The mental health of producers, directors and other film industry professionals is about more than just their individual experiences. According to the Canada Media Fund's documentary series Mental Health in Focus, it’s also about workplace dynamics, organizational culture and ways of collaborating.

Taking care of one’s mental health is often thought of as an individual responsibility — learn to manage your stress, recognize signs of burnout, develop your resilience. Conversations around mental health are essential, and occupy a growing place in today’s culture, including in the film and TV industry.

In dedicating the fifth season of the Canada Media Fund-produced video series Lights, Camera, Inclusion to mental health, we interviewed nine people with various roles in the industry — production, direction, intimacy coordination, visual effects, camera operation, set design and content creation. Despite the range of roles, the same issues recurred — isolation, invisible responsibilities, work pace, balancing professional and personal lives, the weight of representing a community, and the need to create more accessible environments.

But beyond reporting observations, the conversations also suggested ways of doing things differently.

Watch the video series Mental Health in Focus

Overcoming isolation

“It’s an industry where producers are entrepreneurs as well as being the leaders of creative teams,” says Mylène Augustin, producer and co-founder of Inaru Films. “A producer has to project the image of someone who’s strong, who can take care of any situation. But there are moments when we’re at home and say, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to be able to do it.’ But that’s not something we can communicate to our teams.”

For Augustin, one strategy is to turn to other producers who face the same challenges and discuss difficult situations together, rather than managing them alone.

Daniela Mujica, a producer at Productions Ocho, chose to collaborate with producer Eric Idriss-Kanago’s production company, Yzanakio.

“I don’t think I would be where I am today if I had run my own company by myself in isolation,” says Mujica. “Our cooperation is so important and helps us break the isolation of a producer who has to make very important decisions. We often need a shoulder to lean on, too.”

Isolation is also an issue for intimacy coordinator Jen Viens. On set, Viens is often the sole person tasked with creating a safe space for actors and crew.

Viens suggests the role should be integrated into the project from the beginning, providing the time to build trust. “You’re a one-person department, and then you’re the only person on set who’s making space for everyone…. Everyone shows up with their own story and their own life, and you never know how things are going to affect people. It’s a lot to carry.”

Advocating for diverse perspectives

Philipp Wolf, a visual effects producer and advocate for including neurodivergent people in the industry, suggests work environments would benefit from including a larger diversity of perspectives.

“The difference of perspective is what makes us human. Whether you realize it or not, you’re already working with neurodivergent people. So, it’s about allowing people to do what they do best and creating an environment where everyone can participate by including a diversity of perspectives in the decision-making process.”

For Wolf, the priority is to create spaces where psychological security is guaranteed, and where workers can share their needs and express how they’re feeling without fear of reprisal.

First camera assistant Yasmine Amor, who has worked extensively with professionals of diverse abilities, agrees. “We have to think about our industry in a way that includes all these people, because they have things to contribute on creative and logistical levels…. This also offers an opportunity for us to review our ways of working, and question our work rhythms and operations, which don’t really align with a healthy work-life balance,” she says, adding such a review would be beneficial for everyone.

The weight of representing a community

For director and screenwriter Maryse Legagneur, the recent increase in opportunities for creators from historically underrepresented groups allows stories that have been missing from screens to be seen.

But this creative freedom can come with a tradeoff. “Personal stories are often going to retraumatize us, and depicting this traumatizing experience can cause suffering,” she says.

Conscious of the burnout that affects the film industry’s Afro-descendant women in particular, Legagneur wanted to contribute to their healing by creating La Maison d’Erzulie.

“I made the choice to go live out in the country, two hours from Montreal, and I created a welcoming studio there to offer a retreat. I like the word retreat. Withdrawing oneself, placing oneself in a benevolent space. And these aren’t performative retreats…. I’ve had the opportunity to host three women who have stayed here, which was very beneficial for them, and for me as well.”

According to Xavier Watso, an animator and social media content creator, the emotional toll is real. Even after telling the story of his grandmother, who survived the boarding schools, dozens of times, the emotion is still strong.

“I’ve given this speech more than 60 times,” he says. “And each time I tell her story, I cry. I can’t help myself.”

Despite the abundance of hateful comments on social media (that he’s decided to ignore), the platform has become a way for Watso to meet other Indigenous creators, share experiences, and build a large, supportive community that didn’t exist before.

Julie O’Bomsawin, a producer and founder of Kassiwi Média, is working to ensure that Indigenous stories get told. Her mission is to create an Indigenous talent pool, which requires — apart from technical skills — time, mentorship and a respectful environment.

“We have to find a way to create flexibility within projects so people are well-treated when they’re learning,” she says.

How to make workplaces healthier

The solutions proposed by the nine professionals interviewed require collaboration between producers, better planning, integrating certain support roles from a project’s start, more flexible norms, better-supported training experiences, and environments designed to welcome a broader diversity of realities.

“The hours are long. And at the same time, that’s what pays,” says Paul-François Sampson, a set technician. “So, that’s always the compromise we have to make. Do we want to make money or have a life?”

He believes other approaches are possible — better planning, increasing teams when necessary, and shortening workdays.

“I know we’re in an industry that needs to make money,” says Amor. “But is money the only way to measure return? Or is it also measured by the pool of talent we create, the social cohesion, the strength of the culture we develop, the feeling of belonging, and the ways in which young people are going to advance towards their futures? I think that’s an important form of wealth as well.”

The post How’s mental health in the film and TV industry? Professionals weigh in appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

After working as an actor, director and producer, Jen Viens is now a certified intimacy coordinator. In this interview, they discuss how this relatively new role has evolved on set, the emotional weight of the work, and why safe sets matter for the entire industry.

The post [VIDEO] Mental Health in Focus: a conversation with Jen Viens appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Veteran writer/director Mina Shum returns to the big screen with Whatcha Want, her love letter to female empowerment, community and the joy of dance.

Spend any time with Mina Shum, and you can’t help but be carried away by her enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm for making films, her hometown of Vancouver, and life itself.

The veteran writer/director burst onto the Canadian film scene in 1994 with her debut feature Double Happiness, which starred a young Sandra Oh as a woman trying to keep her traditional Chinese father happy while she pursued an acting career.

It was an exuberant and personal film that announced Shum’s arrival alongside a host of filmmakers, including Atom Egoyan, Patricia Rozema, Jean-Claude Lauzon, Deepa Mehta, Bruce McDonald and Robert Lepage, who transformed the 1990s into a golden age of Canadian filmmaking.

It’s been almost a decade since Shum’s last feature film, 2017’s Meditation Park, although she has been working non-stop in TV.

She returns to the big screen with Whatcha Want, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month and stars Isabella Wei as a young wife who moves from Hong Kong to Vancouver. Her rich husband (Hugh Tran) remains in Hong Kong, and when she realizes he is being unfaithful she joins a local dance studio and begins a journey of empowerment.

Shum was in her Vancouver office when we chatted by phone.

Your team has said the elevator pitch for Whatcha Want is Crazy Rich Asians meets Flashdance. Is that accurate?

Yes. And one of my mixers, a man, said it's a dance movie that’s a scathing indictment of the patriarchy. The only thing is the elevator pitch doesn't tell you that the story is kind of deep.

Can you give us a brief synopsis of the film?

