From Paul Tassi of Forbes:
Link: Don’t miss Netflix’s best horror show you’ve probably never heard of
Slasher is a Canadian series that was picked up and branded as a Netflix original, but it has gotten little promotion for the three seasons that exist right now. What I was surprised to see was how good this series is, which was flying so under the radar I had missed it for years, even as a big horror fan. Continue reading.
From a media release:
Rezolution Pictures is very proud to announce that APTN has greenlit the second season of GESPE’GEWA’GI: The Last Land for a 10-part, half-hour episode series. Pre-production is scheduled to begin in August and shooting commences in Fall 2021, continuing into Summer 2022 in the Mi’gmaq communities of Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
GESPE’GEWA’GI: The Last Land, Season 2, is a documentary series about the Indigenous men and women of Mi’gmagi who work for Indigenous-run commercial fisheries Following larger-than-life characters, we experience the fun and excitement of their lives on and off the water. We also get an inside perspective on how First Nations commercial fishing industries — that were born out of violence and defiance — grew to be a key economic and cultural support for the communities.
The subject is quite topical as two events have been in the news in the last year: The conflicts between Nova Scotia’s Mi’kmaq and non-Indigenous commercial fishers and the British Columbia Court of Appeal’s upholding of parts of a lower court ruling that Canada’s regulation and management of regular commercial fisheries unjustifiably infringed on the First Nations fishers’ rights to harvest and sell fish.
The first season of the documentary series about the Mi’gmaq fishers of Listuguj, Que., who make their living on the nearby waters harvesting salmon, crab, lobster and shrimp, was first broadcast in Winter 2021 and the entire season is re-running on APTN now as well as on APTN lumi.
Featuring some of the larger-than-life characters from Season One and introducing some new brave, funny, and robust fishers, biologists, Elders and community members, Season Two will be anchored in Listuguj but also travel to other Indigenous fisheries in Mi’kmaq territory, such as Gesgapegiag, Que., Eel River Bar, N.B., and Sipekne’katik, N.S. It will continue to showcase life on the water, the science and conservation efforts being put forward, and the history, culture, and community of the Mi’gmagi.
GESPE’GEWA’GI: The Last Land is co-executive produced by Ernest Webb (Cree) and Greg Lawrence, produced by Lisa M. Roth. Season 2 combines the directing talent of Ernest Webb, Greg Lawrence, and Courtney Montour (Mohawk). In season 2, Heather Condo (Mi’gmaq) returns as Director Trainee and April Maloney (Mi’kmaq) comes on board as director of photography trainee, with the support of the ISO-Netflix Indigenous Production Apprenticeship Program.
There’s a certain amount of scrutiny that comes with making the jump from one landmark TV show to another. For Tim Rozon, you can’t help but wonder if that scrutiny was even more intense.
After all, the Montreal native most recently starred on Schitt’s Creek, Vagrant Queen and a little show you may have heard of called Wynonna Earp. I’m happy to say that he’s hit a home run with SurrealEstate.
Airing Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV Sci-Fi Channel, George Olson’s creation is a perfect vehicle for Rozon, an opportunity to stay in the genre space while playing a very different character. His Luke Roman runs The Roman Agency, a real estate company whose team helps sell homes that are haunted and therefore tend to stay on the market. Along for the ride are co-stars Sarah Levy, Adam Korson, Maurice Dean Wint, Savannah Basley and Tennille Read.
We spoke to Tim Rozon about SurrealEstate, which films in St. John’s, haunted houses and his co-stars.
Was this a career path that you expected, that you’d follow one show with demons on it to a show with other demons on it?
Tim Rozon: In a way, yes, because I remember the moment I had this conversation with my wife and I said, ‘My dream is to be on a show that goes to Comic-Con, like one of these supernatural shows, I would just love that. And fast forward a year later, there we were, Wynonna Earp, at San Diego Comic-Con, and since then I’ve got to be on Vagrant Queen, and now SurrealEstate, so surreal is the feeling.
Had you considered at any point maybe taking a break after being on several seasons of Wynonna, or was the thinking the opposite, ‘I got to strike while the iron is hot’?
TR: A hundred percent. At the end of the day, we’re actors, actors want work. To be honest, I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been. It’s pretty difficult, I’ll tell you, there’s so much competition and so many great actors, and I feel very fortunate and I don’t take it for granted, that’s for sure. And then, especially on great shows that you really want to be a part of, I’m very fortunate in that sense, I’ve got to work a lot, but I’ve also got to work on shows that I really loved being on, and that’s from Instant Star to Schitt’s Creek, Wynonna Earp, Vagrant Queen, right into SurrealEstate, so I’ve been very fortunate.
