Although far from major economic centres, Quebec City and Ottawa have become indispensable to the country’s film and TV production. Why the boom? And how can these animation hotspots overcome the challenges rocking the industry?

“They thought I was nuts,” recalls director/producer Nancy Florence Savard. She’s thinking back to 1998, when she decided to found her production company, 10th Ave Productions, in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, in the suburbs of Quebec City, rather than in a major business centre.

“Although 2D animation was going through a difficult period at that time, I wanted to establish myself in Quebec’s capital region because I’m a local girl. And I thought after every crisis something beautiful always emerges. For me, that was the rise of 3D animated films.”

From The Legend of Sarila (2013) to Lydia and the Mist Rider (2026), 10th Ave Productions and its boutique studio 10th Ave Animation — today located on Quebec City’s historic Grande Allée — have become industry leaders in the creation of completely Canadian feature-length animated films.

Other businesses specializing in animation have also made their mark in the region, on screens big and small. Epic Storyworlds and Loomi Animation released the Guiby the Super Baby series, Du Coup Production and Du Coup Animation worked on the film Hola Frida!, and Happy Camper Media is preparing its first feature film, which will be based on the Super Agent Jon Le Bon! series and should hit theatres in October 2027.

“More than ever, we’re sharing our intellectual property in Quebec,” says Savard, who attributes this “veritable effervescence” to the excellent animation schools established in the Old City, the cooperation between studios, and the city’s financial incentives, like filming permits and production services.

Ottawa Joins Quebec City as an Animation Capital

Ottawa is also home to several well-established television production studios. Big Jump Entertainment (Red Ketchup) and Mercury Filmworks (Hilda) work directly with big North American media groups and distributors like Netflix, Disney+ and CBC. Jam Filled Entertainment, best known for the kids’ series Dino Ranch, has seen a dazzling ascent from its beginnings as a start-up in the attic of a pizzeria to a $10 million studio.

“Several measures are helping the sector grow in the region,” explains Kelly Neall, managing director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF). “In Ontario, subsidized tax credits are offered to projects shot outside of the Greater Toronto Area,” she explains. These credits are complemented by Ontario Creates’ Intellectual Property (IP) Fund, which helps Ontario companies develop, produce and commercialize screen content.

As for animated films, the OIAF — considered the genre’s largest North American festival — acts as a strong showcase for the local ecosystem.

“The event fosters collaboration, helps people expand their networks and develop their skills through workshops,” says Neall, pointing to two former participants, Jessica Borutski and Nick Cross, who have since gained international recognition as animators and directors.

Highs and Lows

Like the rest of the audiovisual industry, the animation sector is undergoing major changes, including in Ottawa.

“We’re a service industry, so we do a lot of work for the U.S., but there’s actually very little incoming work from there,” says Cory Morrison, president of Big Jump Entertainment. “And with fewer broadcasters to pitch IP to, and declining support from Canadian networks, opportunities to develop projects, produce content or secure service and co-production work in Ontario are now very limited. YouTube has become the new television.”

The Ottawa Business Journal reported that the sector’s revenues reached $60 million during the pandemic, but only $28 million in 2025. This drop is now being felt in the job market. “Every day, I probably get a dozen emails from people looking for work,” says Morrison. “Three to four years ago I wouldn’t have received [any] for weeks because everybody was employed. People were being recruited straight out of college.”

In Quebec, the situation is a little different, while still far from perfect. “The decrease in tax credits [from the provincial government in 2024] harmed the industry, especially in Montreal, which does more work for foreign clients,” says Savard. “Here, as we principally produce original projects, rather than do service work, we have more or less the same understanding of what to do with more limited budgets. Let’s say we know how to be creative.”

Looking to the Future

If activity doesn’t pick up significantly in Ottawa and elsewhere in the country, several industry players may have to rethink their business plans.

“We’re entering a moment where independent creators and studios will increasingly build content from scratch, often through platforms like Kickstarter or Patreon,” says Morrison. “The most successful creators will be those who know how to build and engage communities, then turn that attention into sustainable revenue while continuing to offer real value and a sense of shared creation with their audiences.”

Could artificial intelligence be part of the solution?

Big Jump’s Morrison says it could certainly help to automate technical tasks and accelerate workflows. “There has to be an ethical way of moving forward with AI that not only benefits the artist and the creator but benefits the bottom line of production. In a perfect world, instead of having a crew of 200 people for one production, you would have a crew of 200 people for five productions.”

Savard, however, is cautious. “AI could be useful to us, but it shouldn’t compromise copyright. We still want humans telling stories and bringing characters to life.”

The industry will continue to seek a balance between technological innovation and artistic identity, and to evolve without losing its strength — its creative talent.

The post Quebec City and Ottawa: where animation comes to life appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

As podcast consumption increases, online platforms like Netflix and Crave are getting in on the action by streaming video podcasts. The increased production needs of so-called vodcasts puts more financial pressure on indie podcasters who previously relied on low-budget, audio-first sets. But resources like the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program are helping to support podcast creators venturing into video.

It was in the early 2010s that Kattie Laur first got into podcasts.

After growing up with public radio and “being obsessed with the CBC,” Laur studied TV and radio production at Ryerson University, since renamed Toronto Metropolitan University, graduating in 2014. Following stints in radio and TV production, she became a freelance podcast producer in 2018, working on podcasts for publications like BetaKit, which covers Canada’s digital economy.

In 2022, during the pandemic, Laur started the newsletter Pod the North as a community resource for Canadian podcasts. It now has 2,000 subscribers. In 2024, she launched a podcast called Canardian, which invites guests to gossip about their hometowns. A year later, in April 2025, she started posting Canardian video podcasts on YouTube.

Audio Meets Video

Laur says the pandemic acted as a catalyst for the podcast industry and its crossover to a rapidly growing format — video. “All of a sudden remote recording was way easier,” she says. “We had access to these Zoom-style recordings of people. That gave us all this extra footage to use and produce and put out into the world.”

According to Laur, the growth of these “vodcasts” is helping to fuel the increased popularity of podcasts.

A 2025 survey from Signal Hill Insights titled Canadian Podcast Listener shows that podcast consumption in Canada has grown steadily since 2017. In 2025, 46 percent of Canadians listened to podcasts at least once a month, up from 39 percent in 2024 and 24 percent in 2017. In addition, 14 percent of Canadians listened to a podcast every day, up from nine percent in 2024 and four percent in 2017. Of podcast consumers, 51 percent say they both listen to and watch podcasts, compared to 25 percent who only listen to podcasts and 24 percent who only watch podcasts. The survey also showed that 40 percent of podcast consumers chose YouTube as their platform of choice, while 26 percent opted for Spotify.

“Podcasts have become more than just an audio listening experience,” Laur says. “They are something that you're consuming in short-form video on Instagram, on TikTok and on YouTube Shorts. They've become full-on talk shows.”

Broadcasters and Streamers Launch Vodcasting

Major streamers are also getting on board. In January 2026, Netflix began streaming video podcasts. By the end of March, 13 percent of Netflix-viewing households had watched a podcast on the platform. And Canadian streamer Crave just launched podcast video streaming at the end of May.

Laur is also seeing traditional broadcasters embrace the new medium. “I was at the gym the other day and there was a Sportsnet podcast on the TV,” she says. “Even these massive corporations are starting to use podcast content as both television content and as a podcast. That’s where this is going. You make something that can be consumed in any format that people choose.”

Finding Financing for Video

Laur cautions that adding video production puts increased financial pressure on podcasters. “The new standard is for these set designs and talk shows that take place in studios,” Laur explains. “We're talking a three-camera setup, three-point lighting, it's going to be tough for Canadians to compete because we don't have resources.”

While many successful international podcasts have sponsors and advertisers, especially in the U.S., Laur says Canadian advertisers are “super risk-averse.”

