Biography
Justin Simms is a Newfoundland and Labrador filmmaker whose first feature film, Down to the Dirt, received the best Atlantic feature and best screenplay awards at the Atlantic Film Festival. His feature film adaptation Away from Everywhere (2016), based on the Chad Pelley novel of the same name, had its world premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival as part of Telefilm Canada’s Perspectives Canada program. His non-fiction credits include Hard Light (2011), Danny (2014) and the short Hand.Line.C...
Complete Filmography

Sons
2024
Director
Set against the backdrop of his son’s first five years of life—from cooing infant to hurricane of a boy—filmmaker Justin Simms looks at modern masculi...

Bedlamer
2024
Editor
On the shores of a small fishing village lives a lonely settlement of men - capturing and domesticating otherworldly creatures that were never meant t...

73 Seconds
2024
Editor
It's 1986, Shannon Crane means to be bound for a future she cannot know, on a day filled with possibility and hope. In her 7th grade class, Shannon ha...
Ballad of North Whale
2024
Editor
After Raam, an international student, moves to Newfoundland to pursue his dreams and education, his housemate Joseph loses his job amidst the global p...

Seguridad
2024
Cinematography
In her feature documentary Seguridad, Newfoundland-based filmmaker Tamara Segura—once named “Cuba’s youngest soldier” in a militia publicity stunt—por...

If Not to Die
2023
Editor
Phillip Early recounts the months spent investigating a cold case. A police interrogator presses him for answers while trying to decode the role of a ...

Party Pirate
2023
Editor
When Tommy is fired twice in the same week and finds out his brilliant best friend and lifeline, Costa, is leaving the country for a better job, he se...

The Gaze
2023
Editor
Ginok Song, a South Korean artist living and painting in a small fishing village in Newfoundland, explores what home is, who she was, and where she is...

Hebron Relocation
2023
Editor
Through a tapestry of reflection, rare footage and her own home, Inuk filmmaker Holly Andersen tells the little-known story of the forced relocation o...
Close to the Bone: The Film
2023
Producer
The film accompanying the album "Closer to the Bone" by Ian Foster.
End of the Line
2022
Editor
End of the Line, which features Jessie Montgomery's PEACE, is a visual pilgrimage of one person's journey from big city lockdown to finding solace in ...

Bounce
2022
Editor
When a boy from Darcy's cadet corps insists she attend the Trampoline Social, she sets off for a dramatic evening of self-acceptance and sweet backfli...

Dead Wife Club
2022
Editor
Luke has been veering between panic and numbness ever since losing his wife to Thyroid cancer. In a last-ditch effort to feel something, anything, he...
Spirit Song Festival
2022
Editor
Nearly a decade ago, the Spirit Song Festival began as one day event. It has since blossomed into a weeklong, award winning, world-class gathering of ...

Fishbowl
2022
Editor
When Newfoundland locks down during the COVID-19 pandemic, a former dancer becomes further trapped in a toxic relationship with her emotionally abusiv...

Grown in Darkness
2022
Editor
Henry lives alone growing rhubarb in the dark when his friend Emmanuel arrives to collect the harvest. Together, they tentatively explore the boundari...

Vegas
2022
Editor
When Vegas, a disillusioned artist turned taxi driver, picks up an unassuming stranger, things take a drastic turn when it is revealed not everything ...

Nalujuk Night
2021
Editor
Nalujuk Night is an up close look at an exhilarating, and sometimes terrifying, Labrador Inuit tradition. Every January 6th from the dark of the Nunat...

Hell or Clean Water
2021
Editor
In what appears to be a Sisyphean task, Newfoundland diver Shawn Bath has devoted himself to cleaning up the ocean floor one rotting tire at a time. H...

The Death of Winter
2019
Editor
The Death of Winter: In 1830s Newfoundland, a woman is on trial for the murder of her husband. While innocent of the homicide, she is hanged for havin...

Ghost Artist
2019
Editor
A maverick artist is rediscovered in Paris when his taboo-busting 1967 film resurfaces in the art world. Robert Cordier’s movie about medicine and th...

