Canadian indie film ‘Little Lorraine’ sold 4,000 tickets on Cape Breton in a week

A Canadian indie film is making waves on Cape Breton, selling more than 4,000 tickets over the course of the week in Sydney, N.S., a city of roughly 30,000.

The local Cineplex had to add more screenings of “Little Lorraine,” an Atlantic noir filmed on the island, said Leigh Smith, the movie theatre’s general manager, because 12 of the 13 scheduled showings sold out.

“When the opening weekend sold out as fast as it did, we just started looking at places to maximize on this attendance,” Smith said.

“People want to see this. There is such an outpouring of support for it.”

Many in the community were a part of the filming in 2024 and Smith said they’re now thrilled to see themselves or their family members in the movie.

“There was one gentleman that was so excited because his dad’s car (is in the film),” Smith said. “His dad has a very popular classic car in the area and it was such a moment of pride for him.”

Nova Scotia-born director Andy Hines said he’s been “blown away” by the response.

“Cape Breton is a particular part of the world where if they don’t like it, they’ll either tell you about it or they won’t engage or whatever, but it’s been profound to see that community adore it,” he said.

“I feel like a real sense of adoration from the community there, which means the world to me because, tough crowd.”

This is Hines’ feature film directorial debut and is based on co-writer Adam Baldwin’s 2022 song “Lighthouse in Little Lorraine,” which itself is inspired by a true story.

The film centres on three coal miners in Cape Breton who become lobster fishermen, and get caught up in a drug smuggling ring. It had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, and last week it opened in Sydney.

“We’re trying to take that energy and take it across the country now that we’ve opened nationally.”

Cineplex said it expanded the film to 20 theatres across the country as scheduled this week.

But Hines said the success story almost didn’t happen. The production was within four to six hours of not being fully funded, just as cameras were about to roll, he said.

“We were in Cape Breton and people were there, people were coming in from all over, and money had been spent, and we had a schedule. And it was very, very close to not happening,” Hines said in a video interview from Toronto.

The producers of “Little Lorraine” said the project was self-financed, with the support of one additional outside investor that came in at that last minute to save the film.

The film took Hines four years to make and was helped by tax credits from his home province.

“Without Screen Nova Scotia, our premier, and the province, the provincial government, wanting to see us make that film, we would not have actually been able to film in Cape Breton. We would have had to make it up somewhere else, which would have been a disaster.”

Telefilm also invested over $400,000 in the post-production and national marketing of the film.

“I think that these days we’re really seeing this shift from big studio films and this kind of resurgence of the independent film world where people want original stories and they want authentic stories with human qualities that is, at the end of the day, relatable.”

Hines, a Grammy-nominated music video director, gathered a cast that included Stephen Amell and singer J Balvin, who had worked with Hines over the years.

“I presented the role to him and he thought it was really cool and said ‘yes.’ And that’s when it began, you know, the complications of actually getting a global superstar like him to one of the smallest, most remote places in North America,” Hines laughed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2026.

Craig Macrae, The Canadian Press