Alison Fairweather Murray

Alison Fairweather Murray is a producer/ writer / director. Born in Nova Scotia, raised in England, Murray lived for many years in Buenos Aires before relocating back to Canada. Murray’s latest feature, ARIEL BACK TO BUENOS AIRES, is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV and on HBOMAX in Central/ Eastern Europe. It is the story of a brother and sister who travel to Argentina, country of their birth, for the first time as adults. There they fall in love with tango and discover some dark family secrets about their family’s emigration. The film garnered a slew of festival prizes including Best International Feature at SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Best Foreign Feature at ARIZONA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Jury Prize at MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, Audience Award at the WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVAL, and played at more than 30 festivals worldwide.

Murray is currently developing the series Cha Cha Cha! with Producer Jennifer Weiss – an energetic half hour dance dramedy in which a repressed gen X, divorcing-in-the-first-episode woman seeks romance through Latin dance. She is also developing the psychological drama series MY LIE based on the book by Meredith Maran. Told across two time lines, MY LIE exposes the impact of Repressed Memory Therapy – considered by many to be “the worst catastrophe to affect the mental health sphere since the lobotomy”. MY LIE taps into the cultural anxieties of the ‘80s while delivering a modern, edge-of-your-seat psychological drama, layered with the moral ambiguity that made Baby Reindeer a phenomenon. Finally, Murray has acquired the rights to PACIFIQUE, a first novel by Sarah Taggart , which she is adapting into a feature screenplay. It’s the story of a love triangle in which one of the participants may not exist, grappling with mental health issues and fantasy.

Murray began directing music videos in the UK in the 1990’s, as well as working on the BBC series DANCE FOR THE CAMERA. Her short films have played in retrospectives at the Tate Gallery London, the Institute for Contemporary Art London, and the Royal Cinema Toronto. Murray has participated in the Berlinale Talent Campus, the Rotterdam Coproduction Market, IFP No Borders and the Ontario Creates International Financing Forum. Her short films have been shown at the Centre Georges Pompidou , Paris, The Tate Gallery, London, and the Royal Cinema, Toronto.

Murray directed two live theatre works, at the Beurs Theatre, Brussels, and Stuc/Klapstuc Brussels. She has also choreographed for the Royal Opera House Garden Venture at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London and contributed the film elements to the theatre work of Marisa Carnesky. She made her first documentary in 2000 with TRAIN ON THE BRAIN (Channel 4/TVO) in which she rode the rails across North America with a group of teenage hobos. She followed up with her first dramatic feature MOUTH TO MOUTH (Best Feature, Brooklyn International Film Festival ). Murray wrote and directed CARNY for the Sundance Channel (Hot Docs, Best Documentary, Brooklyn International Film Festival). She also made the documentary CAPRICHOSOS DE SAN TELMO (TIFF). In 2014 Murray won the Buenos Aires Tango Championship dancing with her husband Carlos Boeri.

View Alison Murray’s director’s reel.

Films

Mouth to Mouth

“Trusting other people will put your
ass in jeopardy every time.”

How Sherry loses her virginity, her illusions and her lip ring in a road trip across Europe. Sherry is searching for a place to belong where she can still be herself. She thinks she has found this in SPARK – Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge. She takes off in SPARK’s camper van as they cross Europe recruiting a membership of the down and out. They arrive at a disused vineyard in Portugal that will be their paradise.Harry, the group’s leader, begins harvesting ripe grapes and ready minds through his own methods of hard work and punishment. The stakes are high within this volatile group. Two deaths ensure the submission of most of the recruits – but not Sherry, or the apparently craziest street person, Mad Ax.

Mad Ax is the least taken in by SPARK’s rhetoric. He is also in love with Sherry. Into this Shangri-la comes Sherry’s mother. Failing to persuade Sherry to leave, she decides that SPARK has more to offer than single parenthood in London. Disillusionment complete, Sherry stands up for what she knows is right, denounces SPARK, and escapes with Mad Ax into the unknown.

Train on the Brain

In what’s been called ‘The definitive train hopping doc’, filmmaker Alison Murray drops out of the rat race, grabs a camera, and hits the rails with some punk kids on a trans-continental freight train hopping adventure. On their odyssey they encounter a cast of hobos and runaways, scallywags and castaways. Amidst run-ins with the law, and surviving the perils of the elements, Alison weaves her narrative film over beautifully shot 8mm film and digital video with an old-time sounding soundtrack by Beck.

Train On The Brain was originally produced for Channel 4 in the UK by Hellhound and MJW Productions.

Watch the full length film here.

CARNY

“An intimate, gritty and poetic adventure following the lives of carnies – traveling fairground workers who have abandoned the security of the “real world” for the refuge and variety of the road. Through the eyes of Hairy, the charismatic lesbian cotton-candy seller, we see a world of unlikely Romeos, easy love and fierce friendships that obscure personal hardship and troubled pasts. Often from an underclass that has few options, the carnies struggle with addiction, loneliness, poverty and shattered dreams, finding solace only in the company of their own, who accept them as they are. Some have worked the fairs for more than 50 years, some were born or escaped into it, but all are gripped by the romance of the bright midway lights, lyrically captured captured by director Alison Murray (Mouth to Mouth) in lush interludes of Kodachrome Super 8.” ~ Gisèle Gordon, Hot Docs)

A collaboration with photographer Virginia Lee Hunter, based on her book – Carny, Americana on the Midway.

Watch the full movie here.

