The buzz around Butter Bandits—filmmaker Victor Cooper and his company Eighty Twenty Studio’s first feature film—had been building for months ahead of its sold-out premiere in December 2025 at The Empire Theatre. Starring local talent and filmed entirely in and around Belleville, the production is a true community effort, brought to life by a local cast and crew.
Inspired by real-life events across Southern Ontario around 2021, Butter Bandits taps into the pressures of rising food costs and sky-high inflation. As desperation mounts, siblings Daryl, Matt, and Tammy take matters into their own hands in a high-stakes heist.
Cooper and his team felt the support of the community that night in a packed theatre. “My wife and I couldn’t get a seat at the premiere. We had to pull up chairs by the audio booth.” Despite nearly 20 years in film and television, Cooper admits he had pre-show jitters. “When the lights went down and the movie started to play, I got super nervous and I’ve never been nervous to show anything before… It’s a comedy. And you can’t fake liking a comedy. If 700 people in a room don’t laugh it’s really loud. So, I got very nervous, and then the first joke got a laugh, and the second joke got a laugh… After the first three or four laughs I just kind of felt my shoulders sink and I was like, okay, I can enjoy this now.”
The Butter Bandits team is still riding high on the overwhelmingly positive response, with momentum continuing to build. “There’s still a lot of momentum and people are asking, ‘when are you going to do another screening?’”
So what’s next for Cooper and the film? While a wider release is still in the works, Butter Bandits is currently in the hands of a well-known distributor. Cooper can’t share details just yet, but offers a hint: “They’ve distributed hundreds of films and I feel like they could be a really great launch pad for us…”
And what about a sequel? “We’ve met with a lot of the cast and crew to talk about future projects and we’re trying to not put the cart before the horse, but we want to keep that momentum and make sure people know we’re definitely making more. It’s not a one-and-done sort of thing,” says Cooper. “There are a lot of steps between now and turning on Netflix and seeing Butter Bandits, but, hopefully we can get someone to believe in it as much as we do.”
For those who missed the premiere—or want to experience it again—a second screening of Butter Bandits will take place at The Empire Theatre on April 30.
Published in the Spring 2026 issue of Umbrella arts magazine.
Published in the Belleville Intelligencer April 23, 2026
Check out Daryl, Matt, and Tammy!