“With all the indie podcasters that I talked to, very few of them are getting sponsorship, especially from Canadian brands,” she says. As a result, talented indie podcasters are decamping for the more lucrative U.S. market (“a lot of Canadian producers are behind one of the most popular podcasts out there, called 99% Invisible,” says Laur), working on branded productions funded by companies with bigger budgets, like financial institutions, or vying for limited positions at broadcasters like the CBC.

But there are reasons to be hopeful about financial support.

The Canada Media Fund’s (CMF) Digital Creators Pilot Program (DCPP), now in its fourth year, announced that its 2026/2027 funding year will be open to video podcast creators for the first time. “In recent years, with the increased attention and focus on video podcasting, we really saw it as an opportunity for continued growth that fits within CMF’s mandate, which is audio-visual content,” explains Janine Steele, the director of interactive, digital and emerging media for the CMF. “We really saw an increased desire for consistent government support to be directed towards the industry.”

The DCPP is open to mid-career podcasters who have been in operation for at least a year, have produced and released at least three episodes of a podcast in the past year and previously produced and released at least one season of a podcast series for which they are the primary owner. English podcasters will also need an average of 1,000 downloads per episode, while French podcasters will need an average of 500 downloads per episode. Creators also need to have podcasts available on at least one of the major platforms: Spotify, YouTube, Apple Podcasts or, in the case of French podcasters, Radio-Canada’s OHdio. The program opens for applications on September 15 and closes on October 1, 2026.

“We're really looking to support podcasters that have either already been working a bit in the video podcast space and want to expand and solidify what they're doing,” explains Steele, “or it can be for podcasters who have just been working in audio and want to make the transition to video.”

Steele says the DCPP is less concerned about content creation as it is with how a podcaster’s business can be developed. “We want to support them in activities like hiring staff, whether that’s accountants, lawyers or social media managers, to purchase equipment or to travel,” she explains. “If they need to attend conferences in order to gather more business contacts or to sign deals, those are some of the activities they can cover with us.”

Fostering Homegrown Podcasters for the Future

By supporting mid-level Canadian podcasters through the DCPP, Steele hopes indie podcasters can grow their platforms and audiences. “We have the opportunity to build made-in-Canada stories and share experiences that contribute to the fabric of our cultural society, how we see ourselves and how we understand each other,” she explains. “This is in light of an industry that is largely global and dealing with content that's coming from all over the world, but especially south of the border.”

For Laur, supporting indie podcasters, especially underrepresented perspectives from women, women of colour and Indigenous people, is imperative to the growth and success of the industry as a whole. “It's really important that we see ourselves in the media that we consume,” she says.

The post Podcasts Are the New Talk Shows appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

A musical drama from Quebec took a risk by placing a trans teenager at the heart of a young adult series. Here, FEM’s director Marianne Farley and producer Patrick Bilodeau discuss telling this story in the current climate, and the challenges of reaching a young audience.

In 2024, FEM did something very few young adult series had dared. It placed a trans teenager’s emancipation at the centre of its story.

Television has certainly featured some noteworthy trans characters in recent years — especially in Euphoria — but few series have offered a role as central as Zav, a 16-year-old Franco-Ontarian musician who dreams of attending the Conservatory of Music while secretly exploring his female identity. Created in Quebec, the series is currently streaming on TV5+ (formerly Unis TV) and Netflix (season one at the moment).

FEM director Marianne Farley says that since a significant percentage of the population is LGBTQ+ there should be no question about shows like FEM getting made. "We have a right to our own content too, to make projects that are for us."

While the subject matter was already daring in 2024, series producer Patrick Bilodeau says it’s even more so today, given the rising intolerance toward trans identity and the LGBTQ+ community. “It’s changed internationally in the past two years,” he says. “People are fearful, they know this will provoke a reaction, it will make people talk. They don’t really want to go there.”

None of this has discouraged Bilodeau or FEM's production company, UGO Média, even though Bilodeau admits focusing on more conventional projects would be easier. Instead, UGO Média went ahead with a second season of FEM, which can now be watched for free on TV5+.

The Rhythm of Trans Identity

In the show’s second season, which, like the first season, was created and co-written by Maxime Beauchamp, Zav (played by actor/singer/songwriter Lennikim) is now a young trans woman who has come out of the closet and is trying to find her place in the music industry. Zav has left the small Franco-Ontarian town of Lanark for the Montreal scene, and left her real friends for the big personalities who populate the city’s performing arts and nightlife.

Many viewers found the first season particularly moving, sending enthusiastic and often touching messages to FEM’s creative team.

“We really saw season two as chapter two. Now we’re in a different place. We’re out in the nightlife, at musical performances, in clubs, and exploring the expression of femininity,” Bilodeau says.

Over 10 episodes, Zav questions what kind of woman she is, and what being a woman represents for her, even if that means losing herself in her search for identity. The music, which accompanies her exploration of gender identity, becomes another character in this story.

“We wanted to go darker,” Farley says. “The music is very urban; it’s more techno. We used influences that were more hip-hop and trip-hop.”

Streaming on Netflix

After the release of FEM’s first season, Netflix reached out to UGO Média about acquiring the show. Finding an international streaming service was essential for the Quebec production studio since Canadians were the only ones who could access the show on TV5+.

“It definitely gives you a nice pat on the back, it gives credibility to the project,” Bilodeau says. “And you say, ‘Dang, that means something!’”

Netflix has the ability to make the series discoverable to young adults who often shun local platforms and content in favour of the American heavyweights. According to the Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec (OCCQ), in 2024, 64 percent of Quebecers aged 15 to 29 primarily watched content from outside of Quebec.

“Not only are they not on Quebecois platforms, but they don’t even know about them,” laments Bilodeau.

So how do you get young adults to be interested in series made here? For director Farley, one way is through the content you’re offering.

“You have to take risks,” Farley says. “I think you shouldn’t be paternalistic, shouldn’t try to teach them how to be adults. Young adult series should be about what interests young people and not what adults think would interest young people. I think that’s what makes FEM so strong, as well. We stay close to the characters, who experience real-life dramas.”

No Third Season

The second season of FEM will be its last. The creative trio, composed of creator and showrunner Beauchamp, director Farley, and producer Bilodeau, are not done working together, however. They’re working on a new series that’s currently in predevelopment.

“We’re eager to take on a new project,” says Bilodeau. “We’re maintaining a certain continuity, as this will also be a really unique series bursting with plot twists, but in a completely different universe.”

He describes the series as a fake reality-TV show in which couples compete to win a revolutionary fertility treatment that allows anyone to conceive a baby with their own DNA. Once again, the new project will proudly showcase the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of any pushback.

The post ‘FEM’ creators offer a fresh take on the trans experience appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

It took more than a village to create Julián. Filmmakers from Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark and Canada lent their talents and expertise to this animated feature about a boy who learns to embrace his inner mermaid. We talked with producer Anthony Leo, chairman of Canadian production company Aircraft Pictures, about his team’s pivotal role in getting this project off the ground.

When managing a co-production like Julián, an animated feature that employed more than 150 artists around the world, experience matters.  

Having worked on youth-oriented projects like the feature film Youngblood, hit Netflix series Geek Girl, CBC Gem’s Gangnam Project and the Oscar-nominated animated feature The Breadwinner, producer Anthony Leo and the team at Toronto-based Aircraft Pictures could offer that experience in areas like getting funding and working on distribution.  

Based on Jessica Love’s bestselling children’s picture book Julián is a Mermaid, the film tells the story of a young boy who spends a summer learning to express himself, ultimately deciding to dress as a mermaid for Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade.  

