78 minutes – Drama
Language: English
Release date: March 20, 2020 (Toronto, Winnipeg, Innisfail)
Production company: We’ll Be Over Here Productions
Canadian distributor: Pacific Northwest Pictures (PNP)

Canadian Strain was shot over 9 days with a budget of $10,000 during the summer of 2018 in Toronto, the year cannabis became legal in Canada. It was inspired by the question, What happens to all the dealers when marijuana becomes legal? Meet cannabis dealer Anne Banting (Jess Salgueiro) who thought she could finally stop looking over her shoulder now that selling weed was legal. Her customers are adults, not stoners, and she takes pride in her ability to help them find a bespoke solution. But they’ve left her for the only legal dealer in town, the government, and a decade as a dealer isn’t something she can put on her CV, even though she has pharmaceutical level knowledge. Everyone thinks she hasn’t grown up and it’s time to move on, even though her passion is helping others. Now with no money, no direction, and some worthless weed, Anne is forced to confront the system while trying to hold on to what she loves. Dealing was never hard, until they made it legal.

Canadian Strain is director Geordie Sabbagh’s second feature film.