Tag Archives: Jennifer Podemski

Don't Even

Production underway on new Crave & APTN Indigenous-led original comedy series, Don’t Even

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From a media release:

Crave and APTN, in association with Pier 21 Films, Frantic Films Manitoba, and Sekowan Media, announced today that production is underway in Winnipeg on the all-new dramatic comedy series, DON’T EVEN. Created by Amber-Sekowan Daniels, directed by Zoe Hopkins, and starring Leenah Robinson (1923), Victoria Turko (Burden of Truth), Joel Oulette (Trickster), Gail Maurice, and Jennifer Podemski, the six-part series is an urban Indigenous, coming-of-age story.

DON’T EVEN follows two best friends in late ‘90s Winnipeg as they grapple with their uncertain futures, in the summer after their final high school year. After humiliation at her high school grad, Violet (Leenah Robinson) wants to make the most of the last summer before moving away for university, as Harley (Victoria Turko) distracts herself from a big dilemma, of what’s next. As the lifelong BFFs bask in newfound freedom, and face adult life choices, cracks begin to form in their once impenetrable bond. It’s awkward. It’s dramatic. It’s friggin’ Winnipeg.

“The show is a love letter to your childhood best friend, and your hometown. It’s about growing up and growing apart, while trying to find your place in the world,” said Amber-Sekowan Daniels, Creator and Showrunner. “We don’t often get to see Indigenous women as funny, weird, and distinct, so I hope this series shows that complexity.”

“Making DON’T EVEN has me in stitches, and I’ve cried in rehearsals,” added Director Zoe Hopkins.” I’m so stoked to be back in Winnipeg telling this nostalgic story, where laughter is medicine.”

“Amber has created a series with unpredictable comedy, and a huge surplus of heart. It will resonate with audiences because it gives all the feels,” said Nicole Butler, Executive Producer, Pier 21 Films. “We’re fortunate to have both Crave and APTN as partners sharing a vision in striving to make an incredibly original, and iconic new show.”

“We are thrilled to be co-producing this series with Pier 21 and Sekowan Media,” said Frantic CEO & Executive Producer Jamie Brown. “As a Winnipeg based company, Amber’s stories have a special resonance, and we love her voice and the authenticity of her storytelling.”

DON’T EVEN is co-produced by Pier 21 Films, Frantic Films Manitoba, and Sekowan Media, in association with Bell Media’s Crave and APTN, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, Manitoba Film & Music, and tax credit assistance from the Government of Manitoba, the Government of Ontario, and The Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. Amber-Sekowan Daniels is Executive Producer, Creator, and Showrunner. Zoe Hopkins is Executive Producer and Director for the series. Laszlo Barna, Nicole Butler, Karen Tsang, and Vanessa Steinmetz serve as Executive Producers for Pier 21 Films. For Frantic Films Manitoba, Jamie Brown and Stephanie Fast are Executive Producers. Lori Lozinski is Series Producer. Karen Hill is Co-Executive Producer and Meg MacKay is Co-Producer.

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Awards

Banff World Media Festival unveils 2023 Rockies Gala recipients

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From a media release:

The Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) is proud to announce this year’s exciting lineup of the Rockies Gala recipients. The intimate and glitzy in-person awards show will take place at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada on Tuesday, June 13th at 6:30pm MT.

Hosting the Festival’s flagship honours is actor, singer, musician and comedian Craig Robinson. Executive Producer and star of Peacock’s Killing It, Robinson is best known for his portrayal of ‘Darryl Philbin’ in The Office and has starred in films including Knocked Up, This is the End, Hot Tub Time Machine, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, Morris from America, Tragedy Girls, Dolemite is my Name!, Timmy Failure, Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon, Songbird, and The Bad Guys. He also starred in his own sitcom, Mr. Robinson, as well as Ghosted and hosted The Masked Dancer. Headlining venues and festivals across the country, Robinson does both solo acts and full sets with his band, “The Nasty Delicious.”

Rockies Gala Awards to be bestowed include:

INCLUSION AWARD: Garcelle Beauvais (The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills)
Presented by A+E Networks, the Inclusion Award recognizes an individual whose efforts and vision in media champion and reflect the diversity of the world in which we live.
Past honourees include: Danielle Brooks, LeVar Burton, Jonathan Murray, Elizabeth Vargas and Vivica A. Fox.