A young newlywed, played by Isabella Wei, is transplanted to Vancouver from Hong Kong by her billionaire husband. All her dreams come true; she was a middle-class girl raised by a single mom. But when she gets here, she realizes that she's living under his rules, which includes this age-old tradition of mistresses. She finds out that he's just going to do this, and at the same time she sees a dance studio across the street and goes in.

You know, it's not like she's not oppressed, but she breaks free through dance and through what opening your spirit can ignite. So, it's this very joyful empowerment movie inside something that's dark. I could have made a broccoli version [i.e., good for you] of this movie where it's just like, ‘Oh, it's so hard for her being so oppressed by her husband,’ but instead I’ve made this because I want people to feel empowered. That's the big thing. I need that. We need that.

It also deals with the immigration experience.

Right. It’s about coming here and finding people, finding community through dance, which led me to be able to cast a wonderfully diverse cast because in Vancouver any time you go to a dance studio it's a lot of BIPOC, a lot of mix. It’s me looking at immigration, looking at different characters and where they're at. They're not all at the same level of immigration and being here so that was really fun.

Have you been living with this story for a while, or did it just pop into your head?

I've been dancing for a long time and during the pandemic we couldn't dance together. I wrote this during the pandemic and something about not being able to do that sparked that initial, “Wow, I feel really deeply about this.” What does that mean, and what’s that like? I'm always thinking story. I'm always thinking about characters. Who are you? What are you doing? Why are you standing there? [Laughs.]

So, that came to my head, and then with Me Too and Black Lives Matter, I saw how we're hurting. It felt really important to uplift with this story of oppression. We grow up with so many codes of behaviour, for women especially. I've seen it a million times, like how strong women will succumb to some code that was never theirs, they never decided.

Looking at the titles of many of your films I am struck by the positivity and peacefulness of them. Double Happiness, Long Life, Happiness & Prosperity, Meditation Park. I feel like you are chasing joy with your films.

I feel like that's one of the things the power of story has — this ability for us to be uplifted by someone else's journey. I also believe our triumph over pain is often through humour and love.

I might get away with a career where I don't have to murder anyone [laughs]. Where I don’t have to kill zombies or anything like that. It’s for my own heart because I can't watch that stuff. I believe it, and then I have nightmares and that's no fun.

I think it’s something about my upbringing. My mom telling me English fairy tales in Cantonese. She'd act out the parts. We had nothing, we were living in a tenement house sharing a bathroom and she’s Cinderella and she's the voices of the stepsisters. I remember the smile on her face. There's something about story being salvation and I know that art can uplift because I've experienced it.

You’ve been a director for more than 30 years. What’s the one thing you’ve gotten better at?

What have I gotten better at? Everything! I will say shooting in multiple situations in different scenarios — documentaries, television, episodic, movies of the week — having that experience behind you can make you a savvier shooter. You just know how to do it faster and that's really what it’s about because there’s never enough time, so I feel that has benefited me. Strategically thinking about what kind of ship you're building, how it's going to get built and where you're putting the precious goods and all that stuff.

So, you second guess yourself less?

I don't tend to second guess myself because that's just suffering to me [laughs]. I lead from instinct. You can hand me two gloves that are blue, and I can tell you which one is better and why. Someone might have a suggestion that betters my idea, I am always open for that. I also give myself permission to turn around and go, “That's not working. Let's do this.”

Whatcha Want, like most of your films, celebrates your beloved hometown of Vancouver. What is it about Vancouver that inspires you?

Well, we shot a lot of the film in Victoria. Victoria as Vancouver just because we found some sets there that we fell in love with, like the dance studio. It's a way of making your dollar go longer, it’s getting expensive to shoot in Vancouver. But I brought my Vancouver-ness with me [laughs].

To answer your question, it’s the place where I belong. To me, Vancouver is this lovely sound when you're on the beach and the waves are just slightly lapping, and you hear seven different languages, three you can't even identify. We live in a city like that. To me, that is very cool.

The post Mina Shum’s ‘Whatcha Want’ chooses joy appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Abenaki producer Julie O’Bomsawin and her production studio Kassiwi Média deliver their very first Indigenous series for youth, Nish. O’Bomsawin tells us why she’s so proud of this ambitious project and explains the challenges of getting it made.

Upon graduating from L'Université du Québec à Montréal, better known as UQAM, in the early 2000s, Julie O’Bomsawin had a clear goal in mind. “I always say I do what I do out of respect for those who came before me, and to create a path for future generations,” shares the producer from the W8banaki of Odanak Nation. After graduation she kept thinking about her grandfather’s stories, which reminded her how laws and discrimination had smothered Indigenous identities and cultures for decades.

To give voice to those stories, she chose a path rarely travelled by people from her community: cinema and television.

After working as an assistant director and script supervisor on numerous projects, in 2015 O’Bomsawin started her own production company, Kassiwi Média. “The reason I became a producer wasn’t to produce, but because there were stories I wanted to see on screen that I didn’t see,” she says. “And so I thought, what could be better than producing them myself, allowing them to come to life?”

After producing a few documentaries and her first feature film, Captain, released earlier this year, O’Bomsawin is proud to release her most recent production, the youth series Nish. Financed with support from the Canada Media Fund, the series is available on September 22 on Tou.tv, with dates for Radio-Canada and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) to follow.

Focusing on Indigenous kids’ daily lives

Adapted from a series of novels by the Wendat author Isabelle Picard, Nish means “two” in the Innu language. The show recounts the lives of twins Éloïse and Léon, who live out in the middle of nature in Matimekosh, in Quebec’s Côte-Nord region. The title also refers to their two Indigenous identities, as their father is a local Innu man, while their mother comes from the Wendake community in Quebec City.

“We don’t see a lot of these young people in Indigenous series, at least not in Quebec,” says O’Bomsawin. “I think it’s important, because it’s an age where identity forms. I see this adolescence as being quite radiant. These are young people dreaming to the beat of the area’s rhythm, playing hockey, experiencing their first loves, friendships, school, like all young people today.”

The challenges of shooting in the Innu language and community

O’Bomsawin is particularly happy that, while the series was shot in French, 20 percent of its dialogue is in the Innu language, a first for Quebec television. (APTN will present a version entirely dubbed in Innu.)

For the production to come together, they had to overcome several obstacles, starting with casting. It was impossible to imagine non-Indigenous actors playing the roles, so the team had to do a lot of groundwork. After hosting general auditions over video, the team went to Côte-Nord in search of potential actors. They decided to cast young Jean-Luc Shapatu Vollant and Emma Rankin, both originally from the region, to play the two main characters.

“The real challenge for a series is to have all these wonderful people become a family,” explains O’Bomsawin. “And so, before shooting, we got them together not just for a general rehearsal, but to create an opportunity to meet each other. When people have less experience you need to be sure the chemistry works. Everyone has their strengths, and things they have to work on so the series is believable and touches people.”

Another challenge was the distance. As the majority of Indigenous communities are in distant areas, shooting on site quickly increases production costs. Since Nish was filmed in Matimekosh, Pessamit (near Baie-Comeau), and Wendake, the financing was complicated, even before you consider that part of the story takes place in snow. You have to be open to compromises, like operating with a smaller team.

The process was long, but O’Bomsawin kept the faith. “At the beginning of the project so many people said to me, ‘How are you going to do it?’ And I said, ‘Well, we’re going to do things one step at a time, and we’ll get there.’ It’s important this series exists, that it has an impact, and that young people can watch it and recognize themselves.”

