Toronto-born filmmaker Matt Johnson is on a creative hot streak that more people should be talking about. Most people know him as one half of Nirvanna the Band the Show, but over the years, he’s helped create some of the most quietly impactful cinematic experiences in recent memory. Between 2023’s docudrama BlackBerry and his indie biopic Tony, starring The Holdovers breakout Dominic Sessa as a 19-year-old Anthony Bourdain discovering the chaotic world of restaurant life in Provincetown, Johnson has proven himself to be one of Canadian cinema’s most compelling modern voices.
The Wild True Story of Journalism 101
Now, Johnson is prepping Journalism 101, a feature film inspired by the wild true story of former Vice Canada music editor Slava Pastuk. In the late 2010s, Pastuk leveraged his media clout to recruit young writers and interns as drug mules for an international cocaine smuggling ring. Journalism 101 promises to be another dark, satirical project from Johnson, taking aim at the ruthless nature of modern digital media culture and how an editor turned a newsroom into an illicit drug operation.
Directed by Johnson, Journalism 101 stars Stranger Things actor Finn Wolfhard, with Johnson’s frequent collaborator Jay McCarroll producing. NEON, which distributed Johnson’s time-travel comedy Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, will help release the project, while Elevation Pictures handles Canadian distribution.
Pure Toronto Chaos
I recently had the pleasure of watching Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie on a flight back home from California, and it easily stands as one of the most unhinged, joyous comedies in years. Johnson and McCarroll pull off genuine movie magic in an unconventional narrative that bends time and space. When the hapless duo’s plan to book a gig at the Rivoli goes horribly wrong, Matt and Jay accidentally travel back to 2008.
What follows is pure, unfiltered Toronto chaos, from leaping off the CN Tower to manipulating the city’s electrical grid to reenact sci-fi physics straight out of Robert Zemeckis’ Back to the Future. If you appreciate sharp screwball comedy and practical guerrilla filmmaking, Matt Johnson’s growing body of work is essential viewing.
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