Julián is rendered in gorgeous, hand-drawn 2D animation by an army of artists from studios including Cartoon Saloon (Ireland), Melusine Studio (Luxembourg), Sun Creature (Denmark) and Canada’s own Guru Studio. An interesting note, in January of this year Leo became CEO of Cartoon Saloon while maintaining a role as chairman of Aircraft Pictures. 

The film — which received funding through the Canada Media Fund’s Distributor Program (now the Distributor Envelope Program) — has its world premiere this month at the Annecy Animation Festival. Leo was in France, where the festival takes place, when we met by Zoom to chat about making Julián, joining forces with actor Zoe Saldaña, and why he thinks animation can survive AI.

Julián is Aircraft Pictures’ first animated feature since 2017’s The Breadwinner. What brought you back to animation? 

Right. About 10 years ago we approached Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon about a project that we had developed called The Breadwinner as a co-production and it went really well, getting a lot of acclaim and awards. In that instance we had optioned the book and adapted it and took it to them.  

This time around they had a book that they were adapting and they came to us and said, “Hey, let's see if we can capture lightning in a bottle again, and would you guys be interested in co-producing with us?” We were immediately in because it was a great book, and we love working with those guys. 

Can you give us a quick synopsis of the film? 

Julián is a young boy who goes to stay with his grandmother for the summer in Brooklyn and he doesn't really know her that well. He discovers that every summer there's a parade called The Mermaid Parade. This is a real event. And he meets these three girls who treat it like it’s the epitome of their summer, planning what they're going to wear. So he decides that he wants to become a mermaid too. 

Over the course of the summer he encounters some challenges, but it's really a chance for him to discover what it is to express himself, and in turn helps his Abuela [grandmother] express herself as well.  

The film’s directors are Ireland’s Louise Bagnall and Mark Mullery, as well as Guadeloupe-born Guillaume Lorin. Why the need for three directors? 

Louise Bagnall, who is the lead director, this is her first feature film and so we wanted to surround her with as much support as possible. She’s an Academy Award-nominated director for her short Late Afternoon, so she didn't need that much help. However, because this is a story about a young boy of Dominican descent, and although Julián is not necessarily LGBTQ, we wanted Guillaume Lorin to be involved because he is from that part of the world and is queer himself. And then Mark Mullery has a lot of experience as an assistant director on some high-end Cartoon Saloon projects, so it was great to have him for the technical side of things. 

How did Zoe Saldaña and her production company Cinestar Pictures get involved? 

We’d started conversations very early on with them. Zoe and her sisters, Cisely and Mariel, are mostly from the Dominican Republic, heritage-wise, and Zoe Saldaña has also been very supportive of the LGBTQ community, specifically in support of her nephew who is non-binary. As soon as we put it in front of them they automatically took to the material and loved the way we were telling the story and just wanted to do whatever they could to help get the message out there. 

Did you have any trepidation about collaborating with them in that they could exert some influence on the project?  

We’d worked with Angelina Jolie on The Breadwinner and people at this level of their career, this level of celebrity, they have their choice of projects that they could get involved in. So it must be something that's aligned with what they want to do, and in this case, it ticked all the boxes. It took a long time to get them to focus on the project because they have so many things in their lives that are pulling them in all directions. But once they read it, and saw an early cut of the film, they were into it immediately. 

What’s the state of animation now in terms of creating and selling projects?  

I think globally we're in a bit of a correction. It’s definitely slowed down after the boom that started with COVID when all this animation was happening. Then on top of that you have the rise of AI-generated content, so it is a challenging time. But I think we're very fortunate to be collaborating with people at the top of their field so there's always going to be a demand for very high-quality animation. 

Does the emergence of AI in the animation space keep you up at night?  

What I'm encouraged by is what seems to be happening especially with Gen Z. There’s a bit of a backlash against AI-generated content, especially with young people. It feels like it’s a bit of a novelty, but I believe that flooding YouTube and the airwaves with AI-generated content is going to get old very quickly and people are savvy. 

Yes, it’s going to become higher in quality the more people invest in it — and it’s not going away — but people are not going to ingest more content for the sake of content. It has to be something special for people to spend their valuable watch time on.  

The Breadwinner focused on a young girl in war-torn Afghanistan and with Julián we spend time with a boy who struggles with feelings that he’s different. How important is it for Aircraft Pictures to create meaningful films for children? 

Very. It’s interesting with a project like Julián, we have come across some distributors internationally who say, “I love the movie, but I can't show this to my seven-year-old, or I can’t show this to my nine-year-old.” You are going to run into people who feel that way. But I know from my own experience…in some ways I am Julián. There were no movies when I was a kid saying, “Hey, don’t worry that you are a little loud, different, it's okay to go through this.” 

We need kids who are like that, who are expressive. We need somewhere for them to go 

The post Aircraft Pictures Helps Animated Pic “Julián” Take Off appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

The horror video game Dead by Daylight celebrates its 10th anniversary this month. Since its creation, the title has amassed more than 70 million players, and Behaviour Interactive, the Montreal studio that developed it, has seen its team grow from 300 to 1,260 employees.

A little more than 10 years ago, the Canada Media Fund financed a video game called Dead by Daylight. At the time, Montreal developer Behaviour Interactive, creator of the asymmetrical horror game that pits one player, the killer, against four other participants, had no idea it would become a global success. 

To explore the game’s history and achievements, Now & Next interviewed Behaviour Interactive’s CEO, Rémi Racine, and two of Dead by Daylight’s original developers, Dave Richard, creative director, and Mathieu Côté, director of partnerships. 

Let’s go back in time. Tell us about the beginning of Dead by Daylight. 

Mathieu Côté: Dead by Daylight started as a love letter to horror films from the ’70s and ’80s. We were a really small team, just about 35 people [working on this specific title]. To give you an idea, we now have nearly 400 people working on the game. 

Rémi Racine: We presented the game at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in March 2015, a little more than a year before its launch, after about six months of production. We were looking for a publisher, and we got more than a dozen offers. We chose Starbreeze, which was the smallest of the group, because, at the time, I wanted to develop our publishing services internally, and they were the only ones who would allow us to do it. When we released the game in June 2016 we didn’t have a big machine behind it. 

How did the public respond back then? 

Dave Richard: It was incredible. We were surprised. We knew we had something interesting on our hands, but not to that extent. 

MC: There were indications it could really take off, though. Right before the release, at the PAX video game conference, our booth was next to Twitch’s, the streaming service. Content creators who walked by tried our game and we saw it was a perfect genre for them — an infinite source of thrills and jump scares. It quickly got a lot of buzz. 

RR: We made good on our investment very fast. In two weeks we’d sold 400,000 copies, which allowed us to earn a small profit. 

You didn’t expect Dead by Daylight to stick around for such a long time. How did the game become what it is today?   

MC: It’s true. At the time, our goal was to release the game, maybe offer downloadable content the following fall, then move on to the next project. But when we saw the response we changed our plans. We kept the team, grew it, and started to build around the existing game. 

RR: One part of the team was working to correct bugs, because the game had some, and another was already working on new content. Very quickly we understood we had to provide continuing support for the game. 

DR: And now, Dead by Daylight is a franchise. Our universe is extremely interesting, and we want it to reach as many people as possible, beyond the game itself. For example, we released The Casting of Frank Stone, a game in a completely different genre, but within Dead by Daylight’s universe. There are graphic novels; we’re in the process of shooting a film. For the next 10 years and beyond, Dead by Daylight will keep growing and expanding beyond the original game. 

Dead by Daylight is known for crossovers with other horror franchises, like Halloween, Alien and Evil Dead. Why did you choose these partnerships?   

MC: It was pretty natural to want to include famous horror characters in a genre game, I would say. We were lucky; the first character we were able to get was Michael Myers, the villain in Halloween. It’s difficult to imagine someone more iconic. After that, conversations with other rights-holders were easier. 