CAREER ACHIEVEMENT: Alanis Obomsawin (Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, Rocks at Whiskey Trench, The People of the Kattawapiskak River)
The Career Achievement award recognizes the extraordinary career of someone that has had a significant impact on the screen-based industries.
Past honourees include: Dan Rather, Christine Baranski, Larry King, Ed Asner, William Shatner, James Burrows and David Attenborough.

IMPACT AWARD: Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, World of Wonder
Presented by The Hollywood Reporter, this award is bestowed annually to an individual or group that has made a significant and impactful contribution to screen-based entertainment.
Past honourees include: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, David Shore, accepting on behalf of The Good Doctor; Anthony Anderson, accepting on behalf of black-ish; Justin Simien accepting on behalf of Dear White People, and Bela Bajaria.

INNOVATIVE PRODUCER AWARD: Sphere Media
Presented by Lionsgate, the Innovative Producer Award recognizes the entrepreneurial excellence and achievements of an independent producer in TV/digital media.
Past honourees include: Sinking Ship Entertainment, Wattpad Studios, Scott Brothers Entertainment, New Metric Media, Wolf + Rabbit, Don Carmody, marblemedia and Eagle Vision.

AWARD OF EXCELLENCE: Sharon Horgan (Bad Sisters, Catastrophe)
Presented by Variety, The Award of Excellence acknowledges exceptional achievement through a body of work over an extended period of time.
Past honourees include: Paul Feig, Jeremy Podeswa, Kenny Ortega, Eugene Levy, Carol Mendelsohn and David E. Kelley.

Separately, the coveted CREATIVE VOICE AWARD which is bestowed on an executive or creative talent that has created outstanding work that breaks through, inspiring and connecting global audiences will be presented virtually to Jennifer Podemski (Future History, Little Bird, Empire of Dirt, above) on Sunday June 11th as part of this year’s prestigious Indigenous Screen Summit, which honours and celebrates the talents and contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis storytellers and creators within the screen industries.

Additional awards to be presented at the Rockies Gala ceremony in person on Tuesday June 13th include:

SIR PETER USTINOV COMEDY AWARD: The award recognizes a creative talent who has made an outstanding comedic contribution to the media industry.
Past honourees include: Kenan Thompson, Sean Hayes, John Cleese, Tracey Ullman, Bob Newhart, Tantoo Cardinal, John Candy, Bill Hader and Ana Gasteyer.

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: The Program of the Year award is presented to an outstanding, acclaimed, ground-breaking, and/or highly rated program from within the last calendar year that not only has earned critical and audience success, but which also is provocative and has made an impact beyond the entertainment industry.
Past recipients include: It’s a Sin, This is Us, Handmaid’s Tale, Making a Murderer and Surviving R. Kelly.

GRAND JURY PRIZE: The Grand Jury Prize is chosen by the esteemed Rockie Awards International Program Competition Grand Jury, including: Mo Abudu (CEO, EbonyLife Media), Alice Dickens-Koblin (SVP, Head of Unscripted Programming, Starz), Peter Gal (Chief Creative Officer, Television, DreamWorks Animation), Cynthia Kennedy (VP, Distribution, Incendo & Quebecor Content), Mark Linsey (Managing Director, Scripted, BBC Studios), Jacqueline Sacerio (EVP, Co-Head of Scripted Development, eOne), Beatrice Springborn (President, UCP & Universal International Studios). The Grand Jury’s deliberations focus on the highest scoring projects as scored by the global jury, comprising more than 150 senior industry professionals. Past recipients of the Grand Jury Prize include: I May Destroy You, Fleabag, Big Little Lies, Planet Earth II, Sharp Objects and Help.

In addition, the Rockie Awards International Program Competition, featuring 141 nominees from 29 countries across 27 categories, will take place the evening before the Rockies Gala on Monday June 12th at 5:30pm MT. This year’s competition will be co-hosted by Crystle Lightning and MC RedCloud.

