‘Memento Mori’ Brings TFS Talent Together to Tackle Canada’s MAID Program
A deeply moving short film exploring the personal and emotional complexities of Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program has recently garnered critical acclaim and festival recognition – while also highlighting the strength and talent of the Toronto Film School (TFS) community.
Memento Mori, co-written, directed by, and starring Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre faculty member Andrew Moodie, and produced by fellow faculty member and alumnus Chad Tailor, was recently awarded Best Short Film (Audience Award) at the 2024 Toronto Independent Film Festival and received a Writer’s Guild of Canada nomination for Best Short Film.
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“It’s such an honour to be recognized for this film – especially by the Writers Guild,” said Tailor.
“Attending the awards felt like the mini-Oscars. I was fanboying a bit over all the incredible actors and writers in the room. It was surreal to have a project I helped write be included at that level.”
The 15-minute film follows the last day in the life of a terminally ill woman who has chosen to end her life through the MAID program. However, the woman is never seen on screen. Instead, Memento Mori focuses on the reactions of her loved ones – friends and family members navigating shock, grief, and acceptance as they gather to say goodbye.
“It’s not about promoting or rejecting MAID,” Tailor explained. “The film doesn’t push a stance. It presents a choice someone made, and then asks: how do the people around them handle it?”
The film is inspired by a real-life experience Moodie had with a close friend, and that authenticity shaped the film’s unique development process. Rather than beginning with a traditional script, Moodie gathered his cast – many of whom were TFS alumni – for a series of improvisational rehearsals, Tailor said.
“Andrew booked a rehearsal space and we’d just improv with the full cast. He’d record it all, go back and write, and then we’d come back and rehearse again,” he explained. “It was the most collaborative writing experience I’ve ever had. That’s why the dialogue feels so natural – because much of it came from us as the actors.”
The collaborative process extended to the film’s shoot, which was completed in a single day using dual cameras to capture overlapping, emotionally driven scenes with minimal retakes.
“Andrew really gave us the space to drop into each scene. He’d let us go off book, follow our instincts, and gave every actor the time they needed to get to that emotional place,” said Tailor. “He called it our ‘medallion’ – the thing we held onto that kept us connected to the moment.”
The production brought together a highly capable team of both professionals and emerging filmmakers – many of them part of the TFS family. Among the cast and crew were more than a dozen TFS graduates, including:
- Diego Aldana – Director of Photography
- Empress Francis – 1st Assistant Director
- Jainee Fernandez – 2nd Assistant Director
- Sebastian Hernandez – Production Designer
- Sydney Daley & Emery Nguyen – Script Supervisors
- Roberto Lambrano, Fernanda Molina, Alec Stephens – Camera Team
- Rafael Zoto, Denzel Vasquez, Owen Botton – Lighting
- Lingesh Janarthanam, Japleen Kaur – Sound
- Abid Abbas – Data Management
- Ralph Pineda – Colorist
- Yohannes Taye & Kearsten Johansson – Production Assistants
Tailor noted the intentional effort to bring alumni onto the project:
“As a producer, I always look to the TFS network first. I trust these people. I know how they work,” he said. “Diego Aldana – our DP – is someone I’ve worked with multiple times, and I knew I wanted him on board from day one.”
Memento Mori’s authenticity struck a chord with audiences. At the Toronto screening, Tailor recalled the impact: “You could hear the gasps and the sniffles. And afterward, so many people came up to us to say how much they appreciated the film’s neutrality. We weren’t telling people what to think – we were asking them to feel.”
The short has already been accepted into the Vancouver International Shorts Festival, where it will screen this June.
And that’s just the beginning: Memento Mori is a proof of concept for a larger feature-length project currently in development, with interest from several Canadian producers.
“We always intended this to be more than a short,” said Tailor. “We made it the best it could be with the goal of developing the feature version. The short has done what we hoped – it’s getting attention, and now we’re in a position to take the next step.”
In the meantime, Tailor and his company, Tailored Films, continue to thrive. He recently completed Straw Man, another short co-produced with TFS alum Kearsten Johansson, based on a Canadian memoir about disordered eating. Like Memento Mori, Straw Man is also a proof of concept being developed into a larger project.
Reflecting on his Memento Mori experience, Tailor said, “It was one of the biggest challenges I’ve had as a filmmaker. But it leveled us all up – me, the crew, everyone involved. Working with someone like Andrew, who was my teacher, just reminded me what the TFS community can do when it comes together.”
