As We Enter Our 23rd Year, The Fan Carpet Is Heading To SXSW With Jenna MacMillan’s Feature Directorial Debut THE SNAKE
A dark comedy about arrested development, inherited damage, and survival through self-destruction.
Award-winning producer turned director Jenna MacMillan launches her feature directorial debut THE SNAKE in Competition at SXSW Film Festival 2026.
Written by and starring Susan Kent, this off-beat dark comedy follows Jamie — an unlikely heroine navigating eviction, inheritance drama, a venomous mother, and the kind of chaos only life can deliver.
When an ungovernable 40 something wild child collides with her venomous mother, her life blows up spectacularly leaving her newly evicted, partially single, and in bed with her best friend’s husband.
Stacked with Canadian comedy royalty, THE SNAKE marks the first Prince Edward Island-shot feature to premiere at SXSW.
“SXSW was the festival that inspired me to tell stories like this.” says director and award-winning producer Jenna MacMillan. “We’ve always seen it as the dream festival for THE SNAKE to have its world premiere. To be the first film shot in Prince Edward Island to screen there, and to share my home with SXSW audiences is a real honour.”
Despite her best attempts, Jamie just can’t get it together. THE SNAKE brings us along for a wild ride as Jamie navigates a rocky relationship, a few tussles with her venomous mother, and a recent eviction from her rightful inheritance, her late-Nana’s bright-pink house. THE SNAKE brings a new kind of heroine to the screen in this off-beat, dark comedy. “I started THE SNAKE wanting to write about ungovernable women, bad girls,” says writer and star Susan Kent, “but not the fantasy of the hot crazy demon-in-the-sack girl trope created by dudes. I wanted to make a story of a woman who came out of the rubble of reality, and so Jamie came into focus, inspired by my life, friends's lives and women around me, and became an unlikely hero. I have a deep attraction to people who carry on swinging in the face of shitty circumstances. We've all been scarred and dented up by our childhood, by life, unintentionally damaged by the people around us, and it felt like a privilege to write a woman who makes everything worse in a sort of fiery crash-course self education in how to be your own home.”
We’ll be speaking with Jenna ahead of the film’s World Premiere — stay tuned.
THE SNAKE HAS ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT SXSW AT 10:45 AM CT ON MARCH 13
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