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Little Bird

From Jennifer Podemski, Hannah Moscovitch, and Jeremy Podeswa, the Crave and APTN original drama series, Little Bird, premieres May 26

From a media release:

Crave and APTN premiere their much-anticipated original limited series, LITTLE BIRD, Friday, May 26, which follows an inspirational journey of self-discovery and truth. From Crave, APTN, Rezolution Pictures,OP Little Bird, and in partnership with global producer and distributor Fremantle, the six-part, one-hour limited series explores universal themes of resilience in the face of trauma and loss. It follows Bezhig Little Bird (Darla Contois) as she embarks on a path to find her birth family and uncover the hidden truth of her family history. The series streams on Friday, May 26 on Crave and APTN lumi, in English and French, with subsequent episodes dropping Fridays.

Removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan, Bezhig Little Bird is adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at age five, becoming Esther Rosenblum. Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them. Her search lands her in the Canadian Prairies, worlds apart from everything she knows. As she begins to track down her siblings, she unravels the mystery behind her adoption and discovers that her apprehension was connected to a racist government policy, now known as the Sixties Scoop. Bezhig’s sense of identity shatters, and she is forced to reckon with who she is and who she wants to become.

Led by Contois, the character-driven drama features a talented cast of Indigenous actors, including: Ellyn Jade; Osawa Muskwa; Joshua Odjick; Imajyn Cardinal; Braeden Clarke; Eric Schweig; and Michelle Thrush. Rounding out the cast is Lisa Edelstein (HOUSE) who plays Esther’s adoptive mother, Golda Rosenblum.

The recent winner of the Audience Award Prize at the 2023 SERIES MANIA Festival in Lille, France, LITTLE BIRD was filmed in and around Winnipeg and Brokenhead Ojibway Nation on Treaty 1 territory, in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation on Treaty 2 territory, and in Muscowpetung First Nation on Treaty 4 territory. LITTLE BIRD showrunner Jennifer Podemski was also recently presented with an Academy Board Of Directors’ Tribute Award at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards.

Alongside the final episode on June 30, Crave and APTN lumi are making available COMING HOME, a 90-minute companion documentary providing historical context, about the Sixties Scoop. Directed by Erica Daniels (Run as One), COMING HOME explores the connections between the ground-breaking movement for Indigenous narrative sovereignty and the impact of the child welfare system as experienced through the LITTLE BIRD series’ Indigenous creatives, crew, and Sixties Scoop advisors. COMING HOME provides a structuring through-line, interwoven with interviews with cast, crew, and community members revealing personal connections to the Sixties Scoop.

LITTLE BIRD is a co-production from Crave and APTN, produced by Rezolution Pictures and OP Little Bird with the participation of the Canada Media Fund (CMF), Manitoba Film and Music, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, the Bell Fund, and the COGECO Independent Production Fund. Additional training funding is provided by Bell Media, the Indigenous Screen Office, REEL Canada and the Director’s Guild of Canada (DGC). Fremantle is distributing the series globally.

Led by an Indigenous creative team, LITTLE BIRD is developed by showrunner Jennifer Podemski and Rezolution Pictures, and created by Podemski and head writer Hannah Moscovitch. The creative team includes directors Zoe Hopkins and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and was written by Hopkins and Moscovitch. The series is executive produced by Christina Fon, Ernest Webb, Catherine Bainbridge, Linda Ludwick (Rezolution Pictures), Kim Todd, Nicholas Hirst (Original Pictures), Jennifer Podemski, Hannah Moscovitch, Zoe Hopkins, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Jeremy Podeswa, along with Christian Vesper and Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle). Producers are Tanya Brunel and Jessica Dunn (OP Little Bird), Claire MacKinnon and Philippe Chabot (Rezolution Pictures) and Lori Lozinski and Ellen Rutter.

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Industry News, Little Bird

Principal photography begins on the Crave original series, Little Bird

From a media release:

Crave announced today, in association with Rezolution Pictures, APTN, and OP Little Bird, that production is underway on the Crave Original drama series, LITTLE BIRD. Created by showrunner Jennifer Podemski (UNSETTLED) and head writer Hannah Moscovitch (X COMPANY), the six-part, one-hour limited series follows an Indigenous woman on a journey to find her birth family, and uncover the hidden truth of her past. The series will be available to audiences in English and French, and Fremantle will handle international distribution.

