The co-owner of a popular Toronto pizzeria has a film premiering at this year’s TIFF

Last August, Anna Hopkins—actor and co-owner of Little Italy’s wildly popular restaurants Danny’s Pizza Tavern and Danny’s Next Door—finally got the chance to sit down. But, this time, it was in the director’s chair. “I’ve been acting for upward of 20 years,” says Hopkins. “And in the last five years I’ve been doing a lot of writing and directing.”

Her short film, Dish Pit, is premiering at TIFF on September 5 as part of the Shortcut 5 program. This marks Hopkins’s third time in the director’s seat and her first at the film festival. “I found out about a month ago that I got in, and I was so shocked,” she says. “I’ve applied to TIFF so many times and been rejected so many times.”

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Loosely inspired by Hopkins’s own experience as an actor, writer and director who has always worked in restaurants to support herself, Dish Pit follows a recovering alcoholic and former chef who trades the chaos of the line for the relative calm of the dishwashing station. The short was filmed inside Danny’s. “I had been writing screenplays and pilots for television, and that process takes so long. I just wanted to get something creative out of my system fast,” says Hopkins. “I knew we had this location and we could shoot after hours through the night and get it done quickly.”

She even worked a bit of restaurant magic into the production. “I swapped out Danny’s actual dishwasher slightly before service ended the first day of our shoot and put in the lead actor, Matthew Gouveia. I taught him how to do everything, so he knew what he was doing when we started shooting.”

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Dish Pit, which runs 14 minutes in length, was shot over three nights, from midnight to 8 a.m., and involves two characters, a dishwasher and an aspiring director slash bartender, who connect over a clandestine late-night meal after the restaurant closes. The role of the bartender is played by Austin Hutchings, Danny’s bartender in real life, who also happens to be a writer and director.

“A lot of people who work in restaurants are also actors or work in the film industry,” says Hopkins. “You always end up serving someone you may want to work for one day. The film has aspects of this in it, but it’s ultimately about the way two people connect.”

Dish Pit will screen twice at TIFF, followed by a Q&A with Hopkins.