Training the next Indigenous wave for the TV industry

While applauding recent advances in the quantity and quality of Indigenous content, O’Bomsawin is conscious that, more than ever, TV production requires unyielding passion. That’s why she committed herself to the industry, to facilitate financing for stories both fictional and documentary. She firmly believes in the strength of the collective, and the path she’s chosen.

“Television is powerful. It’s an exceptionally strong medium because you can stumble onto us without having planned to watch. When we enter into people’s living rooms, when they pause on a project we made and we move them with a story, I find something incredible in that, in our ability to understand each other.”

For her, production is a true calling. It allows her to reflect contemporary Indigenous realities, and also to amplify voices, allowing artists from the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people to gain experience.

“I’ve never counted my hours,” she says. “When I founded Kassiwi Média I was the only First Nations person on the team. I built from the ground up and the goal is for us to grow. Kassiwi means ‘together.’ So I try to train up the next wave to the best of my abilities so the pool of Indigenous professionals grows. My dream is for there to be a full Indigenous team one day. It’s not possible yet, unfortunately, but we’re working hard on it.”

The post With ‘Nish’, Julie O’Bomsawin gives Indigenous youth TV a big boost appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

At 36 years old, comedian Arnaud Soly realizes he’s older than he feels. From the TV of his childhood to today’s streaming and online content, he’s watched the entertainment landscape transform. Now, as part of the Canada Media Fund/Telefilm campaign C’est à NOUS!, he’s inspiring young people to discover content, old and new, that was made right here.

Even though Arnaud Soly has “cut the cord” at home, screens still play an important role in his life. He's catching up on several Quebec TV series and discovering children's shows with his 4- and 6-year-old daughters. When his busy life as a father allows, he goes to the Beaubien Cinema, a few steps from his Montreal home.

“Even if technology has completely changed how we consume content, I still watch a lot of what’s made here,” he says. “I think it’s because I belong to a generation that grew up with [the now defunct] Canal Famille and VRAK.TV, and got the internet later.”

Viewing habits have changed since the demise of those TV channels, especially for young people. According to the report Québec Survey on Cultural Leisure and Entertainment, which was completed by the Institut de la statistique du Québec in 2024, 64 percent of Quebecers aged 15 to 29 primarily watch TV content that’s not from Quebec.

So it made sense for Soly, a comedian and content creator who’s popular with Quebec teens and millennials, to become the spokesperson for the online discovery campaign C’est à NOUS! (It’s OURS!), created by the Canada Media Fund in partnership with Telefilm Canada to help people find Canadian content.

“The mission of showcasing work from here is completely aligned with my values,” he says. “For me, it’s important to support our [film and TV] industry because it’s unique, and it really is a part of our culture.”

From newcomer to big brother

For the past few days, Soly has been posting short, funny videos to social media (both his own and the campaign’s) that riff off memorable scenes and characters from beloved Canadian films, series and video games. He’s putting the spotlight on older gems that made an impression on him, and new content that’s caught his eye.

He’s not the only one. Soly is joined by content creators Douaa Kachache, Emy Lalune, Pascale de Blois, Thomas Bédard, Tommy-Lee Salvas, Zoé Duval and Rosalie Vaillancourt (the spokesperson for the previous NOUS campaign), who are creating similar videos, sometimes solo, and sometimes as group sketches.

You can watch the first videos here, here and here.

“I’m happy to collaborate with this digital team, which I like, and I find funny and bright. I’ve been doing comedy for almost 10 years. I was always the kid, the internet guy. It wasn’t until recently that I realized I’ve acquired a certain notoriety, and I’m not really the newcomer anymore,” says the man who was named Discovery of the Year at the 2021 Olivier Awards Gala, which celebrates Quebec’s comedy industry.

Soly sees his fellow content creators as allies who can speak to young people and have a good grasp of online norms. With their help, he can reach audiences traditional publicity campaigns can’t.

“Young people don’t watch as much TV anymore, so they don’t necessarily see the ads for a series or film,” says Soly. “Today, a series often has to use the internet to reach us. And to create engagement there needs to be an online conversation about it, as was the case for Empathie and Vitrerie Joyal, among others.”

Humour as a way in

When he wants to get a reaction, Soly draws on his strengths — impersonations, dubbing, fake commercials and parodies. “Humour is a tone that works really well on social media; it can be short and catchy,” he says. “I think it’s a great way into our culture.”

Soly should know. He won Humorous Web Sketch of the Year for his parody Arnaud Jolicoeur, courtier hypothécaire (Arnaud Jolicoeur, mortgage broker) at the 2025 Olivier Gala. And his parody show, Club Soly, boosted his popularity on network TV and online.

“For the C’est à NOUS! campaign, though, I didn’t want to impose any judgements, or demonize American Netflix content, like Stranger Things. One doesn’t exclude the other,” he says. “Instead, I wanted young people to say, ‘Oh, I didn’t see this Canadian series,’ or ‘I don’t get the references from this Quebecois film, but it looks good and that makes me want to know more.’”

Changing cultural habits

Soly knows it’s difficult to change cultural habits overnight. He thinks part of the solution is to foster a love of local content from childhood, with help from parents. “The more kids learn about work from here at an early age, the more they’ll want to watch it growing up. These habits are going to stick with them for a long time,” he says.

He’s seen this phenomenon with his own kids, who are big Télé-Québec viewers, and even with his friend’s teenagers, who listen to albums by the 1970s French-Canadian rock band Harmonium, thanks to influence from friends and family.

“In Canada, and especially in Quebec, we really have our own culture, a culture that strikes a chord with us and allows us to recognize ourselves on screen,” he says. “It’s important to take care of it.”

The post Arnaud Soly uses humour to promote our culture   appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Visitors to TIFF: The Market’s inaugural Innovation Hub can experience how extended reality (XR) is helping artists Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and James Monkman share Indigenous culture in a way that goes beyond traditional film and art.

Multidisciplinary artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory thinks back to 2018, the first time she saw a virtual reality (VR) film. Biidaaban: First Light, from Indigenous filmmaker Lisa Jackson, depicted a downtown Toronto reclaimed by nature. “It really blew me away how she immersed you into the poetry of the world,” she says.

Williamson Bathory, who has Greenlandic, Canadian and Inuit roots, already had an extensive background in theatre, poetry and short art films when she decided to wade into VR, one component of extended reality (XR), which also includes augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR).

A political satire performance piece she’d written based on her own fictional story, We Are a Nation of Lovers, inspired the plot, which centres on the flamboyant woman president of a fictionalized version of Tartupaluk, the real 1.2-square-kilometre island that lies between Greenland and Nunavut and is also known as Hans Island after the Greenlandic Inuk explorer Hans Hendrik. In Williamson Bathory’s tale, the president invites lovers from various nations that have laid claim to Tartupaluk to join together and create a utopian republic.

"My co-producers and I cooked up the idea of making it into a VR film,” explains Williamson Bathory. “So, it is really a cross-section of theatre and film and an immersive environment.”

The production began as an eight-minute prototype titled Tartupaluk which, in 2023, exhibited at the Venice Film Festival, Arctic Arts Summit, imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival and Berlinale. “It got a lot of foot traffic at the Berlinale,” Williamson Bathory recalls. “They’d never had so many people come to the exhibition space ever, so we knew we were on to something.”