The character-driven drama features an extraordinary cast of Indigenous actors, led by newcomer Darla Contois (Dhaliwal ’15) along with: Ellyn Jade (LETTERKENNY); Osawa Muskwa (World Ends at Camp Z); Joshua Odjick (The Swarm); Imajyn Cardinal (TRIBAL); Mathew Strongeagle (BLACKSTONE); Eric Schweig (BLACKSTONE); and Michelle Thrush (Bones of Crows).

Award-winning filmmakers Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers (The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open) and Zoe Hopkins (Run Woman Run) each direct three episodes, while Hopkins writes three of the episodes.

LITTLE BIRD explores themes of resilience in the face of trauma and loss. Removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan, Bezhig Little Bird is adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at the age of five, becoming Esther Rosenblum (Contois). Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them. Her quest lands her in the Canadian prairies, worlds apart from everything she knows. As she begins to track down her siblings, she unravels the mystery behind her adoption, and discovers that her apprehension was connected to a racist government policy now known as the Sixties Scoop. Bezhig’s sense of identity shatters and she is forced to reckon with who she is and who she wants to become.

The production of LITTLE BIRD features a training program that includes opportunities for emerging and mid-career level Indigenous creators and crew as well as for entry-level individuals to gain practical on-set experience leading to subsequent employment in the industry. Built with the understanding that training, skill building, and professional development are integral to building capacity and sustainability in the Indigenous screen sector, the program, is made possible via partnerships with the Indigenous Screen Office, Bell Media, REEL Canada, DGC, DGC Manitoba, and IATSE 856.

LITTLE BIRD is a co-production from Bell Media’s Crave and APTN, produced by Rezolution Pictures and OP Little Bird with the participation of the Canada Media Fund (CMF) and Manitoba Film and Music. Fremantle International is the distributor for the series. Led by an Indigenous creative team, LITTLE BIRD is developed by showrunner Jennifer Podemski and Rezolution Pictures, and created by Podemski and head writer Hannah Moscovitch. The series is executive produced by Ernest Webb, Catherine Bainbridge, Christina Fon, Linda Ludwick (Rezolution Pictures), Kim Todd, Nicholas Hirst (Original Pictures), Jeremy Podeswa, Jennifer Podemski, and Hannah Moscovitch, along with Christian Vesper and Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle). Producers are Tanya Brunel and Jessica Dunn (OP Little Bird), Philippe Chabot (Rezolution Pictures) and Ellen Rutter.

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Featured, Unsettled

An Indigenous woman returns to her birth family in APTN’s Unsettled

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There have been many, many television series using the fish out of water scenario as a key part of its storytelling. And APTN’s Unsettled does it in a very effective way.

Airing Fridays at 8 p.m. Eastern on APTN, Unsettled follows the journey of Rayna Keetch (Cheri Maracle). A victim of the Sixties Scoop—the mass removal of Indigenous children from their families into the child welfare system—Rayna returns to her First Nation for a traditional homecoming ceremony when life throws her a curveball. Her husband, Darryl (Brandon Oakes), loses his business, car and their Toronto home. The result? A short visit turns into something more long-term for Rayna, Darryl and kids Stacia (Michaella Shannon) and Myles (Joshua Odjick).

Created, written and directed by Jennifer Podemski and Derek Diorio (Hard Rock Medical), Unsettled has been in the back of Podemski’s mind for years.

“I built this narrative around this family,” Podemski says. “Really using a lot of my own experiences and my desire to interweave and focus it with an authentic Indigenous lens.” Themes include child welfare, the aforementioned Sixties Scoop, residential schools, loss of identity and substance abuse and Podemski had a circle of advisors on-hand to make sure she got the facts correct.

A truly unique way of framing the story is through Henry (Albert Owl), Rayna’s father and the local radio DJ. Viewers listen to Henry speaking to his audience in Ojibwe, recalling the past while fuzzy, home movie-like visuals roll. It’s very well done.

“These stories are effective because they’re so rarely told,” Podemski says. “My goal was to weave these storylines, but not be an issue-driven show, be a character-driven show that weaves characters that are directly connected to these issues.”

Unsettled airs Fridays at 8 p.m. Eastern on APTN.

Images courtesy of APTN.

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