DR: Plus, we were used to working with partners because the DNA of the studio was to produce games for other brands. We simply applied that expertise to Dead by Daylight. 

RR: Starbreeze, our partner at the time, was also familiar with this model, and so that helped structure our approach. 

How did the success of Dead by Daylight change Behaviour Interactive?   

RR: In the beginning, we were just developers who thought about making games. The success of Dead by Daylight allowed us to go further. Today, there are whole teams supporting our projects — analytic, player engagement, product management. All these teams bring information to the creators, who can then make more informed decisions. The creative side is still there, but when we have an idea, we have the means and the time to consider it more deeply. 

DR: To the players’ benefit! 

RR: Financially, it also gives us a certain independence. For the last seven or eight years, Dead by Daylight has allowed us to be more selective in the projects we do for others. 

MC: What’s funny is that, in the beginning, it was more the work-for-hire piece of Behaviour that allowed us to have time to develop the Dead by Daylight game. Today, the game’s popularity offers us other possibilities, like helping other studios. 

Obviously, the company has also grown a lot. When Dead by Daylight was released, the Behaviour Interactive team had around 300 to 350 employees. Today, we have 1,260.

What advice would you give to studios that are just getting started in the field?   

MC: We gave a presentation at the Game Developers Conference recently, and a lot of the audience’s questions were about how to make a game as a service [a model of monetizing games via subscriptions, microtransactions, etc.]. But that’s not what we did. We made a game, then we continued to maintain it, adding content and developing a service around it. Elements like the store were added later, once the players were invested.

RR: You have to make a game that people will like. Then you can see if it can become a service. But the game, first and foremost, has to have a clientele that plays it regularly. That creates some retention. 
 

MC: What’s also important is to listen to the players and learn along the way. It’s an exercise in humility, but the players can be a part of the team, in some ways. 

Behaviour Interactive will host a celebration for fans at the Grand Quay of the Port of Montreal on June 14. Several announcements about the future of the franchise will be shared at the event.

The post 10 years of “Dead by Daylight”: a success story that refuses to die appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

When the Jean brothers — writer/director Anderson and actor Fayolle Jr. — combined forces, the result was the Young Adult series Jumelles (Twins). It’s an inspiring story about family, both on screen and off.

The Jean brothers, Anderson and Fayolle Jr., witnessed the evolution of diversity in Quebec’s TV industry up close.  

Their father, Fayolle Jean, who is originally from Haiti, was one of the first Afro-descendant actors in the province. He inspired many artists, including his sons, to follow in his footsteps. Young Fayolle Jr., who loved to visit his father backstage on set, became an actor in his early 20s, while Anderson was more interested in directing. From film to drawing, poetry to acting, all five Jean children are artistic. Behind the scenes, their mother made sure each of them could follow their dreams. 

One of those dreams has now come true with the Young Adult series Jumelles (Twins), the family’s most important group project to date. It will be available online via Tou.tv Extra starting June 11.  

“It’s the sort of thing you can’t even dream of,” exclaims an excited Fayolle Jr. 

Double Standard

Produced by KOTV, with financial support from the Canada Media Fund, the series follows 14-year-old twin sisters who were born to parents of different races. An extremely rare condition sets the twins apart — one is born with Black skin, the other with white. Until now, the twins hadn’t paid much attention to this difference, but the death of a Black woman during a police stop makes them question their identity and the unequal way they’re viewed by society. 

Anderson Jean co-wrote the screenplay with Marie-Élène Grégoire and Marie-Hélène Lebeau-Taschereau, who won an International Emmy this fall for La médiatrice (The Mediator). Jean came up with the idea after seeing the same type of twins on the cover of National Geographic.

“It was around the time of George Floyd,” he recalls, “and I thought it would be interesting to start the series with an event like that — twins who have the same parents, the same background, who come from the same place, and who, despite everything, are going to have a different life just because of the colour of their skin.” 

Fayolle Jr. plays the teens’ father, an engaged parent who makes it his duty to educate his girls on equal terms. But the tragedy that’s all over the news makes them question everything.  

“He never really talked to his daughters about difference because, for him, it was important to show we are equal. When this event happens, all these discussions start up about the colour of their skin, about opportunities…. With his Black daughter, and also with his white daughter. The Black twin delves into her Haitian side, but her sister, even though she’s white, also has a Haitian side. It’s an identity we don’t see, we don’t talk about, but it’s there.”

Expanded Family

Irlande Côté, who recently dazzled in Avant le crash (Before the Crash), and Keyla Mingot, in her first major role, play the twins. 

Anderson Jean, who also directed one of the 13 episodes alongside Jean-Sébastien Lord, is delighted with the pairing. “They have the intimacy of two sisters who love each other very much. That’s important for the series. They get along really well, and they pleasantly surprised me as actresses, particularly Keyla, who didn’t have a lot of experience. Irlande also impressed me with her talent and her professionalism. I believe they are a family. There’s something magic that happened, even with the technical crew.”

And who better to contribute to this magic than the Jean family’s patriarch, Fayolle Jean, who also joined the cast. The other two Jean brothers (who happen to be twins) and their sister were also involved, working on editing, graphic design, acting or as extras. 

“It’s funny because the only father I’ve had, in life and on TV, is my father,” exclaims Fayolle Jr., who’s always happy to play opposite his dad. “I also have a lot of admiration for my little brother. Acting in a series he wrote and created is truly extraordinary. I hope there will be many more.” 

The Importance of Representation

The Jean brothers appreciate the increase in representation on major series over the past few years. Like many actors of African descent, both father and son have played criminals or taxi drivers. 

“It’s wonderful to see series like Jumelles or Lakay Nou [which stars Fayolle Sr.] with actors of diverse backgrounds in leading roles,” says Fayolle Jr. “It allows young people to see themselves without necessarily having to go on Netflix. We need to see ourselves, all of Quebec, from diverse backgrounds. It’s important.” 

And for the Jeans, seeing such representations early in life is even better. That’s why Jumelles was developed for kids aged 9 to 12, though it has appeal for all ages. “We have a tendency to underestimate the emotional maturity of young people,” Anderson explains. “Even if the concept is serious, it’s a really sunny series in terms of sisterhood, friendship…. We talk about racial challenges and the search for identity, but in a positive way.”

Fayolle Jr. agrees. “What I find different from other Young Adult series is that we’re talking about racism, police violence, identity, parenting.… We find the right words and the right way to talk to young people, while keeping it light. There’s a lot of talk dividing us at the current moment, and we have to showcase that we are one single, beautiful country. We need to be able to talk about our differences, listen to each other, and learn from other people.” 

The post French-Language series about twins “Jumelles” is a true family affair appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

This Pride Month, Now & Next explores the best ways to approach the realities of trans life today, behind the scenes and on screen. We asked two trans artists, Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, who co-wrote the film François.e, and director Luis De Filippis, for their thoughts.

Ten years ago, the Toronto International Film Festival awarded the prize for Best Canadian Film to Ceux qui font les révolutions à moitié n'ont fait que se creuser un tombeau [Those Who Make Revolution Halfway Only Dig Their Own Graves]. A few months later, the Quebecois feature received a special mention from the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival. At the time, one of the characters — a young trans revolutionary played by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay — received particular attention.  

“I think about it every year,” recalls actor/writer Boulianne-Tremblay, who was dropped into a media frenzy from her very first acting experience. “I didn’t have any training, I sort of threw myself into the unknown, like jumping into the void. I didn’t know if the parachute was going to open, but I really hoped it would.” 

The interest surrounding the film, including a noteworthy appearance on the Quebec talk show Tout le monde en parle, helped awaken audiences’ awareness and empathy toward the trans community, while giving the film industry an updated perspective and promoting wider reflection. 

