The YVR Screen Scene Podcast

Wildfire is a phenomenal, deeply moving, and heart-pounding five-part series that airs on Knowledge Network beginning on April 29. Filmed across British Columbia in 2023, during the worst fire season on record, the series examines how an unprecedented fuel build-up, combined with a hotter, drier climate, created a volatile tinderbox situation. It also introduces us to the communities impacted...

In this special episode of the YVR Screen Scene Podcast, Allegiance star Supinder Wraich and executive producer Nimisha Mukerji reflect on the crime procedural’s emotionally searing second season. Season one introduced us to Sabrina Sohal (played by Supinder), a star rookie police officer in the CFPC who must grapple with the limits of the justice system as she fights to exonerate her politician f...

Actor-filmmaker Ben Immanuel ( Down River ) and actress Gabrielle Miller ( Corner Gas ) swung by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss Are We Done Now? The comedy-drama tells the story of therapist Pamela (played by Gabrielle) and her diverse young clients as they participate in a (fictionalised) documentary exploring the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on their mental health. Through this exper...

Filmmaker Carl Bessai and actor Vincent Gale are legends of the Vancouver screen scene. These two legends have worked together before – Vincent was nominated for a Leo Award for his work in Carl’s iconic comedy-drama Fathers & Sons – and their latest collaboration, Field Sketches , screens at VIFF Centre on April 12 and 14 as part of National Canadian Film Week. Carl mined his own life and fam...

Emily Bett Rickards ( Arrow 's Felicity Smoak) swung by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss one of the most wildly entertaining, audacious, and empowering films of this or any year, Queen of the Ring . Emily shines as Mildred “Millie” Burke, the legendary professional wrestler and single mom who defied incredible odds to become the first million-dollar female athlete&n...

It’s a short film extravaganza! This double-header features interviews with not one but two fearless filmmakers who’ve created something very special in the short film space. First, Jackie Hoffart talks about The Reveal , a comedy about nonbinary Stevie, who struggles to support their sister’s gender reveal party while harbouring some news of their own: that they have started on testosterone, that...

Our very own Sabrina Rani Furminger recently joined Sasha Pobochii on the Cultural_Front. UA Podcast to talk about her upcoming documentary Our Hall (about her family’s long history of activism), how the events of February 24, 2022 altered Ukrainians (in Ukraine, displaced, and diaspora), and how non-Ukrainians can hold space for Ukrainians during this tumultuous time. And before that, Sabrina giv...

Maja Aro and Dani Johnson are two of the talented dynamos behind Abby and the Muffins . The series – which dropped on YouTube in late 2024 and quickly amassed more than 100,000 subscribers – stars the wildly talented Dani as Abby, a singing, stunting, and dancing tour-guide who leads pre-schoolers through an imaginative world of fun, play, movement, learning, and exploring. In this fascinating con...

War Tails tells the story of a small group of volunteers in Ukraine working tirelessly to prevent a continent-wide rabies outbreak. Displaced filmmaker Olha Byrledianu’s feature-length documentary – which screens on March 3 as part of the 2025 Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival – takes us into the world of a handful of volunteers from Canada and Ukraine as they work to rescue, heal, va...

Friend of the pod Praneet Akilla returns to reflect on his recent on- and off-screen adventures – including SkyMed , currently airing its third season on CBC Television and CBC Gem. Praneet is back as Chopper, who is still coming to terms with the death of his astronaut dreams in season two while exploring what it means to be a leader and also the possibility of a new entanglement with recent...

Actress Natalie Moon is fully bidialectal, meaning she’s equally proficient in using two or more dialects of the same language. In fact, she’s so proficient at being bidialectal that she’s an in-demand accent coach, and has coached big bold names like Jon Voight and Kristin Chenoweth. She also produced How To Make it in Hollywood (When You’re Foreign AF) , Alessandro Miro’s hilarious web series th...

Chris Haddock’s impact on the Vancouver and Canadian television landscapes is undeniable. He’s a showrunner, writer, producer, and all-round storyteller whose filmography includes Da Vinci’s Inquest , Da Vinci’s City Hall , Intelligence , Boardwalk Empire , and The Romeo Section . He’s been instrumental in launching the careers of some of our local industry’s shining stars, and centred Vancouver i...

