The local film distribution company has been screening underground films monthly since February 2025 Now, they’re gearing up to present their first ever film festival.
Graphic by Nick Workman, courtesy of Destroyed Cinema.
Destroyed Cinema, a local underground film distribution company focused on showcasing transgressive, micro-budget films, will be hosting their first film festival on Nov. 21, preceded by five pop-up screenings across the city from Nov. 16 to 20.
Destroyed is composed of co-founders JP Meldrum, a multi-disciplinary artist and UVic alumnus, and Nick Workman. Meldrum describes Destroyed Cinema’s project as screening films “that kind of fall by the wayside of the festival industrial complex.”
The Destroyed Underground Film Festival (DUFF) will show mostly Canadian films that are a “full mosaic picture of the underground.” DUFF’s nightly pop-up showings of different short and feature films will be screening in venues like Big Fernwood, Friendship Hall, and Flux Media Gallery.
Their final day will be their mainstage showcase, featuring five films at Cinecenta on Nov. 21.
The five films coming to Cinecenta are Castration Movie Chapter III, Drinking and Driving, Mid/Evil Times, Oublie Pas Le Gruau (Don’t Forget the Oatmeal), and Toronto Apartment.
Castration, Drinking and Driving, and Mid/Evil Times will all have accompanying Q&A sessions.
“The goal is to elevate movies that are made for, say, $10 000, $1 000, $500, to the levels of Project Hail Mary,” said Meldrum. “Obviously, that’s not actually possible, but [it’s] to treat them with the same respect — because, in theory, if we’re attracted to a story, a story can be told for zero dollars.”
Toronto Apartment is a dark absurdist comedy directed by Tristan Wheeler with a budget of $10 000. It follows a Torontonian tenant dealing with the spiraling aftermath of subleasing his apartment for a couple hours every day to deal with high rent costs. Oublie pas le Gruau (Don’t Forget the Oatmeal) — a “children’s movie for adults” — is a comedy centring on a man searching for an intimate companion after being told he only has a few erections left before he dies. The film is directed by Québécois screenwriter Olivier Godin. Castration Movie Chapter III: Junior Ghosts – Premorphic Drift; A Fragmentary Passage, written and directed by Louise Weard, is the third installment of Weard’s film series, and explores transphobia through the lens of its transfeminine main character Tiffany as she navigates the pushback she encounters from her long-time girlfriend.
Meldrum and Workman did not take submissions for the festival; instead, they chose films that were personally emailed to them or sent to them through Instagram. Within the scope of micro-budget DIY films, Meldrum says he looks for films that are queer, transgressive, and edgy.
Destroyed Cinema has been screening underground films since February 2025. Their big break was the double screening of the Torontonian thriller-comedy The Pee Pee Poo Poo Man — a film about a paranoid man tossing heaps of human waste at random people in Toronto — at both the Rio Theatre and the Roxy Theatre.
However, systemic factors limit what gets screened in B.C. The B.C. Motion Picture Act requires all films played in a theatre to be submitted for review prior to showings. The films must be submitted by a distribution company, and the distributor must pay a minimum of $2.75 per minute of the film, plus additional fees for any copies of the film, to be rated by the British Columbia Film Classification Office.
“We’re going to abolish this,” said Meldrum. “An individual cannot prop themselves up without starting a company and then spending $1 400 on top of that.”
“That’s my life’s mission; to get people to realize their own agency with this stuff,” he said. “[To] not get bogged down by institutional ideals of what is good and bad.… You’re just telling a story. You can do that with a camera.”
A “festival pass” for Nov. 21 is $35, while the individual films cost $10 per movie for students, and $12 for regular admissions. The pop-up screenings will also be $10. More information about DUFF can be found on their website https://duffvictoria.neocities.org/films.