“When I was growing up there wasn’t a good perception of trans people on screen,” recalls Boulianne-Tremblay. “We laughed at them a lot, they were often treated as ridiculous. They were either made to be spectacles, or they suffered and died.” 

The Story of François.e

The team behind the new movie François.e, produced by KO24 with financial support from the Canada Media Fund, absolutely wanted to avoid these mistakes. That’s why, after having read Boulianne-Tremblay’s book, Dandelion Daughter, producer Louis Morissette and screenwriter Jean-François Léger asked her to co-write the screenplay for François.e, which opens July 1.

“I often say it was written with four hands,” says Boulianne-Tremblay, “and also with two hearts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a team of screenwriters made up of a cisgender man [Léger] and a trans woman in Quebecois cinema. Already, that is growth and very evocative of where we’ve gotten to in our society.” 

François.e tells the story of François (played by Morissette), a writer in the midst of a midlife crisis who falsely pretends to be a trans woman to obtain financing for his new series. As one might imagine, his plan quickly falls apart. 

Several weeks before the film’s release, its poster, which depicts Morissette as a woman, and trailer have provoked a reaction from the trans community, especially in France. Some people are upset to see a cisgender actor in the title role of a trans woman. 

Boulianne-Tremblay says it’s important to grasp the intention behind the film’s story.  

“Our mission with this film is to take the viewer, with all their preconceived ideas, and bring them elsewhere,” she says. “This is a film that speaks about the cisgender perspective on trans life; how the character of François is going to be confronted by his own preconceptions, by a reality he is completely unfamiliar with, and question himself, but never using mockery.” 

Taking Up Space

The heated reaction speaks to the growing consensus that, despite Christian Bégin’s brilliant performance in M'entends-tu? [Can You Hear Me?] or John Lithgow’s in The World According to Garp, the trans community believes trans characters should henceforth be played by trans people.  

Boulianne-Tremblay agrees wholeheartedly, as does Ontario filmmaker Luis De Filippis, whose films place trans protagonists centre stage. 

“As much as I believe in non-trans filmmakers making trans stories, because no one owns any story, I don’t believe non-trans actors should be taking trans roles,” says De Filippis, who’s been winning awards since her first films at the prestigious Sundance, Toronto, Rotterdam and San Sebastián festivals. “You might not find a classically trained trans actor, you might have to do more of a grassroots approach, but that doesn’t mean the person that’s right for that role is not out there. You just have to put a little more work in the casting process.” 

The heroine of De Filippis’ first feature film, Something You Said Last Night, was played by Carmen Madonia, who wasn’t a professional actor. De Filippis says that didn’t prevent Madonia from delivering an incredibly moving performance. To put her star at ease on set, De Filippis used an approach that could catch on — mentorship. 

“I didn’t want us to be the only trans people on set,” says De Filippis. “So, Carmen knew in the morning that when she had to get dressed, there was a trans woman dressing her and there was a trans girl doing her makeup. She knew there was a trans girl behind the camera. She gives a very honest performance in the film and it’s because she knows she is supported and she is surrounded by people who understand her and know both what her character is going through and what she is going through.” 

Principles to Follow

De Filippis’ approach delights Boulianne-Tremblay, who plans to use it for future projects.  

Already excited that François.e brought 11 trans actors together on screen — one of the most beautiful moments of her life — she offers several additional ideas to foster positive representation of her community on screen and assure their well-being on set. 

First, make the whole team aware of a trans person’s presence and the realities of their lived experience before they arrive. Then, following De Filippis’ example, include trans people in different production roles. When it comes to storytelling, focus on positive, diverse narrative models so audiences don’t associate trans identity solely with situations of suffering or stories about transition. Also, whenever possible, donate a portion of revenue to organizations that support the community. Finally, as was the case with François.e, vary the dramatic genres by alternating between funny moments and deeper scenes.  

Boulianne-Tremblay is well aware that the more a film reaches people outside the community, the more it has the opportunity to increase people’s empathy and broaden horizons. 

“All my life, even before I was famous, I’ve tried to bring people together,” she says. “My proudest moment with this project was that we see a new side of our communities, positive representation of trans men and women in situations of power and autonomy. We’re opening people’s hearts up to another reality than what the majority of the population is familiar with, even today. At a time when bridges are burning, if a film like François.e can extend a hand towards the other, towards both sides, if it can inspire people and be a useful work, all the better.” 

The post Bringing trans realities to the screen appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

As Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie heads to the Canadian Screen Awards, viewers are seeking out the original TV series. Unfortunately, they can’t find it.

From its Midnight Madness screenings at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival to its theatrical run this past February, to its sold-out merch pop-up and eight Canadian Screen Award nominations, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie has become one of the year’s buzziest Canadian screen stories.

It also did what most filmmakers who create films spun from TV series hope for — sent viewers back to the original show. Sixteen episodes of Nirvanna the Band the Show aired over two seasons on Viceland in 2017 and 2018, and were then available on CBC and CBC Gem, but have since disappeared.

For Matthew Miller, who produced both the series and film, the renewed interest has been obvious. “The movie really connected and resonated with people and they want more,” he says.

However, in Canada, the series is almost impossible to find.

A New Generation Finds Matt and Jay

Created by Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, Nirvanna the Band the Show follows fictionalized versions of the pair — two best friends in Toronto who call themselves Nirvanna the Band and are intent on a single, absurd goal: play a show at the famed Rivoli, even though they’ve never written a song. The mission becomes a string of escalating stunts designed to get the venue’s attention, usually with disastrous results. The movie expands on the premise by turning their long-running quest into a time-travel story about friendship and ambition set in 2008.

Viewers looking for the show go beyond those who watched on Viceland or CBC. Miller says the movie has brought in some who were too young to have encountered the series when it first aired.

“There’s a whole new generation of fans who weren’t really cognizant when we were making that other show,” Miller says of the series that received funding from the Canada Media Fund (CMF) in its second season.

The film’s 2008 setting has helped. For viewers in their early 20s, that period is close enough to recognize and far enough away to feel strange. The clothes, the streets, the phones, the pre-algorithm texture of the world — all of it has become part of the appeal.

“What they’ve connected to in the movie, which we were not really anticipating, is this kind of nostalgia for this bygone era,” he says.

Miller says viewers in their early 20s have responded to the simplicity of that world, before social media and surveillance culture changed the way people behave around cameras.

The producers receive messages every day from fans trying to find the show but there is no clean, legal pathway for Canadian audiences to watch it right now, says Miller. The team is working on options, though, including a physical release of the series that’s scheduled for later this year and will be released by the team’s distribution partner, NEON.

Demand Outstrips Access

According to data compiled by global research company Parrot Analytics and provided by the CMF, Nirvanna the Band the Show generated average audience demand 16 times higher than the Canadian market average between May 10, 2025, and May 10, 2026, making it the fifth most in-demand Canadian-originated comedy series during that time period. Leandra Greenfield, a CMF data analyst, says that level of demand is surprising because sustained demand at that scale is usually concentrated among long-running, widely distributed Canadian comedies with strong platform support.

In the Parrot data, during that same period, Nirvanna the Band the Show sits just behind some of the country’s biggest comedy show standouts, like Shoresy, and only slightly below CMF-funded hits such as Schitt’s Creek and Letterkenny. Those shows benefited from broad exposure, strong distribution and years of cumulative audience awareness. Nirvanna is different in that it’s more of a cult hit with a fanbase that’s doing most of the heavy lifting.

Greenfield describes the series as “overperforming” relative to its accessible footprint. In terms of demand, it is behaving more like a widely available Canadian comedy than a hard-to-find one.

Greenfield says demand for the series rose around the film’s theatrical release in February 2026. Shortly after the release, audiences began “talking about, watching and actively seeking out the series,” she says.