Radical
2019
Editor
Deanne Foley profiles fellow Newfoundlander Mary Walsh, the Great Warrior Queen of Canadian comedy, musing on time wasted as an object of desire and t...

Becoming Labrador
2019
Director, Director of Photography
In the stark Labrador interior, a growing number of Filipino workers have recently landed in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, travelling halfway around the wor...
Rick Mercer: 'Take Action' Figures
2019
Additional Photography
While gift shopping at an "enlightened" toy store, a mother and son are out of luck finding the latest Spider-Man and Transformers toys-because all th...

Always Going Never Gone
2019
Editor
A folklorist is summoned by the last living soul of a forgotten community to witness a folktale transform into a terrifying reality.

Hopeless Romantic
2018
Editor
Everyone has a different story to tell, especially when it comes to relationships. Lynda Boyd stars as Anna, a recently widowed cardiologist facing ro...

Crown and Anchor
2018
First Assistant Director
When James Downey returns home to Newfoundland for his mother’s funeral, he is faced with all the haunting family issues he thought he had left behind...
C Sharp and D Suspended
2018
Producer
Margaret is a grandmother serving out a sentence in a minimum security prison. Daniel, her grandson, is a gifted classical guitar student who loves hi...

Love, Scott
2018
Story Editor
One fateful night, after leaving a bar in his home town of Nova Scotia, musician Scott Jones was subjected to a vicious and targeted attack which left...

Malignant
2018
Editor
A young women craving attention in her relationship, finds a lump in her breast.

Casey
2017
Editor
Casey's mother ensures her daughter receives the education, protection, and loving care little girls need. But an altercation with some local schoolgi...
Waste It
2017
Editor
Karen attempts to grapple with the fleeting nature of romance through filmmaking, only to run into conflict with her surrounding cast and crew. You ca...

Away from Everywhere
2017
Director, Editor
A struggling writer emerges from rehab and reunites with his estranged brother, but soon descends into a tragic love triangle and is forced to confron...

Crocuses
2016
First Assistant Director
On the last day of packing up her home, a woman can't shake the regret she feels about her late husband.

HAND. LINE. COD.
2016
Writer, Editor, Additional Camera
In the coldest waters surrounding Newfoundland's rugged Fogo Island, "people of the fish"—traditional fishers—catch cod live by hand, one at a time, b...
Skip
2016
Editor, First Assistant Director
In a coastal town in Newfoundland a man named Skip cares for his widowed grandfather, admires the local store clerk from afar and dreams of making som...
The Woman in White
2016
Editor
A grown man and a young girl compare sibling rivalries in a playground one snowy afternoon.
The Tour
2015
Editor
Alice, a bus tour guide in St. John's Newfoundland with a broken heart unexpectedly tells her tales of love and loss to a group of life-weary tourists...

Long Term Care
2015
Assistant Director
A father and son duo, Charlie and Sam Pike, come to grips with admitting war-vet Charlie, who suffers from dementia, into a long-term care home.

Danny
2015
Director, Editor, Additional Camera
A feature documentary about the life of former Newfoundland Premier, Danny Williams
Song for Cuba
2014
Cinematography
This short experimental documentary about memory and music follows a young Cuban couple charting a new course for their lives on an island in the Nort...

Between Two Walls
2014
Editor, Assistant Director
Between Two Walls is a political thriller about an aspiring politician whose bid to secure top office is threatened when a dark secret from his past c...
Sadie
2014
Assistant Director
In 1940s outport Newfoundland, young Sadie struggles to cope with the tragic death of both her parents.
Before the War
2014
Editor
An incisive nuanced look at a family crumbling after their father returns from a war. Before the war showcases Tamara's love and understanding of the ...
Boarding
2014
Editor
A glimpse into the life of a woman who, desperate to board a plane home, deals with unlikely foes: her own shoes.

Infanticide!
2013
First Assistant Director
Dan and Liz just want a perfect family; and in a world where families are allowed only one child, they want to make sure they get it right.

