Dead Lover is an experimental and unique feature film about finding love in a dead world. It had its International debut screening at South By SouthWest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas on March 9th, 2025.
We subsequently had a chance to talk with writer, performer, and director Grace Glowicki
HNMAG: Good morning. Where are you from originally?
Grace Glowicki: Edmonton, Alberta. Then I went to McGill, and then I moved to Toronto. I have been there for fourteen years.
HNMAG: What’d you study?
Grace Glowicki: I was in the communications department.
I was also in the English apartment doing cultural studies for a while, which was the umbrella of film studies.
HNMAG: After McGill, you moved to Toronto. Were you always interested in the films?
Grace Glowicki: Yeah, I grew up watching a lot of movies as a lot of people did. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in my life, and then at McGill, I just thought, maybe I’ll audition for a play. I’ve never acted before. Then I got a part in a one-act play at Players Theatre. It just kind of snowballed from there. Eventually, I picked up a camera with my roommate and started tinkering around. I learned how to edit and make little comedy videos.
HNMAG: Was the one-act play experimental?
Grace Glowicki: It was experimental. I played a dominatrix robot. So it was a very strange character. The director was a real sweetheart.
HNMAG: You made a film in 2019 as well, right?
Grace Glowicki: It was called Tito. It also played here at SXSW. That was six years ago. A bit of time has passed between the two movies.
HNMAG: What was Tito like?
Grace Glowicki: It was an anxiety riddled stoner comedy, with a tragic end. It also starred myself and Ben. We shot it in seven days for $12,000, and then it came here and won the Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award. It was very well received here, so we love coming to South By because they’ve been so supportive of my career.
HNMAG: That was your first feature?
Grace Glowicki: I never directed a short before. I just jumped right to features. Dead Lover is my second feature.
HNMAG: Was Tito also experimental, or more a traditional narrative?
Grace Glowicki: It was experimental. That film takes place in the real world, so it’s not as expressionistic. It takes place in a house in Toronto. The performance is expressionistic. Probably a strain of clowning, so that is a little unusual. I didn’t follow conventional story structure because I just didn’t know it yet. The plot has elements of experimental strains, but not in the same way as Dead Lover.
HNMAG: Is your new film set in Toronto as well?
Grace Glowicki: It was a nameless town. It’s like being inside somebody’s mind. St’s pretty placeless and timeless. Going for a more, unconscious feel.
HNMAG: Your character has a kind of a “Mary Poppins” type of Cockney accent. Throughout the movie, there’s a whole bunch of different accents.
Grace Glowicki: There’s a Cockney accent, a posh British accent, a real mix. The gossips are very American. I wanted to have fun and not have things feel too literal or logical. Realism and specifics kind of bores me. I like imperfections.
HNMAG: You have a regular career as an actor?
Grace Glowicki: After I moved from McGill, I started just acting. Then six years into that, I was in a short film that played at Sundance and I won an acting award for that. That bolstered my confidence and I thought, okay, maybe I could direct a movie.
Since then, I’ve been doing both. I pay my bills as an actor, and then, every five years, I make a movie.
HNMAG: What is your opinion on the future of setting more films in Canada?
Grace Glowicki: Ben Petrie, who I made both Tito and Dead Lover with, had a part in Nirvanna The Band, The Show, The Movie. It had it’s international premiere here at SXSW. We went the other night, yeah, and the reception was amazing. We were there, and it was so cool to see a Canadian film set in Toronto, have such a response among Americans. It’s very encouraging. Matthew Rankin who’s a Winnipeg-based filmmaker, lives in Montreal sometimes, too. His movie was shortlisted for the Oscars this year. There are definitely things happening. I think people will continue to set movies in Toronto and Canada, and a little more unapologetically.
HNMAG: Where did you and Ben meet?
Grace Glowicki: I met him just outside of Toronto on a movie set. he was an AD (assistant director) and I was an actor, and we just said let’s work together. It kind of all went from there. And then he became an actor. He was an improviser in high school, so he always was a comedy guy. We all wear different hats.
Grace Glowicki is a very creative and diverse artist. She writes, edits, acts, produces, and directs feature films. The movies she makes with her partner Ben Petrie are fun, independent, and unique. She has a strong, expressionistic approach that you won’t find anywhere else. We don’t know what’s next for Grace and Ben but it will surely surprise us.
