LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BRIAN MULRONEY

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CUFF.Docs 2026 Opening Night Film!

Haunted by visions of the future. Vilified by the political establishment. Charming beyond belief. Behold the dazzling ascent of Brian Mulroney, the “Boy from Baie-Comeau” who built a brand-new Canada.

In 1976, Brian Mulroney launched a charm offensive the likes of which Canada had never seen, dismantling the political establishment one dad joke at a time. In this psychedelic doomscroll through the mind of a master politician, filmmaker Matthew Rankin (THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE) charts the flamboyant rise of Canada’s 18th prime minister. From the backwoods of Baie-Comeau to the backrooms of power, Mulroney plots his ascent, trouncing his enemies with a smile and preparing Canada for the unlimited prosperity and permanent unity we live in today. In a genre-bending collage of VHS-ravaged Canadiana, Rankin remixes and reimagines 80,000 pieces of archive, chronicling our 18th prime minister’s crash course with destiny as he clobbers Joe Clark and ushers in a new kind of conservatism for the 1980s. What emerges is a fever dream of politics, propaganda and pop culture as hypnotic as its subject.

OFFICIAL SELECTION
Toronto International Film Festival 2026
Atlantic International Film Festival 2026
Lunenberg Doc Fest 2026
Cinéfest Sudbury 2026
Vancouver International Film Festival 2026
ANCHOR Fest 2026
Forest City Film Festival 2026
Windsor International Film Festival 2026
Yellowknife International Film Festival 2026
Silver Wave Film Festival (Fredericton) 2026

DIRECTOR'S BIO
Matthew Rankin was born in Winnipeg and studied Quebec history at McGill University and Université Laval. His work has been presented at TIFF, Sundance, SXSW, Annecy, the Berlinale, Cannes Critics Week and the Directors’ Fortnight, as well as on the Criterion Channel. His first feature, THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2020 Berlin Film Festival and his second feature, UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, was awarded the 2024 Chantal Akerman audience award at Cannes and the 2024 Best Canadian Discovery Award at TIFF.