Sweet Angel Baby is the stirring second feature from St. John’s filmmaker Melanie Oates. Eliza (Michaela Kurimsky, Firecrackers) is the local sweetheart of her seaside fishing town, but they don’t know about the other side of herself she shares on the internet. When that secret gets out, Eliza has to deal with that betrayal while wrestling with how she’s perceived by her community, how she’s viewed online, and how she sees herself. With honest, lived-in supporting performances from Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) and Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue), Sweet Angel Baby is a much-needed modernization of rural storytelling, one that reckons with small-town politics in an increasingly connected world.

A Q&A with director Melanie Oates, producer Chris Hatcher, and lead actor Michaela Kurimsky will follow the screening.

Content advisory: themes of sexual violence; sexual content

Winner of the AIFF Michael Weir Award for Best Atlantic Screenwriter