Director
Thompson shifted her focus to screenwriting and directing in 2015. She attended the Canadian Film Centre (Toronto, 2015), was one of eight Women In the Director’s Chair - Story & Leadership program, before being selected for The Writers Lab (NYC 2018, supported by Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman). She was one of ten writers selected for the international script showcase Breaking Through the Lens at the Cannes Festival 2019.
docuseries
TRANSLATIONS (2025)
Thompson released her first docu-series TRANSLATIONS for Fibe TV1 in 2025.
TRANSLATIONS explores the lives of a diverse group of trans individuals and their advocates as they connect at a beautiful, remote retreat in Nova Scotia.
NOW STREAMING on
feature FILMs
Dawn, Her Dad, and the Tractor (2021)
Winner of Nova Scotia's Masterworks Prize (2022)
Dawn, Her Dad, & The Tractor was the first feature shot in Nova Scotia after the onset of Covid 19, and was released to festivals during the next wave, and then into cinemas in the winter of 2022. It played sold out festivals across Canada, including INSIDE OUT LGBTQ+ (Toronto), FIN (Halifax International FF) St. Johns International Women's FF and was nominated for the Borsos Prize at the Whistler FF, before heading to festivals in Europe, including The British Film Institute's FLARE Queer film festival in London UK, where it also sold out.
As a young trans woman and her estranged father begin to restore the old family tractor, they cautiously rebuild their relationship and come to understand the mechanics of the heart
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short films
Shelley Thompson’s short films Bats and Pearls have been included in festivals across North America and Europe. Pearls, about a trans teenager leaving their rural NS home to embrace their authentic self, was one of the last BravoFact shorts, and a ‘prequel’ to Thompson's first feature Dawn, Her Dad & the Tractor.
Her short film Duck Duck Goose, included 35 actors under 13 and addresses the culture of fear perpetrated by school lockdowns. Duck Duck Goose was selected by Telefilm for their NOT SHORT ON TALENT program at Clermont-Ferrand, won Best Short at the Atlantic Film Festival, and was a finalist in the CBC Short Film FaceOff.
Buy / Rent Shelley Thompson’s short films below.
DUCK DUCK GOOSE (2018)
When hiding for your life becomes a frightening game, an elementary school teacher and children cope with the fear and guilt created by lockdown.
Winner of the Atlantic Film Festival's Best Short
Finalist in the CBC's Short Film Face Off
Selected for Telefilm's NOT SHORT ON TALENT program at Clermont-Ferrand
PEARLS (2017)
A rural family grapples with grief as Miranda realizes her son Don can only become the woman she is by defying her father and leaving their farm, in an outfit Miranda provides that includes a much-loved heirloom.
BATS (2016)
A beautiful woman in middle years wakes beside a lover she doesn’t seem to know well. Outside the window, a winter branch shifts in the wind. She’s unfamiliar with the house. Seasons pass, disorientation grows, but love and sex remain, in the face of disease and…company.
A MARITIME HOME INVASION (2012)
A short documentary on the phenomenon of house concerts.