The data can’t tell us whether those people were new viewers or returning fans, but Greenfield believes it was likely a mix. The film’s theatrical release and visibility from the South by Southwest (SXSW) Film & TV Festival, where it had its world premiere in March 2025, also helped push the property beyond its core fanbase.

Greenfield notes that demand spikes for Schitt’s Creek and other Canadian comedies were largely driven by expanded distribution, streaming access and audience awareness. Nirvanna’s surge is likely tied to the change in format. The movie created fresh attention and viewers started looking for ways into the comedy’s larger universe.

However, we should note that Parrot’s demand figures are not viewership numbers. They measure audience interest through signals such as search, social activity, ratings, open streaming activity and peer-to-peer activity, then express that demand as a multiple of the market average.

Keeping Canadian Titles Available

Miller says the show’s current lack of availability was not a deliberate scarcity play. The rights lapsed.

For him, the situation points to a larger challenge facing older Canadian titles after their first window. If shows are going to remain available, he thinks broadcasters need to see value in licensing them again, and producers need a clear reason to pursue second-term deals.

The other challenge is rights literacy. Once a show has aired, producers still need to understand what rights they control, what has expired and what can be relicensed.

“What honestly happens so often is that producers don’t fully understand the rights that they have or don’t have, or the scope of the rights or the terms of their original distribution agreements,” Miller says. “People are sitting on rights that they don’t even know that they have.”

For smaller producers, the work of staying on top of their rights can pile up quickly. “Companies come, companies go, they close, they go bankrupt, the terms lapse,” Miller says. “It’s almost like a full-time job just keeping up with the library of titles.”

Canadian Comedy and the Outside-In Effect

Nirvanna has never tried to sand down its Canadian identity. The show was built around Toronto, with the Rivoli as the prize and Queen Street as a key part of the story’s backdrop. Matt and Jay’s schemes depend on the city feeling grounded and specific.

That specificity has not stopped the title from travelling. Parrot’s data shows interest outside Canada, including in the U.S., Australia and the U.K., now that the film has created potential new viewers.

Asked whether there is a gap between audience interest and platform appetite for Canadian comedy, Miller points to Canada’s long history of exporting funny people and shows, such as Trailer Park Boys, Letterkenny and Schitt’s Creek.

But he says Canadian comedy often gets a domestic boost once it has been embraced elsewhere. “Canadians are way more likely to watch content made in Canada when they know Americans are watching it, which is a pity,” he says.

Part of that comes down to marketing. U.S. platforms and distributors can spend at a scale Canadian companies usually cannot. “The Americans market the material, and they can pay to market it in ways that maybe we can’t in Canada, just based on the numbers,” Miller says.

The show has done the difficult part of becoming relevant again. Now the business side has to catch up.

The post The Second Life of “Nirvanna the Band the Show” appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Aman and Kamal bring their backgrounds in business, consulting, history, and economics to the explainer videos they upload to their YouTube channel, 2 and 20, which has racked up millions of views. As one of 21 creators selected for the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program, they plan to use the money to increase their output and build their media brand.

At the end of 2023, Aman, a Vancouver-based investment professional and former consultant and investor, started making videos about finance, economics and global affairs and posting them on YouTube. “It was just me talking in front of a low-res camera,” he explains. “It was very low fidelity.” 

The videos were a hobby that complemented his nine-to-five job. “My work is a lot more numbers-oriented, and I’ve always loved being more creative,” he says.  

His first two videos were about the signals pointing to a housing crash and recession in the U.S. — topics he was interested in and knowledgeable about.

He showed the videos to his brother Kamal, who studied history and economics at the University of British Columbia and now works as a business strategist and investor. “Kamal was like, ‘We can make this a lot cooler and more entertaining,’” recalls Aman.

Kamal started helping Aman edit the videos, adding elements like music, graphs, animation and video footage. “I learned how to edit and animate myself, just from YouTube tutorials,” explains Kamal, who was also interested in starting a YouTube channel. “I was trying to figure out how Johnny Harris, who is a big YouTuber and has about 6 million subscribers, animated his videos to look so pretty. That upped our production level quite a bit.”  

Meanwhile, Aman adapted his writing style to be more approachable. He admits his prior work in consulting led him to write scripts that were dense and heavy at first. “I started to change it to be more narrative-driven,” Aman says.

A Channel is Born

They named their channel 2 and 20 after the structure of investment funds that charge a two percent management fee and a 20 percent performance fee on profits above a minimum threshold.

With their new formula and identity, the duo started to see more success. In September 2023, they released a video about the Canadian economy that got about 37,000 views. That was followed by a video in February 2024 called “Why Brexit Failed the UK,” that got nearly 140,000 views. Then came a string of viral hits — a video about the housing and affordability crisis in Canada, followed by a similar video focusing on housing and affordability in Australia, each of which now has around 3 million views.  

“Our subscriber count went from 5,000 to 40,000 in weeks,” Kamal recalls. “We started getting sponsors reaching out and famous YouTubers reacting to our videos. It was an insane amount of exposure.”

The brothers started to take their channel more seriously, seeing the potential for it to become something more. Kamal hired editors, animators and thumbnail artists to take over some of his duties, in part because the workload at his day job was increasing. He moved into more of a production role. “I will write up production guidance for the editors and animators, line by line, for the entire video,” he explains.

Aman, too, got help with researching and writing the scripts, which usually take one to two weeks to complete. At the end of 2024, Andrew Hayley, a former Reuters journalist who now works in finance, reached out to the duo to offer his help. “That's been really cool, too, because he brings something to the table with his perspectives,” says Aman.  

Sponsors and CMF Support

The brothers now have a strong following of 230,000 subscribers. Since they still work their day jobs, they can be picky about their sponsors, ensuring they’re a fit with their brand and audience. Finding a balance between sponsorship opportunities and maintaining their audience is something Kamal says is a challenge. “We want to keep a close-knit community but not inundate them with sponsorships.”  

Another challenge is how to grow the channel while meeting the demands of their day jobs. Kamal and Aman hope hiring more outside assistance can help them find the balance they need. Their goal is to increase their output from about one long-form video per month to one every two weeks.  

They also want to release more short-form videos on platforms like Facebook, TikTok and Instagram — something they’ll be able to accomplish with the funds they’re receiving from the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program. The program, now in its third year, distributes a total of $394,000 among 21 creators who make short-form video content on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

“We've always put off shorts just because of money and people resources,” Kamal says. “[The fund] will help us tremendously. Scaling our shorts strategy is important for bringing a new set of viewers to our long-form content, which we think is more valuable.” 

Hopes for the Future

Aman and Kamal see 2 and 20 as more than just a video platform. “We want to build a media group focused on economics and geopolitics,” Aman says. “We want to not only do long-form videos but also go to different countries and speak with people, adding on a podcast as well.”

Their future goals represent a vision for how news-driven content creators, like 2 and 20, could gain more popularity and importance than traditional media outlets with the right funding and support. “Our generation, millennials and Gen Z, aren't watching mainstream media,” Kamal says. “It's important that you're on the platforms [that] people are headed towards.”

The post Meet the Vancouver brothers behind the finance and economics channel 2 and 20 appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

After two hit films, the Bon Cop, Bad Cop franchise comes to TV in a six-episode series, partially shot in Gesgapegiag with the Mi'kmaq First Nation community. Meet Mi’kmaq screenwriter Quentin Condo, who inspired his friends Patrick Huard and Anik Jean to tell this particular story, and helped them get it right.

To find the source of the new Bon Cop, Bad Cop TV series, you have to act like a salmon and swim upstream. Specifically, to the Cascapédia River, which flows into Chaleur Bay, between Maria and New Richmond, on the Gaspé Peninsula, or Gaspésie.