From there, Williamson Bathory and her team of co-creators went to work. Montreal-based film and XR studio Scintilla, Greenlandic-Danish production company Ánorâk Film, Montreal animation studio E.D.FILMS, and Khora, a VR and AR studio in Copenhagen, combined their talents to create the 360-degree environment of Tartupaluk. The eight-minute prototype became the first of six chapters in the 31-minute piece, which audience members experience by wearing a VR headset with headphones.

Learning to think a different way

Williamson Bathory admits there was a learning curve to grasping a new, technology-forward medium. “When we first started having meetings, I felt like I had to open up my cranium when they were asking me creative questions,” she says. “But I got the hang of it.”

The bulk of live-action filming took place in the summer of 2025 in Iqaluit, where Williamson Bathory is based. Filming in Northern Canada came with challenges — less infrastructure and higher costs, to name a few — but it was a must for Williamson Bathory. “The city and the land and the community give us such a creative edge that what we create here isn’t possible anywhere else,” she explains.

One potential hurdle came with their plan to film on an island accessible only by an hour-long boat ride from Iqaluit. “The sea ice stayed in place until the day before we were due to go filming,” Williamson Bathory recounts. “My co-producers said we needed to have a Plan B and C but, sure enough, the ice broke and we were the first boat to get out onto the water. We had an absolutely gorgeous day filming on the island.”

After live-action filming was complete, the production team went to work layering animation, music and other technologies onto the film to create an immersive, interactive experience. In one chapter, the Northern Lights surround the island. “You’re given the choice of making the Northern Lights come closer to the ground or getting them to lift up back into the sky,” says Williamson Bathory. They also transformed footage of Iqaluit-based actors into figures animated within the Northern Lights.

Ceremony as art

Immersive artist James Monkman is also discovering how such immersive art can be used to share his Cree roots. While his background is in art direction, in film, TV, animation and visual FX, Monkman discovered immersive art when working with key collaborator Brian T. Moore on Indigenous architect Douglas Cardinal’s installation UNCEDED: Voices of the Land for the 2018 Venice Biennale. “I really got excited about how we could share Indigenous stories and ways of knowing in an immersive context,” Monkman says.

During the pandemic, Monkman worked as the artistic director on filmmaker Ahnahktsipiitaa’s VR piece This is Not a Ceremony. Monkman and his partner in both work and life, Renée Kwan Monkman, who studied Cree cosmology, theology and philosophy, were inspired. James and Brian T. Moore thought about how they could create an immersive environment, but one that could be experienced in a communal way.

Making interactive installations mobile and modular

Mekwâc: “Now Is Good” is an installation created and directed by Monkman in collaboration with Renée Monkman, Brian T. Moore and Nigel Irwin, inspired by traditional Indigenous ceremony and deliberately designed to be mobile and modular. “We started thinking about form and Indigenous ways of knowing and how the circle is so important,” Monkman explains. That resulted in the creation of a 24-foot-wide circular theatre for a 360-degree experience that could be set up almost anywhere. “All we really need is a plug, a 30-foot-by-30-foot room and 12-foot ceilings,” he explains.

The installation takes visitors through four stages of life: they begin in the womb, are born into an underwater world teeming with sea creatures, move to adolescence in a forest with bears, wolves and eagles, adulthood is a prairie with buffalo, then they drop back into the earth in a web of mycelium and enter the spirit world to return to the womb. The whole cycle lasts 23 minutes, but it’s designed to be looped so audience members can enter and exit at any point.

Mekwâc’s interactivity is important. Alongside 13 projectors (13 is significant in Cree culture), there are four LiDAR (light detecting and ranging) sensors that respond to participants. For example, stepping on various rocks in the forest world makes different animals appear. And in the spirit world, mycelial fibres react and move toward participants. “You get to experience the piece more when you’re with someone else,” notes Kwan Monkman. “You see how they’re acting and how the space reacts to them.”

The installation debuted in the summer of 2025 at Collision Gallery in Toronto’s Financial District.

Growing awareness of XR art

Monkman says it was a challenge, at first, to explain his immersive projects. “When you start saying it’s an Indigenous experience that uses multi-projection, people can kind of glaze over until you show them something,” he says. But awareness is growing. This year, both Mekwâc and Tartupaluk will be part of TIFF: The Market’s inaugural Innovation Hub, which is being presented in partnership with the Canada Media Fund.

Monkman says more distinct funding and distribution pathways for immersive art can help the medium succeed. “Most of the funding strategies are still geared towards film and TV,” he says. “So anything that’s deemed immersive is put in this giant pool of other things that are very different from each other, and that can be a diluting factor.”

Ultimately, for both Monkman and Williamson Bathory, XR is a unique way to share Indigenous stories with the world beyond traditional film, TV and art. And if the success of their work is any indication, the demand is out there. “I think there's a real appetite for immersive stories,” Monkman says. “I think people are really hungry for authenticity right now, and people want rich, dynamic, authentic experiences.”

The post Immersive storytelling: How two Indigenous creators are exploring the XR landscape appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

We catch up with the creators and stars of the hit comedy North of North and find out what to expect in the second season, including a trip south, and why they think their Inuit-led series resonates with viewers worldwide.

Sitting across from North of North’s showrunners, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril and Stacey Aglok MacDonald, and executive producer Miranda de Pencier, you see three grateful women.

The first season of their uplifting comedy set in the fictional Inuit community of Ice Cove charmed audiences and critics alike. Airing on CBC Gem, APTN and Netflix (the latter reported the show cracked its top 10 in 33 countries and earned almost 9 million global views in its first few months), North of North earned a coveted 100 percent fresh score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

A few hours after finishing this interview, the team won Best Comedy Series at this year’s Canadian Screen Awards, one of nine wins from among their 20 nominations.

But, right now, North of North’s cast and creators are here at this downtown Toronto hotel to talk to the press about what happens next.

Season two hits small screens in September, starting with APTN+ on September 1, followed by CBC TV, CBC Gem and APTN TV on September 8.

One wonders if the team is feeling the pressure of high expectations.

“I felt so much pressure season one, making a brand-new thing and not knowing how our community would react to it, or whether the world would even care,” says Arnaquq-Baril.

“Well, the one pressure is we got that 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score in season one, so now it’s ‘aaahhh,’” adds de Pencier with a laugh.

“This season was a lot more fun and easier,” continues Arnaquq-Baril. “Not that it was easy, but we felt like we were going to die in season one [laughs]. This season we were really able to enjoy the process. To know who we were working with and how much they care about the show and care about the vision we have to try and make it what it is.”

“We are still leading with comedy and heart,” adds Aglok MacDonald. “I think a major thing for us is, as much as we love to laugh, we love to feel things and explore things that are real in our lives that aren’t just fun and antics but have real stakes to them. So that’s something we are maintaining in tone throughout season two.”

Moving beyond Ice Cove

Filmed in Iqaluit, Nunavut, the series follows irrepressible Siaja (Anna Lambe), a young wife and mother who makes the bold decision to leave her self-obsessed husband Ting (Kelly William) to carve out her own path in the world. Juggling childcare, the opinions of her harsh mother Neevee (Maika Harper) and working for the community she loves, Siaja is a combination of beloved TV characters Leslie Knope and Lucy Ricardo — a well-meaning community leader who gets herself into sticky situations.

The new season [SPOILER ALERT!] sees Siaja leave Ice Cove and head south in search of the sister she never knew she had.

