Nirvanna the Band, the Show, the Movie — and Why We Keep Going
Nirvanna the Band, the Show, the Movie -Friday, May 15. Doors at 6:30PM.
Five films into the season and this Friday might be my favourite yet. Matt Johnson is genuinely one of the most original filmmakers working in Canada right now. Come watch something weird and wonderful in a great room with great people.
There are certain films that feel like they could only have been made in Canada. Not because of where they were shot, or who funded them, but because of something in their texture — a self-deprecating warmth, an affection for failure, a faith that the weird and the small and the deeply sincere deserve to be on screen.
Nirvanna the Band, the Show, the Movie is one of those films.
Written and directed by Matt Johnson — the same Matt Johnson who gave us The Dirties and who turned a no-budget web series about two guys trying to book a show into one of the strangest, most beloved cult artifacts in Canadian comedy — this is a film that started as a joke, became a series, became a show on IFC, and has now, inexplicably and perfectly, become a feature film.
The premise is simple, as they always are with Johnson: Matt and Jay are musicians. They are trying to secure a performance venue. Things go sideways. Specifically, their plans somehow transport them back to 2008, where everything is simultaneously exactly the same and entirely different. What follows is funny, strange, and strangely moving — a Canadian comedy that treats its own ridiculousness with complete seriousness, which is exactly the right approach.
Nirvanna premiered at South by Southwest in 2025 and received its Canadian theatrical release in February 2026. The Creemore Film Club’s screening Friday May 15th 2026 is the kind of thing TIFF Film Circuit was made for: bringing a film like this to a room full of people who will laugh in the right places, not because they were told to, but because they’re actually watching.
The Creemore Film Club, presented by the Purple Hills Arts & Heritage Society in partnership with the Creemore Village Green, is now five films into its 2026 season — and if you haven’t been yet, Friday night is a very good time to start.
Doors open at 6:30. The film screens at 7:30. There will be a feature cocktail, wine, beer, popcorn, and treats available before and during. The Village Green holds the room in that particular way that good venues do — the right size, the right feel, the kind of place where watching a film with your neighbours actually feels like an event.
Individual tickets are $12 at the door. If you’d like preferred seating and access to all eight films in the season, a Film Club membership is $80. With June’s *Blue Heron* still ahead, there’s still time to join.
I’ve been proud to sponsor the Creemore Film Club this year, and I say that not because I’m supposed to, but because I believe in what it’s doing. A small town that can hold a room for art — that can bring a Matt Johnson film to a village green and fill it with people who came because they wanted to, not because they had to — is a town with something real going on.
That’s always been true of Creemore. It remains true.
Friday, May 15. Doors at 6:30. We hope you enjoy the show.
Nirvanna the Band, the Show, the Movie
Presented by the Creemore Film Club / TIFF Film Circuit
Creemore Village Green — Station on the Green
Friday, May 15, 2026
Doors: 6:30 pm | Film: 7:30 pm
Tickets: $12 individual | $80 season membership
phahs.ca/creemore-film-club/
Sponsor: Suzanne Lawrence, Broker — where town and country meet®
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