Grace Glowicki’s Dead Lover is as unsettling as it is tender, a punk gothic romance set in the margins of life and death. Glowicki directs and stars as a lonely gravedigger who unexpectedly finds love, only to have it ripped away. Refusing to let go, she claws at fate with grim determination.
With Ben Petrie and Leah Doz rounding out the cast, the film mixes grotesque imagery with aching intimacy. Glowicki’s style is raw and fearless, unafraid of dirt, blood, or awkward silences. What could have been mere provocation emerges instead as a meditation on grief and the strange, sometimes desperate ways people hold on to love. Dead Lover shocks and unnerves, but it also moves, offering a story where ugliness and beauty coexist. It is fiercely original, a midnight gem that wears its heart on its sleeve—even when that heart is still beating in the grave.
Dead Lover is playing at TIFF ’25. For more information, click here.