For lead actors Lambe and Harper, the secret-sister plot development (revealed in the first season’s final episode) surprised them as much as it did viewers. The pair was on hand for the press day, not knowing they, too, would walk away as winners at the Canadian Screen Awards later that night. Lambe earned the prize for Best Lead Performer (Comedy) and Harper picked up the Best Supporting Performer (Comedy) award.

“So much of the plot was kept under wraps and you would find out as you went along with the scripts,” says Lambe. “So finding out about the sister reveal I was crying and shaking, and I remember texting Stacey and Alethea and Miranda and saying, ‘Guys, whaaa! Oh my god.’”

“It was so much fun to learn about that big revelation because we really didn’t know what was going to happen, as we were reading scripts as we went,” adds Harper. “And I think we were also learning our tone as well; we weren't quite sure about the tone yet, so all of it was a learning curve.”

One of the show’s strongest elements is the relationship between Siaja and Neevee. Siaja wants her mother to open up emotionally while Neevee purposely holds back her feelings. Theirs is a complicated mother-daughter relationship, giving the actors so much to work with and explore together.

“Siaja and Neevee are so different, such different characters, such different people,” says Lambe. “But the vibration they operate at is so similar in intensity and emotion. And they are so bound by love, and they just express it so differently. I feel us showing up always ready to match each other’s energy with complete and full trust in one another makes working together so easy.”

“I think our two characters are so vulnerable together, so whenever we work together we’re ready to play ball,” adds Harper.

Season two ranges from melodrama to “clownlike comedy”

Siaja and Neevee’s journeys will undoubtedly take twists and turns this season. We wonder what new avenues the actors were most excited to explore.

“I think you really get to see where Siaja gets her clumsiness from,” Harper says with a smile.

“I was really excited that I got to lean so much into the drama,” reveals Lambe. “Drama is my bread and butter. I love it. It’s what started my career and one of the things I really enjoy diving into.

“I know some people find it so lame, but I love melodrama, I think it’s great,” she continues. “So, getting to lean so heavily into the emotions of this season and having so much space for it, and then also doing the intense, almost clownlike comedy of it all. There’s so much range.”

Range is exactly what we’re seeing with the breadth of high-quality series being produced by Canadian creators at the moment. Shows such as North of North, Heated Rivalry, Empathie and others raise the bar for the shows that follow.

So, what is the secret sauce being poured into our shows that’s making them so good?

“I think Canada’s good at being funny and making people feel feelings and caring about each other,” says Arnaquq-Baril. “Canada invests in its culture, too. We have a publicly funded arts system, and I think that is why we punch above our weight on the global stage.”

The post ‘North of North’ heads south appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Far from big Canadian cities, the audiovisual industry in Canada’s East navigates with limited financing, training and distribution infrastructure. But the region’s creators persist by relying on their communities, festivals, international co-productions and, above all, their proud, singular voices.

The Atlantic provinces certainly don’t want for talent. Take the film Sk+te'kmujue'katik (At the Place of Ghosts), directed by bretten hannam, a Nova Scotia filmmaker. After its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2025, the Canada/Belgium co-production, which explores Mi’kmaq and Two-Spirit realities, screened at the Atlantic International Film Festival (AIFF) in Halifax, where it received the Gordon Parsons Award for Best Atlantic Feature.

This achievement wasn’t easy, as the region’s creators have limited resources compared to the country’s large urban centres. International co-productions, as was the case for this film, can sometimes mitigate this scarcity. Such co-productions provide larger budgets, new audiences and wider visibility.

Chrissy King-Lopes, industry programs director at AIFF and leader of the AIFF Partners (the festival’s co-productions market), is very familiar with this situation. “Co-productions are what we specialize in,” she says. “Our festival allows the folks that are looking for these co-production partners to meet and talk about their projects.”

We met with King-Lopes, as well as other filmmakers and thought leaders from Atlantic Canada’s screen industry, at three of the region’s notable festivals last fall — AIFF, Lunenburg Doc Fest, and the Festival international du cinéma francophone en Acadie (FICFA) — to understand how the industry survives, despite facing such strong headwinds.

Related: Our video series, East Coast in Focus

Swimming upstream

Like everywhere, the Maritime region is subject to rising production costs and the surge in streaming platforms, as well as a scarcity of greenlights for their projects. But these factors only add to other long-existing pressures.

Educational, provincial broadcasters are absent in the region, in contrast to Quebec, Ontario or British Columbia, where Télé-Québec, TVO, TFO and the Knowledge Network can be counted on. “This lack is particularly felt for the documentarists,” says Julian Carrington, executive director of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), who was attending the Lunenburg Doc Fest for the first time.

“These broadcasters are key players in the documentary space elsewhere in the country,” continues Carrington. “So it raises the question, how do we address that gap and ensure that creators in the Atlantic region are able to work with broadcasters that can help them build the budgets that they need to tell these stories?”

The inequity is also felt by francophone communities outside Quebec, like in New Brunswick.

“We don’t have all the financial structures to support a budget as we would in Quebec because there’s no equivalent of the Society for the Development of Cultural Enterprises [SODEC],” says director/screenwriter Julien Cadieux at FICFA in Moncton. “Even the regional institutions are less expensive.”

He does welcome the agreement signed by Telefilm Canada in 2025, which promises to allocate five percent of its francophone-content budget to productions outside Quebec.

While in Moncton, we also met with Acadian filmmaker Phil Comeau at his home. Sitting in his kitchen, he talked about how few feature films have been made in Acadia over the past 50 years. “I feel like the financial backers are now realizing that we, too, have enough actors to tell good stories,” he says.

Comeau is concerned, however, by the lack of provincial financing, which slows the industry’s development in the region and pushes creators to leave New Brunswick in the slower months due to lack of work.

Festivals as regional pillars

Though opportunities to meet financial backers and distributors are rare in the region, local festivals offer access to representatives of organizations like Radio-Canada or the Canada Media Fund. And, in contrast to larger festivals like TIFF, these events are intimate, and so better for this type of meeting.

“It's important for the Atlantic-Canadian filmmakers to gather, because it's a diverse and spread-out region,” says Walter Forsyth, festival director at Nova Scotia’s Lunenburg Doc Fest.

Certain festivals, like FICFA, also serve as a learning ground for emerging filmmakers. “There’s no francophone training program in cinema at a college or university level in the New Brunswick region,” says Mélanie Clériot, FICFA’s director. “And so we serve as some sort of a solution by offering development opportunities, programs, producing projects, etc.”

Thanks to FICFA’s Short Film Assistance Program, Haqq Brice Adéoyé, a multidisciplinary artist based in Moncton, was able to adapt one of his slam poems for the big screen. His film C’est La Nature! La Solution (Nature is the Solution!) screened at the festival this year. “The audiovisual dimension develops the story of the slam further, and adds to its impact,” says Adéoyé. “That’s why I gravitated towards film, to better share my point of view.”

Building a network differently

Creative communities on the East Coast may be smaller or more spread out than those in the big cities, but they are unified.

During a chat at the Halifax Public Gardens during the AIFF, Nova Scotia filmmaker Stephanie Joline talks of less competition, more mutual aid, and an honest desire to celebrate each other’s success. “That's how I started in the industry; working for free on my friends’ short films, and they worked for free on mine,” she says. “And then we all developed those skills together.”

