We were joined on the Popternative show by Canadian filmmaker Chandler Levack, who had two new movies premiere on the same day last month. On April 17, the coming-of-age rom-com Mile End Kicks, written and directed by Levack, arrived in theaters after debuting at TIFF 2025.
That same day, the college comedy Roommates, written by Jimmy Fowlie and Ceara O’Sullivan and directed by Levack, premiered on Netflix. Her feature film directorial debut was the critically acclaimed 2022 coming-of-age comedy-drama I Like Movies.
Mile End Kicks stars Barbie Ferreira, Devon Bostick, Stanley Simons, and Juliette Gariépy and is a semi-autobiographical comedy-drama inspired by Levack’s time as a music journalist, following a young woman finding her way through Montreal’s indie rock scene in 2011. Levack characterizes Mile End Kicks as a blend of genres, a kind of “cocktail” influenced by films like Dazed and Confused and rom-coms and coming-of-age ones like Almost Famous and Frances Ha.
Roommates, which was produced by Adam Sandler, follows Devon (Sadie Sandler), a naïve college freshman who invites the cool, self-assured Celeste (Chloe East) to be her roommate, only for their promising friendship to unravel into a quietly escalating battle of passive aggression. The cast also includes Billy Bryk, Sarah Sherman, Martin Herlihy, Josh Segarra, Carol Kane, Janeane Garofalo, Aidan Langford, Bella Murphy, Jaya Harper, Storm Reid, Ivy Wolk, Bailee Madison, Natasha Lyonne, Nick Kroll, and a cameo appearance by Megan Thee Stallion.
Reflecting on the contrasting experiences of the two films, Levack says, “With Roommates, because it’s Jimmy’s and Ceara’s movie, and Adam’s and Sady’s movie, it was a lot more collaborative than [Mile End Kicks which] I [had] been literally writing and rewriting for 10 years. So that was a different process, but it was really fun [for us to all] talk about our own college experiences and the roommates that we had, the roommates we were, and make something that that felt like all of us.”
Watch the full conversation with Chandler Levack below.
Roommates is streaming on Netflix.
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