MERCIFUL
Marc Almon, Holdfast Pictures Inc.
Language: English
Based On: Original Screenplay
Project Type: Feature Film (Scripted)
Genre: Thriller
Stage of Development: Packaging phase
Estimated Length (minutes): 100 minutes
Director: Andy Hines
Director Bio:
Andy Hines is a Canadian filmmaker from Nova Scotia, whose feature film debut Little Lorraine premiered in 2025.
Hines, the son of photographer Sherman Hines, began his career as a music video director, creating videos for artists such as Tory Lanez, Logic, Big Sean, Classified, Alicia Keys, Keith Urban, Jason Derulo, J Balvin, Lizzo, Coldplay, and Matthew Good.
His video for Big Sean's "One Man Can Change the World" was the winner of the MTV Music Video Award for Best Video with a Social Message at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. His video for Logic's "1-800-273-8255" was a Grammy Award nominee for Best Music Video at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018, and his video for Classified's "Powerless" received a Juno Award nomination for Video of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2019, as well as being shortlisted for the 2019 Prism Prize.
In 2022 he directed the video for Adam Baldwin's single "Lighthouse in Little Lorraine", which he subsequently used as proof of concept to secure studio interest in a feature film treatment of the true story that inspired the song. Little Lorraine premiered in the Discovery program at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. It was subsequently screened at the 2025 Atlantic International Film Festival, where Hines and Baldwin won the Michael Weir Award for best screenwriting.
Proposed or Confirmed Talent:
Nova Scotian writer Lynn Coady is attached as writer and producer to MERCIFUL.
Lynn is a Giller Prize winning fiction writer who has worked in television in recent years, including stand-out Canadian shows such as Orphan Black, Diggstown and Mary Kills People. MERCIFUL is Lynn's first feature film original script.
Total Budget: 7,129,217
Percent Confirmed: 32.90%
Currency: $ CAD
List names of confirmed partners:
NS Film Incentive Fund, Federal Tax Credit, Producer equity
What is this project seeking?
Financing, Distribution, Sales Agent, Broadcaster
Logline:
After serving 15 years in prison for allegedly killing her baby, a woman returns to her small
hometown seeking revenge against those who conspired to falsely convict her, including
the mayor who raped her as a teenager and orchestrated the cover-up.
Synopsis:
Gina Lalonde returns to her hometown of Mercy Cove after serving 15 years in prison for allegedly killing her newborn — a crime she has always denied committing. She reconnects with Charlie and Roseanne, the couple who once cared for her, before facing her mother Patty and the town that condemned her, especially Lois Cray, who led the push to try Gina as an adult.
Confronting Father Joe, the priest who publicly denounced her at trial, Gina learns he did so to hide his own scandal — an affair with a male teacher — and that Lois orchestrated the town's campaign against her to protect his reputation.
Gina also becomes involved with Hollis Sullivan, a young man secretly running a drug operation. His older brother Miles, now a lawyer haunted by guilt over Gina's harsh sentencing, falls for her, though it's unclear if her interest in him is genuine or a way to access people from her past.
Digging into the night she got pregnant, Gina discovers she was drugged and assaulted at a party, then driven home by Mayor Tom Cray — Lois's husband — after he dropped off his son Ryan. Tom raped her, leaving cash and a callous note. She also learns that police sergeant Don Morse, on Tom's payroll, helped frame her for the baby's death, though he'd actually resisted the severity of her sentence, wanting her merely sidelined during Tom's campaign.
Everything collides at a lavish gala celebrating a new resort built by Tom and the town's elite. As Gina confronts Lois and Tom, Hollis's drug empire collapses around them: rival dealers firebomb the event, igniting the resort. Amid the chaos, Hollis is cornered on the beach by his supplier, while a corrupt cop reveals his true allegiance.
In the burning building, Gina holds Tom at gunpoint and forces his confession. When he protests that she "could have left any time," she throws his words back at him and leaves him to the flames.
Miles finally sees the corruption underlying his hometown and his brother's crimes. Gina, scarred but resolute, walks away with a measure of justice and peace.
MERCIFUL is a story about power, complicity, and the way communities protect their own by sacrificing the vulnerable — and about one woman's reckoning with the people who let it happen.
Contact Information: marc@holdfastinc.com