Erica Meus-Saunders, filmmaker and executive director at the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative (AFCOOP), an inclusive community organization that supports emerging creators, agrees. “Because it’s a smaller community people are so much more invested and invested in you. Once people get to know you, and see that you’re serious and invested in community, everybody comes forward,” she says.

More than regional voices

The creators we spoke with think the region’s geographic position contributes to the uniqueness of its stories. But when it comes to funding, they’re still coming up against significant barriers.

“Our point of view on the world is perhaps not as popular, because we fit into a ‘regional content’ box for a distributor. However, as Acadians, we can also have our point of view on the world,” says Cadieux.

“It’s important for me to show many versions of Acadia,” the filmmaker says. “Yes, you have to protect the Acadian language and culture, but it’s seeing how we can reimagine Acadia. What is the Acadia of tomorrow?”

The Atlantic Canada of tomorrow

New voices are being heard, including that of Shayne Michael, screenwriter from the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation, who’s behind Enfant de méduse, Wolastoqey, a Tou.tv series that explores identity, racism and homophobia. “I never saw a series that was both Wolastoqey and Acadian. I said to myself, finally, we’ve made one,” says Michael, a few hours before his series premieres at FICFA.

Provincial support is crucial to produce more films and series like Michael’s, but it remains scarce in the region.

Newfoundland and Labrador seem to be an exception. “We generate and attract about $100 million in production annually, with a population of just 500,000,” says Laura Churchill, CEO of PictureNL, the province’s official film office.

Related: For St. John’s, good things come in threes

Thanks to industry support programs in Newfoundland and Labrador, including a tax credit that covers 40 percent of eligible production fees, the province also attracts projects from elsewhere.

It’s a model other Atlantic provinces are watching from afar, waiting for their own governments to follow suit.

The post Despite strong headwinds and rough seas, the Atlantic provinces continue to create appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

To stay relevant to teens, Télé-Québec is evolving its MAMMOUTH brand — previously known for broadcasting specials to young audiences — for a new era. With MAMMOUTH: le studio, Quebec’s public broadcaster is abandoning televised galas in favour of social media content. We look at how and why they made the shift.

On YouTube and TikTok, MAMMOUTH: le studio’s shorts are gradually becoming a regular part of Quebec teens’ digital habits. In one, young Noura takes a trip to a clothing store and comments on outfits as she tries them on between aisles. In another, Ryad shares five tips for taking part in sports while on a five-kilometre run.

Previously, the MAMMOUTH brand was best known for the year-end gala La Soirée MAMMOUTH, an annual show for young people that ran on Télé-Québec, Quebec’s public educational broadcaster, from 2017 to 2024 and celebrated the events and issues of that year with sketches, parodies and musical performances.

Since March, the new Télé-Québec project MAMMOUTH: le studio has instead provided an incubator for 10 young people, including Noura and Ryad, to take their first digital steps while learning from industry professionals. Together, they form the first cohort of MAMMOUTH: le studio.

Selected through a competition launched in collaboration with Quebec-based media group URBANIA, these budding content creators share their perspectives on YouTube and TikTok, platforms they’re already using daily. Over the course of a year, they will explore diverse themes — from humour to history to cooking — using language and references specific to their generation.

The goal is to reach 13- to 17-year-olds with content that emphasizes interaction and an exchange of ideas.

“The MAMMOUTH brand has existed since 2017,” explains Marysol Charbonneau, director of youth and family programming for Télé-Québec. “It’s known different iterations over the years, including La Soirée MAMMOUTH and the Bal MAMMOUTH [a virtual prom broadcast for high school grads during COVID]. Although we’ve had success with these televised gatherings, they were mostly reaching families and young adults. To reach teens, we had to reinvent the brand without abandoning MAMMOUTH’s core values, which are about developing civic awareness.”

Teens are abandoning traditional media

MAMMOUTH’s repositioning is part of a larger transformation in the industry — teenagers are mostly abandoning traditional media in favour of digital platforms. According to a 2024 study from the University of Laval, 80 percent of Quebecers aged 13 to 17 watch videos online, and 81 percent have at least one social media account.

“Young people love social media because it gives them a feeling of control and independence; they can choose when, where, with whom and how they consume content,” says Nina Duque, a lecturer in the Department of Social and Public Communication at the University of Quebec in Montreal, and a researcher of adolescents’ digital practices.

“That’s where they test out their choices and construct their identity at a stage in their lives where they want to detach themselves from the family unit,” she says.

Another reason young people rarely watch linear television is that they no longer recognize themselves in it, says Duque. “Why would young people want to suddenly swap their cellphone for a TV that doesn’t move,” she asks. “The content is now integrated [into their digital universe], and that’s never going away.”

What teens want to hear

What are young people looking for on social media that they don’t find elsewhere? Spontaneous content that doesn’t seem staged or overly dramatic, says Duque.

“Teenagers don’t want to feel there’s an adult behind the words, and even less an adult trying to grab their attention with a line like, ‘Hey, you, kid!’” she says. “Instead, they want to hear something more confessional like, ‘Have you heard what happened to me today? It was completely crazy…’”

In response to these generational differences, MAMMOUTH: le studio focuses on accessible, spontaneous videos that relate to teenagers’ daily lives. “These are young people talking to other young people, so we don’t want to sterilize their messages or correct their mistakes in French,” says Charbonneau. “Anglicisms are part of their identity because the French language evolves according to immigration and the influences of globalization.”

The recruits also have a lot of freedom in the editorial process and their subject matter, though they are advised by a producer, called “nounou” (“nanny”), and a content manager from Télé-Québec.

“We don’t want to decide for them what interests them, concerns them, and makes them laugh,” says David Ostigny, director of editorial and social content at Télé-Québec. “If we impose our vision of what young people should like we risk making a mistake.”

And, contrary to popular belief, teenagers do like to learn and understand. Duque insists they are perfectly capable of watching long videos on YouTube, especially in the evenings, in their rooms, when they find a video that fits their needs. During the day, they tend toward a more fragmented, rapid consumption of content on social media, especially TikTok, a platform where 40 percent of Quebecers between the ages of six and 17 have an account, according to a joint investigation conducted by federal and provincial commissions for the protection of private life that was launched in 2023.

A new network logic

Traditionally, public broadcasters provided content on a fixed schedule hoping to attract viewers to their channels. Today, they have to be where their audiences are, on diverse platforms, at the right moment, and with relevant content.

In this diffuse model where everyone consumes and shares information, Duque says a broadcaster’s goal isn’t to reach all teenagers, it’s more about reaching influential teenagers who are capable of circulating content widely amongst their community.

Ostigny says that, since its launch, MAMMOUTH: le studio has reached its target audience.

The proof is in the comments from young consumers and the number of views, which surpass 100,000 for some TikTok videos. The next steps are aimed at increasing the project’s visibility and developing a loyal audience by using recurring personalities.

“There will be a second cohort of content creators next year, with the possible return of some previous ones. But it’s not our only conversation with 13- to 17-year-olds; other new initiatives will follow,” says Ostigny, without being able to elaborate at this time.

The post Télé-Québec brand MAMMOUTH evolves to keep young people watching  appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

Adam Paradis writes, directs, produces and stars in short films and vertical videos destined for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram, and — at just 20 years old — makes a living doing it. Now with financial support from the Canada Media Fund’s Digital Creators Pilot Program, he’s getting some help with his next project.

