Madeleine Sims-Fewer

Sims-Fewer was born in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario, Canada. Her family moved to Bath, England when she was two years old. Sims-Fewer studied filmmaking at York University in Toronto.^[1] She returned to England to study acting at the Drama Centre London.^[2]

Acting roles

After several shorts, Sims-Fewer made her feature film debut in Operation Avalanche in 2016.

Mancinelli and Sims-Fewer collaborations

In 2015, Sims-Fewer met Dusty Mancinelli at the 2015 TIFF Talent Lab. Since 2017, the pair has co-directed several short films in their DM Films joint venture. Their films have been shown at TIFF, BFI London Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, the Moscow International Film Festival and the Slamdance Film Festival, among others. Their first collaboration, Slap Happy, about a tempestuous relationship, was an official selection at the BFI London Film Festival, Vancouver and Slamdance.^[3] Reviewer Ben Robins named it one of the best short films at the BFI Festival, describing it as "like a little less touched-up Blue Valentine, with a much more twisted sense of humour."^[4] Their second collaboration was Woman in Stall, a "claustrophobic thriller" about an encounter in a public restroom between a man and a woman trapped in a cubicle.^[5] It won the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Slamdance festival.^[6] Chubby, their third collaboration, was shown at the 2019 Telluride festival. A study of a 10-year-old's experience with sexual abuse, it was described as "harrowing" and would "stay with you long after its credits roll".^[7]

Violation

A teaser of their debut feature Violation was shown at the Cannes Marché du Film Online in June 2020.^[8] Violation, which is described as "decidedly dark, potentially dangerous and probably deranged" and "flips the revenge genre on its head", was selected for the "Fantastic 7" genre festival initiative to highlight genre films at seven international film festivals.^[9] Violation premiered at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival in the "Midnight Madness" program.^[10][11] Critic Mike Crisolago has named it one of 30 films he is already "excited to see."^[12] Now Toronto critic Norman Wilner called it "a major levelling up of their signature combination of rage and intensity".^[13] The Guardian called it "a brutal and brilliant debut."^[14] According to Variety reviewer Tomris Laffley, "Despite some heavy-handed choices, Madeleine Sims-Fewer and Dusty Mancinelli pack a profound gut-punch with their debut feature."^[15] Violation was a NY Times Critic's Pick, with critic Lena Wilson writing, 'Sims-Fewer is the standout, a quadruple threat whose fearlessness renders a protagonist devolving from a doe-eyed wisecrack to a woman on the verge. She is at her best opposite Maguire, their sisterly dynamic constantly wavering between devotion and competition.' ^[16]

Sims-Fewer won two Vancouver Film Critics Circle Awards for Best Actress and Best Film. She also received two Canadian Screen Award nominations at the 9th Canadian Screen Awards in 2021, for Best Actress and the John Dunning Best First Feature Award.^[17]

• Madeleine Sims-Fewer at IMDb
• dmfilms.com official website