Nova Scotia stars in TIFF true crime drama about global cocaine smuggling ring

Little Lorraine is arguably one of the most fascinating films at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

It’s based on a true story of a cocaine smuggling ring that ran through the eponymous small Nova Scotian town in the 80s. It was filmed in Cape Breton, N.S. It’s the debut feature of Avondale, N.S.’ Andy Hines, who’s directed music videos for such international artists as Alicia Keys, Lizzo, Coldplay, Keith Urban and J Balvin, the last of whom actually makes his feature acting debut in the film. And it’s got a big ensemble cast that includes Canadians like Toronto’s Stephen Amell (Arrow), Antigonish, N.S.’ Stephen McHattie (The Rocket) and Halifax’s Steve Lund (Schitt’s Creek), as well as international stars like Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings trilogy), Rhys Darby (Our Flag Means Death) and Matt Walsh (Veep).

But rather befitting of the Maritimes, Little Lorraine actually has far humbler beginnings than all of that pedigree might suggest. Notably, Hines was inspired by the music video for the 2022 song “Lighthouse in Little Lorraine” by Dartmouth, N.S. indie rock singer-songwriter Adam Baldwin, and the pair went on to co-write Little Lorraine together. The film tells the story of Jimmy, a miner who’s left jobless after an explosion, leading him to join his uncle’s fishing boat, which is actually a front for a drug ring.

It’s perhaps an unexpected origin for Little Lorraine, but it was a natural fit for Hines’ feature debut.

“The song is so vibrant, and Adam Baldwin’s lyricism and his style of songwriting is so vibrant, and every song [of his] could be a movie or a TV show. His lyrics and storytelling are so special in that regard,” Hines tells MobileSyrup during an interview at TIFF 2025.

Meanwhile, he says his own experience in the music space lent itself well to making Little Lorraine. 

“The amount of time of actually making [those videos], I think that [was] such a benefit,” he says. “[It was] being able to be comfortable enough on set to not worry about how the machine was working, so that I could actually focus on talking to [the actors] about characters, and talking to them about performance and ideas, and being able to spitball with them.” He adds that he was fortunate to work with longtime collaborators, such as his wife, Olivia Hines, who’s been his producing partner and costume designer on all of his projects, and longtime cinematographer Jeff Powers.

Of course, it also helps to have such a prolific cast.

“I heard the song and I fell in love with the story and the song,” says Darby, who plays a drug dealer named Tim. “You don’t often think about drug smuggling and Canada, let alone Nova Scotia. And so I went, ‘What?’ This happened in the ’80s, and it was just so cool, putting drugs in coffins and driving them through to the States in a hearse. It’s fantastic.”

Admittedly, Darby’s role is small and limited to boat scenes. As a result, he didn’t get to see much of Cape Breton, though he says he wants to come back to visit more, including the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site. But for the purposes of filming Little Lorraine, he says he was able to relate the story to his native New Zealand.

“You think about the small town miners situation we have… we have mining towns in New Zealand, like they do in a lot of places on the planet. But New Zealand is similar to Canada in a lot of ways, with the small towns and things. So I drew some comparisons for small towns in New Zealand that had mining disasters and things when mines were shut down, so I could relate to the vibe of it,” he says. “And then there was a chance to play someone on the wrong side of the law [who’s] smuggling the drugs [and] add a little bit of touch of a different accent and stuff. And I think it worked really well.”

Steve Lund, Stephen Amell and Josh Close in Little Lorraine.

Chicago-born Walsh, meanwhile, has a comparatively larger role as Officer Douglas. As he talks about it, he shouts out Cape Breton’s lobster season and craft beer and notes he was drawn to the universality of the events of Little Lorraine.

“It’s a beautiful story about a blue-collar town that gets devastated by the mines closing and the fishing industry going away. And I think people with few options have to figure a way to feed their family. So that was really compelling emotionally for me,” he says.

“And then to come to Cape Breton, which I’d never been to, and try to do the accent — which I think we did okay — that was really a challenge, and a cool immersion into a microculture, the music and the people. And the words they use, we were all absorbing the crew, because all the drivers know coal miners, or were coal miners themselves, so you could have informal conversations to get backstories. It was a deep dive opportunity as an actor to understand a world and a culture, and I thought that was really neat.”

J Balvin as Detective Lozano in Little Lorraine.

Indeed, it’s said people and microculture that Hines was inspired to spotlight in the first place. For him, Little Lorraine has been an opportunity to shine an often unseen light on Nova Scotia.

“The irony is that that story is not really the Nova Scotia I’m trying to portray,” he admits. “But I do want Nova Scotia to be in the zeitgeist, and I want people to put Nova Scotia into Google or a search engine and then have all these hundreds of thousands of gorgeous images come up — that is the Nova Scotia I want people to say, ‘Oh, we have to go here.’ Because it’s striking. And the culture there is just so special. There’s a friendliness and an openness to Nova Scotian people, which is unique to a few places.”

He says he especially hopes people from around Canada will visit Nova Scotia.

“A lot of Canadians haven’t been to the Maritimes, they’re deeply shocked by their experience when they go there and how people talk to them. If you pass someone on the street in Halifax or [elsewhere] in Nova Scotia, people will talk to you. They’ll just say, ‘Hello!’ And in a lot of places, people are like, ‘Wait, what? Sorry, do I know you?’ And that’s not the culture in the Maritimes — small talk is not the enemy in the Maritimes!”

Little Lorraine doesn’t yet have a theatrical or streaming release date.

Image credit: Photon Films & Media