It’s there, while learning to fish, that director/singer Anik Jean came across an old classmate, Quentin Condo, a Mi’kmaq Nation artist who was working as a fishing guide. Jean and Condo crossed paths while attending secondary school together in Bonaventure but they didn’t really know each other. Over time, during the summers, they developed a strong friendship. And since our friends’ partners often become our friends, Condo and Jean’s husband, Patrick Huard, star/writer of both Bon Cop, Bad Cop movies, also got along extremely well.

It was while fishing, and sometimes sipping scotch, that the idea of creating a Bon Cop, Bad Cop storyline that takes place in the neighbouring Gesgapegiag community emerged. “We started talking about it 10 years ago, after the second film,” says Condo, now 47, at a café in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.

“Patrick and I clicked as friends, but he didn’t really know the people in our community,” Condo recalls. “When I told him what was happening, he asked questions and said it would be cool if, one day, we did a Bon Cop, Bad Cop with a First Nations plot.”

Knowing How to Navigate

Much water flowed downstream before the creative team finally got a bite. Then, about two years ago, the telephone rang. The project was going to move forward with financial support from the Canada Media Fund. First hired as a consultant, Condo quickly joined the writing team and later helped with casting and scouting locations.

For the idea to work, it needed to have the full approval of the First Nations peoples, including in Gesgapegiag. The son of a former chief and himself the former vice-chief of the area, Condo became a key player in the project’s success.

“The first thing we did was meet all the Quebec chiefs,” he says. “There are 43 communities in the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador (AFNQL). I called Ghislain Picard, [who was then] the regional chief for Quebec. I wanted to be sure everyone was in agreement, because we wanted to have an AFNQL scene in the series. I wanted everyone to have a role, and I didn’t want to have any problems with any other nations.”

Condo then went to Gesgapegiag to get the green light from council and go door-to-door through the community to make sure its members were behind him. “That’s how it works. You have to be really open because if something doesn’t work, everything can shut down.”

He quickly felt the community’s enthusiasm.

“I thought it was going to be more difficult, but they were really happy to participate. Bon Cop, Bad Cop is very well known with the First Nations peoples. Patrick didn’t know that. There are several Mi’kmaq guides on the river, and everyone knew Pat. He saw the potential to do something with our community.”

A Nation in Action

Any good screenwriter’s first concern is that their story is believable. And when a franchise rests on clashes between cultures — like the Bon Cop, Bad Cop franchise, which was initially about the clash between Canada’s French and English cultures — it’s essential that everyone recognizes themselves.

“The most important thing for me was that the dialogue was as Indigenous as possible,” says Condo. “We have ways of saying things, a different style, like the Quebecois compared to other Canadians. We say a lot with silence. If a Quebecois person doesn’t like something, you’ll know it right away, but that’s less so with the Indigenous. They’re just going to respond with silence. We call that the ‘silent no.’”

Truth is also relayed through performance. There were close to a hundred Gesgapegiag Mi’kmaq people on set, who brought their community to life on screen with pleasure and pride. Many had never acted in front of a camera before, but according to Condo, finding good Indigenous actors isn’t difficult because they’re born storytellers. The hard part is choosing who to cast.

Prominent Quebecois actor Joshua Odjick (It: Welcome to Derry), from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Nation, near Maniwaki, stars as the Gesgapegiag police chief opposite Patrick Huard, Henry Czerny, Christine Beaulieu and Sarah-Jeanne Labrosse. Nathaniel Arcand from the Plains Cree, who’s had success in both Canada and Hollywood, also plays a role, as does Condo’s son, Liam, who has acting experience.

“We’re starting to see a lot of Indigenous talent, actors from everywhere,” says Condo. “For people from the community, it’s natural to become actors. They’re so good, it’s incredible!”

Changing the World, One Project at a Time

Having a collaborator like Condo is a precious asset for a production team, but not all projects are so lucky. That’s when creators turn to the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO).

“The ISO is pleased to see the audiovisual sector making use of available resources to collaborate in meaningful ways with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities,” says Jean-François D. O’Bomsawin, ISO’s Director of Marketing & Communications. “The publication On-Screen Protocols and Pathways serves as a reference guide, accessible to all on [our] website.”

In the Eastern Townships, productions can also consult the Gaspé Film and Television Council. As a member of the group’s board of directors, Condo is familiar with the impact a series like Bon Cop, Bad Cop has on the region, which he estimates to be approximately $600,000 — a significant contribution for hotel and restaurant owners and other retailers, especially in the off-season.

Condo continues to advocate for his people and his culture, as he did when he was vice-chief, but he does it differently today. When he’s not collaborating on collective projects, he’s showcasing his talent, social activism and Mi’kmaq heritage on stage as a hip-hop singer under the pseudonym Q052. “With the arts, we’re able to change the world,” he says. “Not necessarily with politics. Artists possess a truth that politicians will often conceal.”

Although he now lives in Hatley, in Quebec’s Estrie region, having followed his partner there, Gesgapegiag will always be his true home. (“Mala,” he says, his hand on his heart. It means “where I’m from” in Mi’kmaq.) In mid-April, the production rolled out the blue carpet in Gesgapegiag for an advance screening of the series that will be available to all on Crave starting May 7.

Condo is delighted that, all over Canada, audiences will be able to see his community from the inside, demystifying what happens there, giving a peek into various families (often large ones) so viewers can better understand their reality and the way they view society. All while entertaining people.

“We live in the same country and rarely speak to each other,” notes Condo. “I think in the end, the series shows more of the things we have in common. That’s what’s fun. We realize we’re all human beings, and we all have the same emotions.”

The post The Mi’kmaq man behind the “Bon Cop, Bad Cop” series appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

We catch up with the creative team behind the six-part series Hate the Player: The Ben Johnson Story, which takes a comedic look at the life and legacy of Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson. Find out why the story of Johnson’s fall from grace is told from his point of view, and why the team leaned into the laughs to tell this story.

Hate the Player. It’s a bio-pic. It’s a sports show. It’s an outrageous comedy. It’s a love letter to Jamaican Canadians. It’s a series that takes big swings and hits it out of the park.

The six-part production (currently streaming on Paramount+ Canada and GameTV) chronicles the life and career of Canada’s most revered, and then reviled, sprinter Ben Johnson, who won gold in the 100 metres at the 1988 Summer Olympics only to have it stripped away when he tested positive for steroids.

“[The show] is about putting some shine back on Ben's name,” says Hate the Player’s creator and showrunner Anthony Q. Farrell, “and talking about how we put him on this pedestal and then we knocked him off it. And then we started to beat the crap out of him with it. It’s about telling his story from his point of view.”

Farrell is speaking at the Black Screen Office (BSO) Symposium in Toronto, where Hate the Player’s creative team recently gathered to chronicle how the show came together and why it stands out in the media landscape. Farrell was joined by the now 64-year-old Ben Johnson, Hate the Player’s stars Shamier Anderson, who gives a stellar turn as Johnson, Karen Robinson who plays Johnson’s mother, Gloria, and executive producer and New Metric Media CEO Mark Montefiore.

Montefiore reveals it’s taken six years for Hate the Player to reach screens, and that it was originally conceived as a drama. However, telling the story as a drama wasn’t working, which is why he sought out comedy writer/director Farrell (The Office, Shelved).

Finding the Comedy

“We really wanted it to be funny,” Farrell explains. “Find the comedy, find the jokes. It's a Canadian story, it's a Black story, and one of the things that those two cultures know how to do is find comedy in things.”

The humour veers from subtle jabs at sports media and racist track officials to slapstick to all-out ridicule. Johnson’s archrival, American sprinter Carl Lewis, is skewered unmercifully, which posed a problem for the show as it could be construed as libelous. That’s where the character of Walter the lawyer, played by Mark McKinney, entered the picture.