I really like the humour George has established in the world of SurrealEstate.
TR: Yeah, we really lean into it as we start going. I think we really figured out what George’s vision was around Episode 3. We get it right off the bat, but I don’t think we really leaned into it until after, because he’s such a good writer, sometimes it’s so subtle, and at first we just showed up, we don’t know… You don’t know what show we’re making right off the bat. How do you not lean into the humour when you have someone like Sarah Levy there?
You couldn’t have picked a better location for your next project. Had you been to St. John’s before? What was it like shooting there?
TR: It was incredible. I’m lucky that I had been there before, when I was much younger, filming a movie called Screamers: The Hunting, and we filmed that all over St John’s and across the island down in the mines on Bell Island. So I was all over, and also I was Screeched In at that time, which is great because I don’t think I could have handled it now. Before we started [filming SurrealEstate], I was in no way a believer in ghosts at all. After filming in St. John’s, so many guest stars experienced something with ghosts at the hotel that production had them staying at. It was this old Victorian house where they brought in all the guest stars, and they would do their quarantine there and start filming.
But, supposedly, this house was haunted, and the crew and everybody are just like, ‘Yeah, all Newfoundland… all things are haunted, we all know that. I’ve got a ghost in my house. I got a ghost over here. My mom’s house has a ghost.’ It’s like the norm.
And I’m a non-believer, but after hearing the experience of so many guest stars, Sarah and I are like, ‘I don’t know, there’s got to be something, I don’t think anybody’s lying to us.’ Some guest stars actually left that house, they wouldn’t stay there. They had negative experiences with ghosts, and some of the people that I talked to had said they had had experiences before, and other people were kind of like me, it was their first experience. Now, saying all that, I didn’t have an experience while I was in there for mine. I personally didn’t, but it’s tough to call everybody a liar.
You already mentioned Sarah, and the great cast for this show. I haven’t seen Adam Korson in a while, so it was great to see him onscreen. Maurice Dean Wint, a legend in Canadian television and in film. Talk a little bit about this cast of characters that you got to play with.
TR: Yeah, I’m so happy you brought it up, because this truly is an ensemble piece, and the magic of the show is that group. Each episode we go into a new house, which means we get into a new ghost, which is super fun, but it’s the relationships between that group of people and how they deal with it that I think is the real magic of the show. Starting with Sarah Levy, I found out she was cast right away, and that was it, then I knew, ‘OK, I need to do this project because, A) she’s a great actor and B) she’s a great person.’ So I just couldn’t wait to work with her again. You just knew, both of us were like, ‘OK, this is going to be so good and chill.’
And so, you got to spend five months together, you want it to be with someone you really like. And then, as far as everybody else, I literally asked George and [director and executive producer] Danishka [Esterhazy] after, ‘How did you manage to do this?’ Because this was during COVID, and we didn’t have screen tests and chemistry tests. We didn’t get to meet because of COVID, there were no read-throughs or anything, so we met on set and our first scene was in the big room, the Roman Agency with everybody meeting Susan for the first time, and right there and then it felt like magic. It really did it, just immediately you could sense everybody’s character, and we all could connect and figure each other out, and it was great.
And then, for 10 episodes, we got to create that bond and chemistry. I can’t say enough about the cast, as people and actors.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t talk about a couple of guest stars, Art Hindle and Jennifer Dale, playing Luke’s parents.
TR: Yeah, they knew each other, which was great, and I knew Art because I used to watch his show, E.N.G., when I was a kid. I knew that show, trust me, I only had two channels, we didn’t miss E.N.G., that was on in my house. So I knew exactly who he was, he was great. And Jennifer… I won’t get into too much, because of what I’m allowed to say or not say, but of course I knew who that was too, so incredible. And they obviously know each other, which was very nice.
Surreal Estate airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV Sci-Fi Channel.
Images courtesy of Bell Media.
From a media release:
CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, and global content leader Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF.A, LGF.B) are partnering with “Schitt’s Creek†Emmy® and Golden Globe® winning producer Andrew Barnsley and comedian-actor-writer Mark Critch to bring “SON OF A CRITCH†(13×30) to audiences in Canada, the U.S. and around the world. Created by Critch and Tim McAuliffe (“The Office,†“Last Man on Earth,†and the upcoming “MacGruber†series) and based on Critch’s award-winning, best-selling memoir Son of a Critch: A Childish Newfoundland Memoir, the CBC original series will premiere on CBC TV and CBC Gem in Canada in January 2022, with Lionsgate handling U.S. and international distribution rights.
