Although she’s made only two feature films to date, it seems safe to say that Alison Murray is preoccupied with lives lived on the margins. The Nova Scotia–born filmmaker, whose 2005 feature Mouth to Mouth featured a pre-stardom Ellen Page as a runaway who hooks up with an activist group/cult — a story that the director has described as being loosely rooted in autobiography — is being feted with a mini-retrospective at the Royal Cinema.

With its twitchy performances and restless Super-16 cinematography, Mouth to Mouth (HHH; May 14, 7pm) feels a bit laboured — a case of studied immediacy. But if the script’s insights into will-sapping groupthink tactics are somewhat less than white-hot, the integration of evocatively choreographed full-cast dance sequences into the action suggests a genuinely adventurous artistic sensibility.

One would expect nothing less from a woman who decided to cross North America hobo-style. Murray documented her journey in Train on the Brain (HHH; May 13, 7pm), a rough-hewn travelogue (co-produced by Channel 4 and TVOntario) suffused with palpable affection for the various rail-riders encountered. (It would make a good companion piece to Bill Daniel’s lovely freight-train blues number Who is Bozo Texino?)

Murray’s new documentary Carny (HHH; May 13 and May 15, 7pm) just showed at Hot Docs, and it’s similarly generous towards its subjects: fairground workers relating the tricks of their nomadic trade. It’s always fascinating to go behind the scenes, but what resonates about Carny is its sense of candidness: this patient, gorgeously photographed film takes a clear-eyed look at a much-mythologized way of life without ever losing sight of its inherent romance.

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