Bleeding Hearts brings Zella Day and Jesse Woods love story to Toronto

Love, music and a half-finished bathroom come to Toronto this week.

Bleeding Hearts, a documentary centred on singer-songwriters Zella Day and Jesse Woods, has its world premiere on Thursday, Sept. 17 at Scotiabank Theatre during the Toronto Film Festival, Deadline reported.

The film follows Day and Woods as they balance a romantic relationship and a working one. The pair are partners in music and in life, and perform together in the country band Chaparelle.

Day, Woods and director Andrew Morgan spoke about the project at Deadline’s TIFF Studio ahead of the premiere. Morgan said he found the band after a friend sent him a demo of an unreleased song called ‘Bleeding Hearts’.

That song gave the film its title. It also set the story in motion.

Much of the documentary stays close to home. It tracks a months-long bathroom remodel at the couple’s rural Texas house, alongside sessions, shows and conversations about how to keep the band and the relationship on track.

The Toronto listing describes the project as a real-life love story about the two musicians teaming up to create the alt-country band Chaparelle, TIFF notes.

What makes this stand out is scale. This is not a tour film built around arenas. It is a small story about two people trying to build something together.

For buyers, this means a fresh festival title. CAA and BD4 Studios are acting as sales agents, the companies that sell a film to distributors, Deadline reported.

Bleeding Hearts was announced as part of the 2026 TIFF Docs line-up, listed as a USA production, Deadline reported. The 2026 Toronto International Film Festival runs Sept. 10–20, 2026.