Late last month, Kandyse McClure won a 2024 UBCP/ACTRA Award for her work as fearless firefighter Kaia Bryant on Netflix’s wildly popular dramatic serial Virgin River . Audiences first met Kaia early on in season five, when she delivers a baby on the side of a mountain with Mel and Cameron consulting over FaceTime. From the jump, it’s clear that Kaia is an alpha woman: she’s confident, shoots back...

Powerhouse actress Sharon Taylor swings by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about her role on Cross , the number one Amazon Prime series in the world. Cross stars Aldis Hodge as the famous detective from James Patterson’s books and, later, films starring Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry – but this is not your grandparents’ Alex Cross. Yes, this Alex Cross, like the Alex Crosses of yore, uses for...

If you live in Canada, you’re probably familiar with Heritage Minutes. Produced by Historica Canada, these sixty-second short films educate viewers on fascinating or little-known stories from Canada’s history. Dozens of Heritage Minutes have been released since 1991, and many of them are iconic, like “Doctor Penfield, I can smell burnt toast!” and “You never know, it might be worth something somed...

“If the Ghostbusters and the Scooby-Doo gang got stoned together in Stanley Park and Frankensteined a high-larious single-camera sitcom, it would probably look something like  Paranormal Solutions Inc .” That’s how our valiant host Sabrina Rani Furminger opened an article she wrote in 2016 for the Westender newspaper about the first season of Paranormal Solutions Inc. , a fabulous series from...

One of the most deliciously terrifying shows on the planet recently returned for its third season. From – an MGM series that airs on Paramount Plus in Canada – takes place in a town in the middle of America that imprisons everyone who enters. As the residents struggle to maintain a sense of normality and seek a way out, they must also survive the threats of the surrounding forest. There’s a l...

To say that actress Teagan Vincze’s filmography is varied is an understatement. Her lengthy list of credits includes critically acclaimed roles in indie hits – like when she played a compassionate sex worker in  Daughter , Anthony Shim’s critically acclaimed first feature that screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival, or when she played a fiery adult film star in The Cannon...

In this special episode, Sook-Yin Lee, the iconic radio and TV broadcaster, musician, film director, actress, and trailblazing MuchMusic veejay, and Chester Brown, the acclaimed alternative cartoonist, swing by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast studio to talk about Paying For It. The feature film – which had its premiere in Toronto and screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival – is a live-a...

Content warning : This episode contains frank and graphic talk about mental health, mental illness, and suicide. If you’re thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or a loved one, the Suicide Crisis Helpline is available 24/7/365 at 9-8-8. You can also find links to international suicide prevention and mental health support services in the footnotes for this episode at YVRScreenScene.c...

Actress Nathalie Boltt and Riverdale ’s Penelope Blossom don’t have all that much in common, despite the fact that the former portrayed the latter for all seven seasons of the wildly popular teen drama, but one thing they DO have in common is that both make a habit of defying expectations. This is particularly evident in Nathalie’s lengthy filmography, which includes memorable roles in an array of...

Lynda Boyd first appeared on the YVR Screen Scene Podcast in 2020 to discuss her incredible acting journey (which includes an exceptional six-season run on Republic of Doyle ), and in the years since, she’s been busy. She had a wonderful run on Virgin River that ended with a river of tears when her character Lilly passed away. She reunited with Victor Garber on Family Law , where she played a divi...

Jerome Yoo (the filmmaker behind the critically acclaimed short films Gong Ju , Idols Never Die , and Recess: Third Street ) stops by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss Mongrels , his feature film directorial debut that has its world premiere at the 2024 Vancouver International Film Festival. Set in rural Canada in the 1990s, Mongrels follows a Korean family attempting to find footing in a ne...

Vancouver will finally get to watch its first-ever Black+Queer dramedy web series this week when five episodes of Novelette is Trying screen at the 2024 Vancouver Queer Film Festival. Novelette is Trying follows Novelette, a cynical, anti-social, bisexual woman who finds herself newly single at 30, and decides, rather reluctantly, to take on a roommate. At first, the extroverted, outspoken Audre s...

300 episodes after her first appearance on the YVR Screen Scene Podcast, actress Veena Sood returns to talk about her three seasons (soon to be four!) playing cool mama Nisha on CTV’s Children Ruin Everything , and going back to her improv roots in Colin Mochrie’s Arts Club Reunion (which takes place July 19 and 20 at Vancouver’s historic Stanley Industrial Alliance Theatre). Also: What impact is...