Adam Paradis was just 10 when he used his father’s camera to film his first video. Like all his friends, the young Quebecer dreamed of becoming a YouTube star.

“I was born in the 2000s. I grew up with YouTube much more than other media like TV,” says the content creator who, to be precise, was born in 2005.

Unlike his friends, Adam created his own channel and made consistency his trademark. To this day, he maintains a strict production schedule, creating a short film of about 10 to 20 minutes every two months and regularly posting short clips of about two minutes each on TikTok and YouTube. He does all of this under the slightly modified moniker Adam Paradisio, rather than Paradis.

A true one-man band, Paradis writes the films, shoots them, plays the main characters, and often does the editing.

Raising awareness and sharing his message

Paradis’ films frequently draw on dramatic techniques while tackling social issues like bullying, homelessness, war and the environment in a way that’s both serious and imaginative. At this year’s Gala Influence Création, which celebrates Quebec’s digital content creators, he won Video of the Year (Long Format) for Le Soldat (The Soldier), a 37-minute film that reflects on the cruelty and absurdity of war. He also took home the Francophone International Influence award at the show.

Paradis has nearly 2 million subscribers on YouTube, and more than 680,000 on Instagram. On TikTok, 3.7 million people follow him. His business is going so well he launched a second YouTube channel in June, simply called “Paradisio,” where he shares his more daring short films.

“I don’t use the social-network format to make inferior films,” says the young director. “I use the format to tell stories in a different way.”

Paradis received financial support from the Canada Media Fund (CMF)’s Digital Creators Pilot Program (DCPP) at the beginning of this year. These funds will allow him, for the first time, to hire a filming/editing team and rent professional equipment.

The film he plans to make with the funds is inspired by one of his previous vertical videos on TikTok, in which three soldiers from different time periods (all played by Paradis, a device he often employs) have a conversation. Shooting is scheduled to start this summer.

Vertical versus horizontal

Vertical videos, also called microseries or microdramas, are increasingly popular with viewers who watch on their phones. In spring 2026, Télé-Québec jumped on the bandwagon by releasing La mascotte du chaos, an 18-episode vertical microseries for teens on TikTok.

“It’s a way of looking at the phone that comes so naturally, it’s not going to change unless we invent a triangular telephone,” jokes Paradis.

Rarely exceeding two minutes, vertical videos are filmed specifically for cellphones in a 9:16 format. Paradis frequently shoots them for his TikTok channel and says the format lets him compose tight, static shots that emphasize the dialogue.

• Read more: Verticals on the rise

“I find there’s a style to static shots,” he says. “The eye isn’t drawn elsewhere as much. It’s already so stimulating to be in vertical with subtitles and constantly changing shots, so you really focus more on the character, on what’s being said.”

Paradis hasn’t completely abandoned the wide shots associated with television. He uses them for his longer short films and says vertical and horizontal modes can work nicely together.

“We have to stop thinking that one is going to take the other’s place,” he says. “I think people will always appreciate watching a long story shot horizontally for 30 minutes, an hour, or even two hours, but the fact remains that while they’re on the go, people will continue to appreciate a shorter format.”

Making a living from social media

After having spent more than half his life as a YouTuber, Paradis considers it to be “like any other job.” His revenue comes from YouTube views and ads for products on his channel. Last year, he says, he made $70,000. Not bad for a self-taught creator with a high school diploma.

Paradis reinvests almost all the money he makes into his video production. For his next short film, he’ll continue to invest his own money combined with the financing from the CMF. The difference is this time he’ll be able to concentrate on writing, directing and his performances, and leave the rest of the production side to his team.

“I want to be able to produce something more ambitious than usual as I’m also going to finance part of it,” says the content creator. He estimates it costs close to $20,000 to make a short film.

Paradis is proof that social networks are no longer just a springboard to traditional media. Some content creators are happy right where they are.

The post Why social media is the perfect fit for Adam Paradis’ short films appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

The Toronto International Film Festival is changing the way it does business with the introduction of TIFF: The Market. It’s a bold, large-scale initiative that brings together industry types from around the globe. We chat with the head of TIFF: The Market, Charles Tremblay, and TIFF’s chief programming officer, Anita Lee, about The Market’s offerings and why it was time for TIFF to go big.

If you build it, they will come.

Okay, that’s not the exact line from Field of Dreams (insert he for they), but it’s a perfect mantra for the team responsible for this year’s inaugural TIFF: The Market.

Running for seven days (September 10-16) during the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), TIFF: The Market brings the global film, series and innovation industries together in one location in the heart of downtown Toronto.

“The most important ingredients for making The Market work are to create a cost-effective and efficient platform for key players in the global industry to do business,” says Charles Tremblay, the event’s head of market, via email.

“The footprint, the programming, the events, all of the main aspects must be structured in a way that maximizes opportunities for buyers, sellers, creators and industry professionals to connect, generate exposure for multi-format projects, and acquire diverse content that appeals to audiences at home and abroad.”

And the entertainment world is responding.

“We listened to the sellers, who told us that having a broad base of buyers is a crucial value add for them, so we invited 200 buyers from every major region who have never been to TIFF before or haven’t attended in a while,” says Tremblay. “Thanks to recommendations from some of the industry’s leading sales agencies and national funding bodies in the world, we compiled a great list and had confirmations from more than 130 of these buyers from 49 countries by early June.”

Responding to the post-pandemic landscape

A few years ago, it became clear to TIFF’s chief programming officer, Anita Lee, that the entertainment industry had changed post-pandemic, and TIFF had an opportunity to change with it.

“The landscape had shifted significantly coming back after COVID,” she explains on the phone from Toronto. “The reality is that costs are so much more expensive, and the industry at large has to be much more efficient in the way it conducts its business. How much value does each market, or attending each festival, bring?

“What became apparent is TIFF, getting onto almost 50 years at that point, was already a festival that had a significant industry, or business, component.”

And no other North American film festival — Sundance, New York, Telluride — offers an official market.

“I always believed it was a missed opportunity to not have an official market attached to the largest public film festival in the world,” says Tremblay. “Many in the industry feel the same way, especially since there’s an eight-month gap between the Cannes and Berlin markets and both take place in Europe. With no major markets affiliated with a major festival in the fall and none in the Americas, there’s a significant void in both time and space.”

What the market includes

Creating the market was a huge undertaking. The team put together various offerings, including a Pitch Stage, where market-ready projects are presented.

There’s an IP Exchange, where “individuals and companies with intellectual property across publishing, brands, gaming and immersive media meet with film and series production companies and studios to option their stories,” explains Tremblay.

There’s a Talent Development Lab that will feature 50 percent Canadian producers and 50 percent International producers. The Summit presents conversations with influential leaders, including Warner Bros. co-chairs and CEOs Pam Abdy and Mike De Luca.

Tremblay is particularly excited about the innovative Market Screenings, which allow participants to customize their audience.

“These are a game changer for creators and producers,” Tremblay says. “It gives them the opportunity to get real-time feedback from both buyers and select audiences that include the demographics they are specifically targeting with their content. This feedback is an invaluable way to validate or refine their stories since the screenings can feature finished projects or works in progress.”

Advice for Canadian creators

TIFF: The Market offers Canadian creators the rare opportunity to present, sell, buy and develop their works here at home without travelling abroad. But navigating the programs can feel daunting, so Lee offers some advice.

