HOT DOCS NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

A love letter to solitude, seeds, and slow living

Lightdox presents 

AGATHA’S ALMANAC
A film by Amalie Atkins

Trailer

86 mins | Canada | 2025

North American Premiere Screening
Sunday April 27 – 1:30pm
TIFF Lightbox Cinema #4 – Sold Out

2nd Screening
Friday May 2 – 11:00am
TIFF Lightbox Cinema #2 –  Tickets

Filmmaker Amalie Atkins and Subject Agatha Bock are available for interviews

The world may be racing forward, but 90-year-old Agatha Bock is rooted in another rhythm that is grounded in heirloom seeds, esoteric rituals, and the meditative magic of living deliberately. 

Agatha’s Almanac – the North American Premiere at Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival – is the latest immersive work from acclaimed multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker Amalie Atkins, whose poetic sensibility elevates this documentary into a deeply textured cinematic experience.

Shot over six years by an all-woman crew on 16mm film, Agatha’s Almanac quietly observes Agatha tending her ancestral Manitoba farm without a car, cell phone, or even running water. Her days are devoted to cultivating watermelon, beans, herbs, and flowers, and all entirely by hand. 

“There’s no artifice here,” says director Amalie Atkins. “Agatha’s life is her art form. She’s unknowingly preserved a century of practical magic.”

Intentionally created with sensory-sensitive viewers in mind, the film eschews chaos and clamor for stillness and attentiveness. The tactile nature of Agatha’s world is mirrored in the handmade feel of the film itself, with every frame bearing the mark of human touch.

Agatha’s story is more than an ode to rural eccentricity, it is a rare window into a vanishing generation and a quietly radical act of resistance to modern convenience culture. With a home untouched since the 1950s and a daily rhythm shaped by intuition rather than devices, Atkins offers a counter-narrative to the speed and disconnection of our times.

“Just as there is no modern technology in Agatha’s life, there are no modern political slogans to shout along to. It’s all action and consequence in one of the most uncompromisingly feminist films of the year.” – Mads Mikkelsen, Programme Head, CPH:DOX.

Agatha’s Almanac is directed & written by Amalie Atkins.
Cinematography by Rhayne Vermette.
Edited by Amalie Atkins.
Music by Green-House (Olive Ardizoni) Castle If (Jess Forrest; Katarina Gryvul, Andrea-Jane Cornell.
Sound recording by Charlene Moore.  Sound Design by Andrea-Jane Cornell

Amalie Atkins (she/her) is a Saskatoon-based artist known for cinematic fables that fuse performance, textile, and film into immersive storytelling. Her work has shown at MASS MoCA, the Textile Museum of Canada, and internationally at festivals in Berlin, Paris, Montreal, and Bucharest. Agatha’s Almanac is her most ambitious work to date; an extended meditation on memory, ecology, and the power of one woman’s quiet conviction.

Lightdox is a Swiss and French-based international sales and distribution agency representing powerful documentary storytelling. They are passionate about high-quality author-driven documentaries with a distinctive cinematic language and emotional impact. They treat every film and partnership with a tailored approach, guiding filmmakers through every step, including festival strategy, theatrical and non-theatrical distribution, marketing, and outreach.