Legacy of a Butterfly, a documentary from Calgary’s LHI Productions, has been named an official selection at the Calgary International Film Festival 2026. The film already carries four AMPIA Rosie Award nominations this year, and now it gets a hometown screening in the city where its production company is based.
The documentary follows Dr. Diana Monea and was directed by Monique Barrie, the Calgary businesswoman who built LHI Productions after separate careers in dental hygiene and early childhood education. It had its world premiere in August at the Regina International Film Festival and Awards, supported in part by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, before landing the Calgary festival slot. “What a total surprise, a humbling honour,” Monea wrote after the selection was announced.
A Second LHI Title Heading To A Second Festival
Legacy of a Butterfly is not the only LHI Productions title on a festival circuit this year. Not In My City: The Paul Brandt Story, Barrie’s documentary made with the Calgary musician about his work fighting human trafficking and sexual exploitation, was named an official selection at the Edmonton International Film Festival earlier this month. That film carries five AMPIA Rosie nominations of its own, bringing the studio’s combined total across both documentaries to nine.
Two official festival selections and nine nominations in the same year is a significant run for a company with no studio deal behind it. LHI Productions works with a small crew, and Barrie has said the point was never to chase a formula, only to get real Alberta stories in front of an audience willing to watch them.
Two Calgary Stories, Two Different Audiences
The two documentaries make an unusual pair for a single studio’s slate in one year. One follows a country musician’s advocacy work across Canadian communities. The other follows a optometrists personal story through Monea’s own words. Both were built and financed out of Calgary, and both are now getting festival screens named after two different Alberta cities.
Which of Calgary’s homegrown documentaries deserves a spot on your festival watch list this year?