“If you're going to apply to a program, do the research about the program. Make sure that you prepare your project and know what it is that you want to happen to the project. Ask yourself, are you looking for an investor? Are you looking for a co-producer? Are you looking for a distributor?

“This is such a relationship business. It may not be something that you can accomplish in one year. So, think further, look at your whole slate. Do you have a project that will need financing next year? Ask yourself, what are the key things that you can accomplish that are essentially going to ladder up your project.”

Tremblay couldn’t agree more.

“If a creator has a project they’re pitching, formally or informally, they should have premium materials and be able to explain their story in a clear and concise way. At The Market, creators should focus on relationship-building, which is different from simply mingling or networking. It’s about actively listening and having genuine conversations that help them secure follow-up meetings or calls.”

What is especially gratifying to The Market’s team is the fact that Canada’s entertainment industry is having its moment. The success of our series in particular — Heated Rivalry, Empathie, North of North — gives The Market added cachet.

“With the current global politics, and with our neighbour to the south, there is a little bit of a silver lining,” notes Lee. “Canada has a great reputation and there's significant trust in Canada right now. Our prime minister is very appealing to the world, and we are hearing from the Americans, who are a huge presence at the film festival, that timing-wise it could not be better that TIFF is hosting a new inaugural market because people are very interested in Canada as a trusted and open partner.”

TIFF: The Market Info

Pass Registration Benefits

The post Introducing TIFF: The Market appeared first on Canada Media Fund.

You’re watching a movie and a character throws his apple core in the compost bin before grabbing a reusable water bottle and hopping on his bike. Some screenwriters feel showing such actions on TV or in the movies can make a difference in the climate fight, and they think it’s possible to go even further.

“I like to call it planet placement, instead of product placement,” says Maureen Mondin. She’s talking about slipping good environmental habits into TV and cinema in a subtle way.

“Dialogue like, ‘Oh, it’s hot!’ ‘Oh yes, damn climate change!’ That’s not going to work, we can all agree,” she says, laughing.

The script editor and content producer offer training on environmentally friendly approaches to filmmaking, starting with the screenwriting stage. The sessions are organized by Rolling Green, the program that supports audiovisual production with its ecological transition. Since November, Mondin has trained 26 industry professionals in Montreal, and two more sessions are planned for the coming months.

She points to both subtle and more overt approaches screenwriters have used to speak green. On the one hand, there’s Florence Longpré’s Empathie, with its protagonist who uses bike-sharing, carpools and has a menstrual cup. On the other hand, there are films like Anne Émond’s Amour Apocalypse (Peak Everything), about a man who suffers from climate anxiety, that place the environmental crisis at the heart of the story.

Mondin also talks about the main character in Sophie Deraspe’s Bergers (Shepherds), who is disillusioned with his life in advertising and wants a different path. “His search for meaning is subtly mentioned but not stressed,” she says.

Author and screenwriter India Desjardins is part of this green wave. A devoted ecologist since her teens, she remembers being moved by an article about the lack of environmental content in Québécois TV series, highlighted in a 2022 report by the Conseil québécois des événements écoresponsables (CQEER).

The report analyzed 20 episodes from Québécois series. Several items deemed environmentally unfavourable were listed, including 11 SUV appearances and 31 single-use objects (straws, bags, cups, dishes). The CQEER recommended showcasing electric vehicles, active transportation, and reusable objects instead.

In Desjardins’ own film 23 décembre (Two Days Before Christmas), the writer insisted that characters take public transportation and not wear leather or fur. One character even takes the train between Montreal and Quebec.

Desjardins goes even further in the upcoming Hantée (Haunted), a comedic fantasy film that opens October 9. There’s compost on the counter, no meat, they cook tofu for supper. “It’s written into my script. Because if you don’t write it, it won’t necessarily be there. I wrote it so it’s integrated into their daily life, without being moralizing about it,” the writer explains.

Drawing from true stories

Some artists may feel uncomfortable with the practice, fearing their stories will become too preachy and simplistic. Mondin understands. But, in her training, she offers a different perspective. “The world is changing,” she says. “That’s a reality. Our scripts, our stories have to change with it.”

Desjardins was inspired by a true story for a subplot in Hantée. The film is about a family who buys a haunted house, but there’s a side story about a group of kids leading a fight to shrink the teachers’ parking lot in order to create a larger schoolyard. “I read about that in the newspaper and I just fell in love with these young people. I incorporated it into the film, in homage.”

Mondin also cites an episode from the Arctic-set series North of North, in which a funeral is cancelled because of an early ice melt. “It’s not the subject of the episode at all. But we’re in the Far North. That’s part of the characters’ daily life!”

Writers can also inspire audiences to simply do better. “The first step is banning harmful actions,” says screenwriter/producer Mélanie S. Dubois, who has led the Eco-Responsible Film Sets Management training at the Institut national de l’image et du son (INIS) for several years, one part of which is dedicated to eco-friendly practices on screen.

She recalls giving advice to a screenwriter who wanted their character to throw junk-food packaging out a car window. “You’re encouraging that type of action, rather than thinking about how you can display anger in a different way,” says Dubois.

Leading by example

Why show environmentally friendly practices on screen? To normalize it, insist all three women interviewed. “What we see on screen, in our ads, and in our culture, has a huge impact,” says Mondin.

We can draw a parallel to cigarettes. Smoking on screen encourages tobacco consumption in real life. According to a recent study by the American non-profit Truth Initiative, young people most exposed to cigarettes or vapes on screen had almost three times higher intentions to vape or smoke themselves the following year.

Mondin also draws a comparison to Jean-Marc Vallée’s 2005 film C.R.A.Z.Y., which changed attitudes toward homosexuality and, more recently, the series Heated Rivalry, which did the same within the world of professional hockey. She also points to our increased efforts toward diversity on screen over the past decade, saying, “Is it perfect today? No. Have we advanced? Yes.”

Desjardins thinks certain narrative reflexes are starting to feel dated, like the archetype of the annoying eco-friendly person everyone hates, or only mentioning vegetarian food as the butt of a joke. “Creators who are offended, who say it limits their freedom…I think it’s more limiting to do things as they’ve always been done.”

Finding creative solutions

Desjardins doesn’t think all screenwriters have to write environmental solutions into their scripts. She’s choosing to see this quest as a new creative path and is willing to make the additional effort in planning. After all, you can’t book a VIA Rail train car at a moment’s notice.

While everyone agrees the story should never be sacrificed for the sake of the environment, there are always solutions to be found. The film adaptation of the novel La déesse des mouches à feu (Goddess of the Fireflies) comes to mind for Dubois — the rain intensifies throughout the story, breaking into a storm near the end of the film. To waste less water, she explains, director Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette chose to drop the group scenes and tighten up the shots, the type of decision that can be written right into the script.

Dubois is adamant, the environmental transition concerns everyone, and everyone can find ways to help. “What are the steps? The characters are going to tell us. It’s film by film. It’s scene by scene,” she says.

She’s currently working on the animated film The Legend of Eliak, which follows a girl who’s the last human on Earth as she tries to bring the planet back to life. Dubois promises it won’t end on a depressing note. “I want my viewer to leave the movie theatre and go to bed that night saying, ‘I’m capable of changing the world.’”

The post What if our fictional heroes were more eco-friendly? appeared first on Canada Media Fund.