Caprichosos de San Telmo

A portrait of the working class musicians and dancers of Buenos Aires’ San Telmo neighbourhood, who have channeled the city’s many cultural influences into the street performance called murga.

Every year, a taxi driver named Pichi (Hector Roterio) assembles a group of locals to train for the annual parade. At first glance, they don’t look promising. Sergio has clearly led a hard life and has already lost some of his teeth, but turns out to be a surprisingly fluid dancer. Maria Eva tries to hold down an entry-level job, but she comes alive teaching murga moves to the new girls. Under her watchful eye, they practice the murga’s bigbeat rhythms and its accompanying steps. Murga is a remnant of Argentina’s former African communities, but is now practiced by anyone in the neighborhood who can surrender to its pull.

Watch the full length film here.

Ariel: Back to Buenos Aires

2022 1 hour 36 min
Dramatic Feature Canada/Argentina/ Uruguay

Cepa Cine / Hellhound Productions
World Sales House of Film
North American Distributor Level 33

Ariel: Back to Buenos Aires has now picked up several best feature awards, including SAN DIEGO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, ARIZONA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and LATINO FILM MARKET NYC. The movie also won the Jury Prize at the MUMBAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL and Audience Award at WOODS HOLE FILM FESTIVAL, and has played at 20+ festivals worldwide.

Now streaming in the US and Canada. AVAILABLE ON HBOMAX IN CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE.

News

SeriesMakers Line-Up in Variety

Series Mania and Variety Magazine just released loglines for ten projects in development, including Alison’s own dramedy with producer Jennifer Weiss. Read the full story here.

“Chachachá!” (writer-director Alison Fairweather Murray, producer Jennifer Weiss)

Canada, 8×30’, drama-comedy

“When a Gen X woman’s sky-high blood pressure forces her to confront how out of touch with herself she has become, she turns to Latin dancing – not for fun, but for survival – igniting chaos with her family,” the logline runs. Behind the Apple TV, AmazonPrime and HBOMax-streamed “Ariel Back to Buenos Aires” Fairweather Murray teams with Weiss, producer of movies by Sarah Polley (“Away From Her”), Brian de Palma (“Redacted”), Atom Egoyan (Adoration”) and most lately Molly McGlynn (“Fitting In”).

Mouth to Mouth Screening March 19

‘Close your eyes and picture the perfect world’…

Special screening on March 19 in London, UK. To be followed by a Q&A with Writer/Director Alison Fairweather Murray in conversation with Philip Ilson, Artistic Director of London Short Film Festival.

MOUTH TO MOUTH stars a young Elliot Page as Sherry, a teenage contradiction: she wants to be part of a group but doesn’t want to let go of her fierce individualism. Sherry meets the radical street collective SPARK (Street People Armed with Radical Knowledge) and joins their caravan of activists traveling across Europe, recruiting members from disenfranchised youth at raves and town squares. Sherry discovers that the collective’s promise of freedom masks rigid control – this activism preaches emancipation while demanding absolute obedience.

Alison Fairweather Murray creates an intense, gritty look at youth culture, and how idealistic movements can become their own form of tyranny. This is a rare chance to see Elliot Page in a unique role that demonstrates the qualities that put Elliot on the path to stardom. MOUTH TO MOUTH won Best Feature at Brooklyn International Film Festival.

Murray was born in Canada and grew up in the UK. She cut her teeth directing music videos for bands such as Sugarbabes and B*witched. Her films have screened on the BBC, Channel 4, the Sundance Channel, TIFF, and Hot Docs. Her most recent feature film is Ariel : Back to Buenos Aires.

Philip Ilson is Artistic Director of London Short Film Festival and is hugely respected as an international short film programmer.

‘A fierce and passionate little film’ Daily Telegraph

‘A remarkably accomplished piece of work… It builds up a grip which just doesn’t let go.’ Eye for Film

Produced by Anne Beresford and Judy Tossell

M2M Films & Egoli Tossell Film Productions

Executive Producer Atom Egoyan

MOUTH TO MOUTH will be re-released digitally by Samuel Goldwyn Films in Spring 2026

Alison goes to Lille!

The National Directors Division (NDD) of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) has selected Alison Murray as one of eight filmmakers for the NDD’s Market Accelerator delegation that will attend Series Mania in Lille, France this March. Read the full Playback article here. Series Mania runs from March 24-26. All of the filmmakers selected have scripted series projects in advanced stages of development for which they are seeking financing or producing partnerships. Alison attends with the dramedy Chachacha! (6 X 30 minutes Nice Picture Inc.).

Pictured top (L-R): Adrienne Mitchell, Alison Duke, Alison Murray, Craig Wallace. Pictured bottom (L-R): KC Carthew, Alison Reid, Reem Morsi, Titus Heckel

Photos courtesy of DGC

More news

Press

The Hollywood Times

“In the midst of Ariel searching relentlessly for answers of origin, the dance never stops. The film includes the most gorgeous Tango scenes of our time… “

Valerie Milano interviews Alison about Ariel for a recent article in The Hollywood Times.

Read and watch here.

CineVista Blog Article

Fairweather Murray comments: “This film tackles the challenging themes of identity and family secrets, enveloping them with the beauty of Buenos Aires and the sensuality of tango. The story reflects my experiences falling in love with tango. At the heart of this film lies the revelation of truth, both personal and political.”

Read the full article in English and Spanish here.

New reviews from searchmytrash and overlyhonestfilmreviews

“… a strong character piece, all set to pretty captivating tango music and peppered with a lot of dancing ”

Contact

Get in touch with Hellhound Productions here.