On Friday evening, June 19, 2026, Theater 1 at the Cinéma du Parc was packed to the brim. It was the final night of the Canadian tour for the film *Our Hero, Balthazar*, and the tiny team from WG Productions, its very indie distributor, was unpacking T-shirts and posters from large black suitcases for the post-screening event, delighted by the plush velvet sofas and the classic, old-school look of the Cinéma du Parc, located in the basement of a tiny shopping center on the seponymous street.
They’ve been crammed—along with producer and director Oscar Boyson—into a Toyota Tacoma for almost two weeks now, driving between theaters on the Canadian East Coast where the film is screening at independent venues. Theater number 1 is practically buzzing with anticipation and the semi-childish joy of going to the movies. The concept of producing and distributing independent films—cinema for the love of cinema—has a slightly punk, slightly nostalgic feel, reminiscent of the ’80s and a bygone way of making art.
After the screening of the film—a dark comedy that feels like *American Psycho* for Gen Z—the audience stayed for a trivia quiz organized by the Cinéma du Parc, followed by a Q&A with Boyson moderated by Montreal-based animator UMAMI. Then there are more conversations on the way out, exchanging of phone numbers, T-shirts printed by artists and Sam’s (@spookystrash) hand-made posters, cigarettes outside the theater under the few drops of the cool rain so characteristic of a Montreal summer. Is the true indie way of making films back?
Our Hero, Balthazar (2025)
In a gloomy world of artificial intelligence and wars filmed entirely on cell phones (are they satellite phones now?), Boyson’s film—written with one of his best childhood friends and produced on a shoestring budget—is a sort of American Psycho for the 21st century.
Balthazar (Jaeden Martell), a wealthy New York “cry-fluencer” dressed in Y3 and possessing the unsettling charm of a mini-sociopath, befriends Solomon (Asa Butterfield), a Texas redneck who struggles to control his anger in a rotten world where he feels persecuted. After a series of social media posts centered around Solomon’s threat to carry out a school shooting, Balthazar goes to meet Solomon in Texas and they have a sort of Thelma and Louise friendship that ends in triumph and violence. Boyson talks about “annihilation mentality”.
Nothing is as real as the joy the two boys feel when they fire assault rifles, with the hand on the hip to show how it’s done. The rest -whether due to a lack of connection or a lack of effort- is delightfully offbeat and a little sad, too. The crappy cars, the social media trolls, the poverty, and no one can really cry until it’s too late. And, in the end, it’s the ones who feel nothing who win—obviously.
Theater 1 at the Cinéma du Parc is roaring with laughter during the film, and afterward everyone is talking about a guy they haven’t seen in a few years, a guy who’s a little sad and a little of an “incel” ( the involuntary celibate who hate women because they won’t sleep with them)—a guy who’s probably gone off the rails and lives in that small-town America that you definitely, definitely don’t want to go back to.
Yet small towns and small movie theaters are at the heart of the “tour” organized by the distributor, which focuses on small theaters and small towns to find a community that quickly becomes a group of fans and film buffs, just like in the movies of the ’80s.
The distribution model has a distinct small-town charm and complements the film, elevating it in a way that’s quite rare these days. Boyson’s satire is perfectly at home in art-house theaters and in the “great American indie experience” that Gen Z dreams about in vivid colors on TikTok—and that millennials had relegated, with a single tear, to the melancholy of adolescence.
Where can we see it?
The film will be released in theaters soon, in July 2026, in Montreal and across Canada.
