Nova Scotia Retro Film Festo!
Screening times:
Friday, January 30, 6:30 PM - lead actor Steven Yaffee attending via videolink!
Michael Melski | Canada | 2008 | 99m
This film is screening as part of the 2nd Nova Scotia Retro Film Festo, happening January 29 - February 2, 2026!
Michael Melski (1969-2025) was a Cape Breton-born award-winning writer, director and producer of feature films, as well as a published playwright. Melski studied at the University of King’s College in Halifax in the late 1980s, where he acted and wrote plays. After graduating, he formed a theatre co-op to produce plays in the early 1990s, and his own plays such as Hockey Mum, Hockey Dad were featured on stages across Canada.
Along with Growing Op Melski’s filmography as director also included The Child Remains, Charlie Zone and the documentaries Perfume War and Rare Bird Alert. He also served as an artist-in-residence at the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., Halifax’s Neptune Theatre and Dartmouth’s Eastern Front Theatre, where his play Creepy and Little Manson debuted in 2016. In addition to his other achievements in film, television and theatre, Melski received the Halifax Mayor’s Award for Achievement in Theatre in 2006.
Steven Yaffee has been a working actor based out of Toronto for the past 22 years. He was the feature film lead Growing Op, directed by Michael Melski. Most recently he recurred on the CBS hit show, Ghosts, along with a supporting lead role on Lifetime’s Finding My Daughter’s Abductor. He can be seen on Apple TV’s Ghostwriter, playing the iconic character Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Steven will attend the 6:30 PM screening of Growing Op for a post-film Q&A!
Growing Op is a provocative dramatic comedy about a teenage boy coming of age in a suburban grow-operation, where every day is either paradise or fresh hell. But it's always a trip. Sheltered all his life and home-schooled by loving parents who are also committed neo-hippie criminals, Quinn Dawson is a lonely kid who yearns to experience the normalcy of the suburban world around him. When his new neighbor Crystal turns out to be the blonde girl of the his dreams, Quinn is motivated to rebel against his parents and attend high-school for the first time.
Winner: Best Art Direction - Atlantic International Film Festival, 2008
Winner: Best of Show - Accolade Competition, 2009
Tickets $12.65 ($12 cash at the door if available)
