DON'T COME UPSTAIRS (2026)
Don’t Come Upstairs follows filmmaker Mike Lobel as a family secret pulls him from a true-crime investigation into a reckoning with silence, generational trauma, and what we risk passing on as parents.
World Premiere - Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival - March 7, 2026
EVENTS
BIO
Mike Lobel is a Canadian filmmaker whose work explores family, memory, and the quiet forces that shape who we become.
His career began in front of the camera, most notably as Jay Hogart on MTV’s Degrassi: The Next Generation for seven seasons, and later as DJ in the Family Channel sitcom Really Me. That chapter lasted nearly a decade and taught him a great deal about performance, collaboration, and what it means to grow up publicly.
Over time, Mike shifted behind the camera, building a parallel career as an editor and director. He has edited award-winning short films including Must Kill Karl (Austin Film Festival, HollyShorts) and Frigid (featured on Omeleto), and served as editor on all three seasons of CBC’s Detention Adventure, earning a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Picture Editing (Children’s/Youth).
His feature documentary debut, Don’t Come Upstairs, is a deeply personal investigation into a long-buried family secret and the emotional architecture built around it. Blending memoir, inquiry, and collaboration with his own family, the film marks a decisive turn toward more authorial, introspective storytelling. Work that examines not only what happened, but how we survive what happened.
A Banff Centre for the Arts alumnus in music, Mike has also toured internationally with indie bands he co-founded and continues to compose and produce across mediums. Whether directing, editing, or performing, he is drawn to stories about transformation, vulnerability, and the complicated bonds that hold families together.
He lives and works in Toronto.