Hold Fast
2013
Director, Additional Photography
Two teenage boys escape an unhappy home, embarking on a perilous journey of self-discovery that takes them deep into the Newfoundland wilderness.
A Life in the Days of Mary
2012
First Assistant Director
"A Life In The Days Of Mary" tells the life story of Young Mary, a Newfoundland outport girl, in seventeen-minutes. It starts with her childhood abuse...
Two Square Feet
2012
Editor, First Assistant Director
A woman looks past her insecurities in a time of change, self doubt and uncertainty.
The White Balloon
2011
Assistant Camera
The White Balloon tells the story of a young boy who comes across a white balloon while walking with his father in downtown St. John's, Newfoundland.

Hard Light
2011
Director, Writer, Director of Photography
This feature film uses Michael Crummey's seminal piece of Newfoundland literature to examine cultural change and modern relationships.
Surprise!
2011
Cinematography
Surprise! is a dark comedy that satirizes the art world while taking a provocative look at the increasing problem of the misuse of sexual aid medicati...

Cardboard Junction
2010
Story Editor
Young Leia is abandoned by her mother when they receive an unsettling visit from Mister, Mom's old friend and current employer.
The Magnificent Molly McBride
2009
Editor
Molly, played by Julia Kennedy(Sundance award-winning film, Grown Up Movie Star), is brutalized by her peers at Irish dance school for well, dancing b...

Crackie
2009
First Assistant Director
Life on the Rock never seemed easy, but for Mitsy it is especially rough. The teenager has been abandoned by her mother, a particularly unfit parent p...
Sweet Pickle
2009
Editor
After 30 years of salt beef and baloney, the instinctively vegan Isabel hops a bay bus to the city supermarket. But a nosy stock boy, a cashier with h...

Down to the Dirt
2008
Editor, Director, Producer
Thirty-year-old Keith Kavanagh (Joel Thomas Hynes) ekes his way through life in a small town. A hard-drinking hooligan, he keeps his ragged collection...
One of Us Cannot be Right
2008
Assistant Director, Additional Editing
A short film by Jacqueline Hynes made through Nifco's First Time Filmmaker Program.

Heartless Disappearance Into Labrador Seas
2008
Producer, Director
When a marriage is threatened by a long excursion for work, domestic trouble is buffeted by family and friends.
Tiger Tom
2008
Production Manager
An armless outcast is confronted by a troubled teenager.
Diamonds in a Bucket
2007
Editor
A tale of two longtime losers looking for love.
Here on In
2007
Editor
An intimate meditation on the relationship between a recently widowed husband and his young daughter.

Face Machine
2006
Director, Writer
In a dystopian future where the air is unbreathable and all citizens must wear elaborate masks in order to live, one young scientist fights to win his...
Punch-Up At A Wedding
2006
Editor, Screenplay, Director
Short film about a wedding toast that goes horribly wrong.

Pillowtalk
2005
Director of Photography, Editor
When two halves of a young couple can't get to sleep one night, a petty argument starts over nothing. As their frustration grows and the fight escalat...

Bloomsday Cabaret
2004
Assistant Camera
An exploration of music in the life, and writing, of James Joyce. Two Newfoundland actors, a Toronto opera singer and a New York Joycean scholar trave...
I Dare Not Go
2004
Director of Photography
Conceived, written and shot in Newfoundland, this study in grief and adolescent longing is a sure sign of local filmmaker Adriana Magg's huge potentia...

Behind the Red Door
2003
Unit Publicist
Natalie, a gifted New York photographer, has a troubled past reflected in her art. When she struggles to make ends meet in the city, her agent, arrang...

Swallowed
2002
Production Manager
Swallowed is a fictional story that spans the life of Mike Seaward, a fisherman in outport Newfoundland, Canada. An unemployed fisherman, he reflects ...
The King Hunt
N/A
Director, Writer, Editor
A world-famous chess grandmaster is led into a game of psychological cat and mouse when he accepts a challenge from an overzealous fan.