“We were dealing with the legal team who didn't want us getting sued while we were making the show,” says Farrell. “One of the things they said was you need a counterpoint; someone who is telling the other side to the story that's not just Ben’s. So, we came up with this idea: What if I just take the stuff the lawyers are sending me and just put it in the show? What was funny is the lawyers, once they got the hang of Walter, they started writing for him. I was like, is that a legal note, or are you pitching? They said, ‘We're pitching,’ and I was like, ‘No, you do the legal thing. I'll decide what goes in,’” he says with a chuckle.

Becoming Ben Johnson

The weight of the show rests on the brawny shoulders of Anderson, who had only six weeks to get into shape to resemble the extraordinarily fit Johnson. Another challenge was portraying Johnson throughout his entire life, from childhood to a man in his 60s.

“I think it’s important to mention I chose not to meet Ben until 48 hours before going to camera,” reveals Anderson. “The reason for that is because Ben's a very different person now than he was back in his 20s, his 30s, his 40s. Thankfully, with YouTube and Google, there's a lot of resources out there for me to pull from. And then when I sat down with him it was less about me being a journalist interviewing him, but just connecting with his heart and seeing the human today.”

Johnson, a self-effacing and soft-spoken panelist, chimes in on their meeting.

“[Shamier] invited me to his house to have a meal and get to know each other. I know his Jamaican background, and we were looking at each other and we smiled. We smiled at each other because we have a connection. He played me perfectly — the way I speak sometimes, the way I move, and what I say. And like he said, it was short notice for him to get back in shape very quickly.”

A New Perspective

For veteran actor Karen Robinsion, Hate the Player was a unique comedic project that also allowed her to reflect on her past as a young Jamaican woman who moved to Canada as a teenager.

“Reading the script, my first reaction was this is absolutely bonkers,” she says, smiling. “It was just so completely unexpected and off the wall and ballsy. I thought they're really taking a chance with this one and I really need to be a part of it. In terms of why I thought it was an important story to tell, is because [when Johnson was stripped of the medal] I'd only been in this country for four years and I was in Calgary, and I remember white people coming up to me and saying, ‘So, how do you feel about what happened?’

“As a 20-year-old, my critical thinking skills weren’t developed enough to address that question in the way that I would now, and I realize I never asked myself what Ben's side of the story was. It was only about what I was reading and what I was hearing and how people were approaching me as the only Jamaican they knew and asking me how I felt about it. So, I feel like being asked to join the project I’ve been given an opportunity to explore that side of the story.”

Despite a tight budget and production window that meant Farrell had to make some cuts to the script, Hate the Player found its narrative tone and stayed true to it. It was a challenge but, as he tells us, the key to getting things made lies in being open to what comes your way.

“I think a lot of times as artists, we get to a place where it has to be this, it has to be that, it has to be this. No, be open. If you understand what the core of your vision is and you know what story you're trying to tell, there are a lot of different ways to tell it. Be open to the way the universe is aligning.”

The post Spinning Ben Johnson’s story into comedic gold appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

His videos have millions of views and have been shared by actors Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Now social media star Frank Moyo is one of 21 creatives selected for the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program. The singing teacher explains why he makes videos that teach kids Italian, and how the money may help take his content to the next level

Frank Moyo’s Italian roots run deep. His parents and grandparents immigrated from Calabria, in Southern Italy, to Canada in the early 1970s. Moyo was born in 1993 and grew up immersed in Italian culture and language. He was close to his grandparents, especially his maternal grandmother, whom he calls Nonna. “I was speaking Italian when I was a kid and grew up eating Italian,” he says. 

When he was 11, young Moyo developed an interest in music. “I saw a guitar in the window and asked my dad for it for Christmas,” he says. “It’s a cliché story, but it's true, I promise.” He started writing music and developed his skills as a singer-songwriter while studying Italian and archeology at the University of Toronto, followed by a stint at teachers’ college. 

Moyo has been a music teacher since 2018, working at two primary schools in Toronto. But it wasn’t until six years into his teaching career, around 2024, that he started merging three of his passions: music, teaching and Italian. He soon added a fourth passion to that list, content creation, posting as @frankmoyomusic to a million Instagram followers and as @FrankMoyo on YouTube.      

The Birth of a Digital Content Creator

While he’d sung in Italian before, mostly covers, Moyo was inspired by how some language teachers use beats to help with pronunciation. “I kind of did it based on rhythm,” he says, using the word “parmigiano” as an example. He breaks the word down by its syllables, then works it into a beat. “Then we put it to a song,” he explains.  

He treated learning Italian as an icebreaker for music students to do something new together. “They were less shy and less worried about judgment as they were all learning together,” Moyo says.

Moyo wrote what he calls “The Cheese Song” and sang it for a Grade 2 class, propping his phone up on a projector stand. He wanted to capture video of his performance and post it online so that more people could learn from it. It was one of the first Italian instruction songs he posted on his Instagram account, and it became a viral success.

“It got 15 million views within the first week or two,” he recalls. “It was reposted by Jennifer Garner and Jennifer Love Hewitt and all these huge A-list people. I think it was just something really brand new and no one else was doing anything like it.” 

Moyo’s Popularity Grows

Moyo continued to write Italian educational songs, singing them for his classes then uploading them online. First came “The Pasta Song,” then a song about how to express your love in Italian, along with songs about fruits, vegetables and colours. The songs were a hit in and outside of school. “The Buongiorno Song,” which introduced different Italian greetings, hit 12 million views. “Parents would come to school and say how much they loved the songs and how their kids were singing them all day and night,” Moyo says.  

Seeing the potential for his songs to become something more, Moyo made a shift from Instagram to YouTube. He worked with an editor to create videos and thumbnails reminiscent of popular educational channels like Ms. Rachel and Super Simple Songs.  

Then, another big breakthrough for Moyo — a song that he wrote about his nonna went viral, which led to an appearance on Canada’s Got Talent in April 2025. An illustrated children’s book called Nonna, written by Moyo, followed that May. “She’s an online celebrity in her own right,” Moyo says of his nonna. “She loves it.”  

Is There a Children’s Show in the Future?

While he’s still focused on creating educational Italian song videos for children, and still teaches full-time, Moyo hopes to develop a full-fledged children’s show one day. He’s starting to experiment with more advanced video features like performing in front of a green screen and has hired illustrators and animators to enhance the production value of his content.  

As one of 21 digital creators selected for the third edition of the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program, Moyo gets to share in the total $394,000 handed out this year. The program’s goal is to support the growth of mid-career Canadian digital content creators making short-form video content exclusively on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or Facebook. The funding will help Moyo amp up the quality of his videos and grow his channel. “Eventually, down the road, I want to be doing full-on kids’ concerts,” Moyo says. “I really take a lot of inspiration from Robert Munsch and Raffi and what they've been able to accomplish with their careers.” 
 
As Moyo goes all-in with his educational children’s content, he admits he’s had to set aside his “adult” singer-songwriter interests. “I’ve kind of pinned myself as a kids’ musician now,” he says. “It’s difficult to get back to my original music, but I enjoy it. I love seeing the kids' faces.”  

A highlight of his career was a book signing at an Indigo store in the summer of 2025. “I saw so many families there with their kids and moms and dads and grandparents and granddaughters, all together, singing together,” Moyo recalls. “It was such an incredible experience, and it made me feel like I had a purpose.” 

While online educational content for kids is already overwhelmingly popular, Moyo sees this landscape growing even more in the future. “Every kid is basically holding an iPad now,” he says. “I think more resources and more funding is going to be put into what we’re doing.”  
 
He sees a future where school boards could invest in social media programs and use them as an educational resource. “Schools can have their own YouTube,” he says. “I think it's going to grow and, at the same time, bring us together even more.” 

The post Italian + Music + Teaching = Winning Content for Frank Moyo appeared first on Canada Media Fund.