by 35+ film festivals.
The Feature Film
Sleepless Cinema proudly partners with Soulpepper to bring you another Sleepless Night!
Film Summary:
When a scientist completes his teleportation device, he tests its abilities on himself. He was unaware that a housefly had slipped in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. The scientist had believed that he had undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly's cells begin to over take his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, the scientist's girlfriend is horrified that the person she loves will deteriorate into a monster.
The Panel Discussion
Our October 10th panel discussion was focused on the themes hightlighted in both our feature film and short film. Topics included body horror and themes of disease, decay, and dissolution of self
The Panelists
Alex Ef
Lauren Eden
Archie Burton Smith
Alex Ef is a Toronto-based producer drawn to elevated genre across both narrative and commercial work. His passion lies in crafting contemporary, impactful stories with a strong visual identity and cultural resonance. His debut, Lavenza (2024), swept horror festivals across North America and Europe, earning a cult following on Letterboxd and Instagram. Ef’s recent work includes Waterman’s Ballad (2024), which opened for The Kilgrin at the Canadian Film Festival, alongside a growing portfolio of narrative projects.
Lauren Eden is a 24-year-old writer and director based in Oshawa. She recently graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University with a BFA in Film Studies. In her final year of university, she produced a short animated film, Frida in the Sky (2023). The animation has screened in festivals globally, winning numerous awards and was shortlisted for the Student Academy Awards in 2023. Her most recent comedic short, My Digital Boyfriend (2024) was a finalist in Season 17 of the CBC Short Film Face Off and is currently screening on CBC Gem. Her directorial debut is Lavenza (2024), inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and old Hollywood cinema. The film is currently in its festival run and has been recognized by 35+ film festivals.
Archie Burton Smith is a writer, filmmaker, and programmer. His work has been a festival selection at the Hellifax Horror Fest, Hart House Playwriting Competition, and Tromadance Film Festival. He also won a local game store Heroscape championship, which he thinks is way cooler than any of that other stuff.
Les Diaboliques (1955)
The Short Film
#BOSSBABE (2023)
Film Summary:
Desperate to climb the ranks of Bevlon, a #girlboss pyramid scheme, Sofi throws a recruitment party for a few girlfriends. When one of her guests suddenly drops dead, Sofi and her friends must decide what matters more - their friendship or their downline.
Kassy Gascho (she/her) is a Toronto-based filmmaker, film programmer, and production coordinator with experience across development, production, post-production, business affairs, and film festivals. She programs Canadian features and curates the Funny Frights and Emerging Screams short blocks for the Blood in the Snow Film Festival, and most recently served as an associate producer on Steven Kostanski's upcoming Deathstalker. Her short #BOSSBABE won the Bronze Audience Award at the 2023 Fantasia International Film Festival. Kassy is passionate about championing Canadian storytelling and genre cinema, both on screen and behind the scenes.
The Feature Film
In Henri-Georges 1955 film Christina suffers greatly at the hands of her husband. She and her huband's former lover decide to bring her struggling to an end. This feature film divides into the topics of moral decay, complicity, and their weaponization against women.
The Panel Discussion
Our September 2nd panel discussion was focused on the themes hightlighted in both our feature film and short film. Topics included moral decay, complicity, and their weaponization against women.
The Panelists
Burak Batu Tunçel
Alexandra Bell
Katelyn Doyle
Katelyn Doyle (she/her) is a classically trained Canadian actor and creator, currently based in Toronto. Curious about the horror and comedy of humankind, she is always grateful for other artists (and audiences!!) who want to experiment with her. Her work has been featured at Fantasia Film Festival, Blood in the Snow, Sin City Horror Fest, Femtasia Fest, programsound.fm and beyond. For a detailed outline of Katelyn’s work and credits, check out her website at www.katelyndoyle.com. She is always stoked to share her work!
Night of the living Dead (1968)
The Short Film
Film Summary:
In Sid Santiago Zanforlin's Black Empanadas main characters, Lucia and Fernando, move to a small Ontario town with the dream of opening a thriving empanada bakery, only to find the locals less than welcoming.
With the help of a ghostly ancestor, they craft a new, supernatural recipe that could win over the town—or curse them forever.
Sid Santiago Zanforlin is a Chilean/Canadian director and writer originally hailing from Montreal, now in the GTHA. Drawing heavily from his Chilean and Québécois heritage, he is committed to fostering diversity in the television industry.
As a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, Sid has an extensive background as an IATSE cameraman, theatre director, and writer/director of award winning shorts, music videos, two indie features, and over 90 episodes of both factual and scripted TV. Sid was recently shortlisted for a TV Directing CSA nomination. In a previous chapter of his life, he was a punk drummer and garnered a Juno nomination for his musical work.
The Feature Film
In George A. Romero Night of the Living Dead (1968) a mysterious crisis causes the dead to rise and attack the living.
A group of strangers seeks shelter in a rural farmhouse, barricading themselves inside. As the night unfolds, they face mounting threats from both the undead outside and conflicts within.
Fear, mistrust, and desperation drive them to make life-or-death decisions. Survival becomes uncertain as chaos takes over.
The Panel Discussion
Our April 13th panel discussion dived into examining xenophobia through the lens of horror.
The Panelists
TRAVIS WALLACE
BOBBY MARKOV
MITCHELL WILSON
Mitchell is a Masters student at the University of Guelph currently researching the influence of ancient theatre on modern horror, primarily regarding themes of fate and cyclical violence.