“Son of a Critch†is the hilarious and very real story of 11-year-old Mark coming of age in St. John’s, Newfoundland in the 80’s. It’s a heartfelt window into the life of a child – much older inside than his 11 years – using comedy and self-deprecation to win friends and connect with the small collection of people in his limited world. With production starting today in St. John’s, Newfoundland, the comedy stars Mark Critch as his father and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (Pinocchio) as young Mark. Ainsworth can currently be seen as one of the leads in the limited series “The Haunting of Bly Manor†for director Mike Flanagan on Netflix, and stars as Pinocchio opposite Tom Hanks in Walt Disney Pictures’ upcoming live action remake of Pinocchio for director Robert Zemeckis. Additionally, Claire Rankin (Molly’s Game) has been cast as Mark’s mother, Mary, alongside newcomers Sophia Powers and Mark Rivera, who are cast as classmates of young Mark. Golden Globe nominee Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) to star as Pop.
The project is a very personal one for both Critch and McAuliffe, as the two have been friends dating back to working on “This Hour has 22 Minutes†together.
A CBC original series, “Son of a Critch†is an inter-provincial co-production between Barnsley’s Project 10 Productions Inc. and Newfoundland-based Take the Shot Productions in association with CBC and Lionsgate Television, and executive produced by Critch, McAuliffe, Barnsley, Ben Murray and Allan Hawco. Renuka Jeyapalan and Anita Kapila serve as co-executive producers with Jeyapalan directing the first four episodes of the series.
From a media release:
Rezolution Pictures announced today that NBC’s Peacock streaming service has picked up all 5 seasons of the critically acclaimed, award-winning and much-loved TV series Mohawk Girls. All 5 seasons began airing on July 12, 2021.
Mohawk Girls takes a comedic look at the lives of four modern-day women trying to stay true to their roots while navigating sex, work, love and what it means to be Mohawk in the 21st century. The half-hour dramedy follows these twenty-something women as they begin to forge their own identity within a community embedded with rules and cultural traditions.
The cast includes Jenny Pudavick (Bailey), Brittany LeBorgne (Zoe), Heather White (Caitlin), and Maika Harper (Anna) and Canadian film & TV veterans Tantoo Cardinal as Zoe’s mother and Glen Gould as Bailey’s father.
The show’s launch in the US joins a wave of Native American programming that brings modern Indigenous stories into the mainstream TV landscape, including Rutherford Falls, co-created by Ed Helms, Sierra Teller Ornelas and Michael Schur, also streaming on Peacock; and Reservation Dogs, created by Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi.
Mohawk Girls was created and executive produced by Tracey Deer and Cynthia Knight. Directed by Tracey Deer and Cynthia Knight was the head writer. Produced by Rezolution Pictures’ Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon and Linda Ludwick, and executive produced by Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick and Ernest Webb.
“We’re delighted that Peacock has picked up Mohawk Girls and millions of American viewers will now have access to this fun, bold show that’s more timely than ever and that will entertain while also shedding light on an Indigenous world not often represented on American TV.†– Cynthia Knight, Series Co-Creator/Executive Producer/Head Writer; Tracey Deer, Series Co-Creator/Executive Producer/Director
About Rezolution Pictures
Rezolution Pictures is an award-winning production company led by Ernest Webb and Catherine Bainbridge (co-founders and executive producers), Christina Fon (Vice-President and executive producer), and Linda Ludwick (CFO and executive producer). Rezolution is best known for its original and trailblazing productions, including feature documentaries such as the Emmy-nominated RUMBLE: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which screened worldwide and won multiple awards at Sundance, Hot Docs, and the Canadian Screen Awards, among others; and Reel Injun, which won multiple Geminis, and a Peabody Award. Rezolution also made its mark in scripted television with Canadian Screen Award-nominated comedy series, Mohawk Girls, which aired for five seasons on APTN, was recently broadcast as part of Air Canada’s in-flight entertainment and streams on CBC’s GEM platform. From ground-breaking documentaries to innovative scripted series, Rezolution has helped shape Canada’s film and television industry for the past two decades, working with many of the country’s best new and established talents to create unique content, as well as video game and Virtual Reality content through its sister company Minority Media. An effective mix of production, creative, and executive experience has positioned Rezolution for global success as it turns its focus to developing and producing premium content with international partners.
