Leah Johnston

Leah Johnston is an award-winning filmmaker from Nova Scotia, Canada.

She began her career as a child actor and went on to earn her B.F.A. at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Musical Theatre program. After graduating, she transitioned into photography before breaking into film with her National Screen Institute Drama Prize funded short, SOME THINGS WON’T SLEEP (’14). She has  written and directed six short films which have played at festivals around the world, including INGRID AND THE BLACK HOLE (’16) which won Best Short at Edmonton International Film Festival and MOTHER’S SKIN (’22) which premiered in competition at Shanghai International Film Festival and won Best Short and the Joan Orenstein Award for Outstanding Performance at the 2023 Atlantic International Film Festival.

She is currently developing her first feature SHOPAHOLIC which was incubated at the Canadian Film Centre Directors Lab and won the 2025 Writers Guild of Canada Sondra Kelly Award – a prize given out annually to a female-identifying writer in mid-career to develop their project.

Leah is the recipient of the Corus Fearless Female Filmmaker Award, the $35,000 Bravofact/WIFT Prize and the National Screen Institute Drama Prize.

She is an alumna of the Academy of Canadian Cinema Inaugural Women’s Directing program, the National Screen Institute, the Reykjavik Talent Lab and the Directors Lab at Canadian Film Centre.

She also helms the production company PRETTY FIERCE FILMS which has been in operation for over a decade.