Jay Reid is award-winning writer/director and freelance journalist whose films have played at Canadian, US and international festivals.
Reid, an accomplished screenwriter, is the winner of SODEC’s Grand Prize for his short screenplay Phases of the Moon. As a result of his win, SODEC sent him to the 2016 Cannes Film Festival as part of SODEC Lab to attend the Producers Workshop. His feature script, Volunteer, a dark comedy/drama about suicide hotline volunteers, was shortlisted for The Black List Feature Lab 2018 and the Black List/Cassian Elwes Fellowship, and was a finalist in Screencraft’s Screenwriting Fellowship.
Lifelike his latest short, sent him to Cannes for the second time as it was selected as one of 15 films in Canada to be part of Telefilm's Not Short on Talent Program 2019 at the Cannes market. It premiered in Quebec at the 38th Abitibi-Temiscamingue International Film Festival in Rouyn-Noranda, and went to play at festivals throughout Canada, the US, Mexico and internationally. It was selected by the Boston Underground Film Festival to be included in the Nightstream 2020 Film Festival, a combination of five of the most important genre festivals in the US during the pandemic and the largest online genre event ever and won Best Short Film at the Grindsploitation Film Festival (part of GenreBlast).
His first feature "Sick Puppy" starring Natasha Calis (Skymed, The Harvest), Brett Geddes (The Boys), Rachel Boyd and Dylan Taylor completed principal photography in October 2023.
Jabroni Budget: $100K - $1M | Drama ⋄ Comedy Hoping to take a break from his familial responsibilities, a stressed-out man moves in with a childlike friend and his doting mother, and soon finds himself regressing.
The Offering Budget: $1M - $5M | Thriller ⋄ Drama An unstable death row escapee confronts and kidnaps the ailing young woman who rejected his heart for transplant surgery, determined to change her mind.
Volunteer Budget: $1M - $5M | Drama ⋄ Comedy After a suicide hotline volunteer discovers her actions might have led to the death of a caller, she becomes pathologically selfless to alleviate the guilt, but her efforts soon lead to disastrous results for all.
Fantasy Life Thriller A woman returns home to take care of her father who has dementia and discovers he might be the serial killer that terrorized her hometown when she was a child.
Phases of the Moon Budget: $1M - $5M | Horror An unhappy woman moves out to a house in the woods with her family to heal after a suicide attempt, but finds her recovery threatened when she begins acting like a wolf.
Happy Friends Drama ⋄ Comedy Actors who work for a company that provides missing personal connections for people find their lives inextricably knotted with their clients.
Sick Puppy
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Film
Writer/Director When Charlie's serial killer husband decides to finally quit for her, she's thrilled, but soon finds herself committing violent acts to protect the man she loves, even from himself.
Lifelike
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Film
Writer/Director
Das Mörtal: The Curse
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Video
Actor
Samaritan
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Film
Writer/Director
Another 10 Minutes
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Short
Writer/Director
Please Breathe...Lucy
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Short
Writer
Byline
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Film
Writer/Director
Deviant
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Short
Writer/Director
Best Short Film for "Lifelike," Grindsploitation Film Festival
(2021)
Programmer's Choice, "Lifelike," Videodrunk Film Festival
(2020)
Telefilm's Not Short on Talent, Cannes, for "Lifelike"
(2019)
Grand Prize for Best Short Screenplay SODEC Cours Ecrire Ton Court
(2015)
University of Southern California
(2005-2005)
The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University
(2002-2005)