Director Matt Johnson's newest movie project is taking over a Toronto neighbourhood

As far as Toronto directors go, Matt Johnson is having a banner year.

With two feature films making major waves across the movie world — Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie was released in February 2026 to near-instant cult favourite status, and Tony earned an impressive $5M at the box office in its first weekend — you might think that Matt Johnson would take a moment to rest on his laurels.

If you've happened upon Liberty Village at any point in the past few weeks, though, you'll likely have discovered that that's not the case.

His next project, Journalism 101, inspired by the real-life case of a Toronto journalist-turned-drug smuggler, is deep into filming in the neighbourhood — which just so happens to be the exact neighbourhood where all the coke-fuelled drama went down in real life.

The film, starring Stranger Things star and Vancouver native Finn Wolfhard, follows the high-profile scandal of former Vice Canada music editor Slava Pastuk, who, in 2019, was charged by the RCMP for recruiting colleagues to import nearly 40 kgs. of cocaine from Australia in 2015.

Pastuk was sentenced to nine years in prison and was released on day parole in 2022. Now, we're all about to get a first-hand look into the entire stranger-than-fiction ordeal on the big screen, courtesy of Canada's own king of meta-absurdity.

Filming trucks have taken over Toronto's Liberty Village.

Perhaps most meta of all, the film is shooting in the Liberty Village environs where Vice Canada formerly housed its offices. Though the now-defunct media company's former Mowat Avenue address (now occupied by TikTok Canada's offices) doesn't seem to be making an appearance, all the neighbourhood's other post-industrial idiosyncrasies are playing a leading role.

The film appears to be shooting until the end of August, so the next time you're strolling through Liberty Village, keep an eye out for drug-smuggling journalists. Or people playing them, anyway.