Disappearance at Clifton Hill


Disappearance at Clifton Hill is a 2019 Canadian thriller film, directed by Albert Shin. The film stars Tuppence Middleton as Abby, a young woman who returns home to Niagara Falls, Ontario, when she inherits a family-owned motel in the city's Clifton Hill tourist district following her mother's death, and becomes obsessed with reconstructing inchoate childhood memories of witnessing a kidnapping.
The film's cast also includes Hannah Gross, Marie-Josée Croze, Andy McQueen, Noah Reid, Dan Lett, Aaron Poole, Connor Jessup, Elizabeth Saunders, and Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, as well as filmmaker David Cronenberg in a rare acting appearance as a local historian and podcaster. The film was nominated for four Canadian Screen Award nominations, including Best Supporting Actor for McQueen.

Production

The film was based in part on Shin's own life; his parents formerly owned a motel in Niagara Falls, where Shin has childhood memories of witnessing what he understood at the time to be a kidnapping. However, during the making of the film, he faced resistance from the Clifton Hill business improvement association, because the organization feared that the film would paint the city and the district in a negative light.

Release

The film premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival under the title Clifton Hill. IFC Midnight obtained the U.S. distribution rights to the film and will release it on February 28, 2020.

Accolades