The YVR Screen Scene Podcast

Actress Camille Sullivan has acquired a boatload of awards and nominations over the course of her career for her work in an array of dramatic projects like Intelligence , Hunter Hunter , The Birdwatcher, and The Disappearance , but it’s her work in a top-rated comedy series that’s currently garnering her mad love from critics, fans, industry insiders, and the fine people of TikTok. The series in q...

Joel McCarthy is a filmmaker ( Taking My Parents to Burning Man , I Am Alfred Hitchcock ), an educator, a producer, an award winner, and a celebrated industry shit-disturber who eschews gatekeeping, speaks truth to power, and builds community through bonkers-popular filmmaking events like Shits N Giggles and Run N Gun. On June 29, the latter caps off its ninth edition (which had 2000 filmmakers cr...

Bradley Stryker is an accomplished actor and filmmaker with an impressive, and growing, list of credits, including Devil in Ohio , Chesapeake Shores , and The O.C. . He wore both hats on Sheltering Season , his critically acclaimed alternate reality thriller that was not only inspired by the pandemic but was one of the first projects to go to camera after the industry re-opened in summer 2020. In...

Garfield Wilson’s filmography is packed with some of our local industry’s best-loved and most critically acclaimed productions, including Continuum , Schmigadoon , The Man in the High Castle , Virgin River , Ivy and Bean , and Snowpiercer . His roles are often ones that require power, presence, poise, and physical acumen, and he’s using all of those qualities (and more!) as Balestro on Reginald th...

The murder of 14-year-old Reena Virk in 1997 sent shockwaves across Canada. Her murder thrust issues of bullying and teenage violence into the Canadian consciousness. 27 years later, Reena’s story is back in the public consciousness, on both sides of the border this time, thanks to Under the Bridge , a limited series produced by ABC Signature for Hulu and streaming on Disney Plus. Under the Bridge...

Award-winning actress Sara Canning ( Remedy , The Vampire Diaries ) returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about Sweetland . Based on the book by Michael Crummey and adapted for the screen by Christian Sparkes, who also directed, Sweetland draws its inspiration from Newfoundland’s controversial resettlement program, which has removed hundreds of communities from the map. As the film opens...

Actress Loretta Walsh ( When Calls The Heart ) returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss The Lifespan of a Fact , the based-on-real-life play that she’s producing and starring in this month at Studio 16 in Vancouver. The Lifespan of a Fact tells the story of a fresh-out-of-Harvard fact checker for a prominent but sinking New York magazine, a talented writer with a transcendent essay about...

In this DOXA Documentary Film Festival double-header, Sabrina Rani Furminger speaks with two filmmakers whose films are featured in the 2024 edition of the popular fest. Up first is Rachel Epstein, the filmmaker behind The Anarchist Lunch . The film is the story of a lunch – or rather, 35 years of lunches enjoyed each week by a group of ardent leftists who congregated in a Vancouver Chinese restau...

Jennifer Spence ( Travelers , Continuum ) returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about her leading role in The Trades , a new half-hour single-camera comedy series on Crave. Set in a blue-collar community where the high stress of working in a refinery are balanced by the comedic high-wire antics of its plant workers, The Trades centres around Todd (played by Robb Wells, AKA Ricky from The...

When Natasha Burnett and Viv Leacock work together, something special happens. Natasha and Viv play Minnie and Joseph Canfield on When Calls the Heart . The first Black family to feature prominently on When Calls the Heart , the Canfields arrived in Hope Valley a few seasons back and quickly became touchstones for many of the town’s residents. Natasha and Viv are fun to watch, and they look like t...

The award-winning documentary feature Union Street  chronicles the ongoing effects of racism, displacement, and the cultural erasure of African-Canadians in Vancouver. Before systemic and political mechanisms destroyed Hogan’s Alley – the historic Black neighbourhood located on Union Street – in the 1970s, the area was the home of train porters, speakeasies, juke joints, and a thriving commun...

Meredith Hama-Brown is the force behind Seagrass, one of the most talked-about feature film directorial debuts to come out of Western Canada in recent memory. Seagrass is the story of a family falling apart. Ally Maki stars as Judith, a Japanese Canadian woman who brings her family to a self-development retreat after the recent death of her mother. When Judith and her husband befriend another inte...

Re:Uniting is the story of a group of college friends who graduated from university together in the late 1990s and reunite for the first time in nearly a decade on Bowen Island. They arrive on the island bearing scars from the traumas of the intervening years, as well as many secrets. Re:Uniting is Drama with a capital D – but is also rich with moments of humour, catharsis, and so much love. Re:Un...

Filmmaker Kevin Eastwood returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss his latest documentary. The Society Page – which premieres on Knowledge Network on March 17 – is an in-depth look at the life, craft, and impact of Malcolm Parry, Vancouver’s iconic society columnist. For 40 years, Malcolm was a stealthy presence at events, photographing arguably more Vancouverites and VIPs during that tim...

Zarqa Nawaz is a writer, film and television producer, published author, public speaker, journalist, creator of Little Mosque on the Prairie , former broadcaster, and star of Zarqa , the CBC Gem comedy series in which she plays a woman named Zarqa, who sells gullible white people brown people things. In season one, a recently divorced Zarqa worked on her business while being pursued by a gaggle of...

Canadian improv comedy icon Colin Mochrie has spent a heckuva lot of time in Vancouver, where he's a beloved alumnus of Vancouver TheatreSports and The Improv Centre. From March 6-8, Colin will return to The Improv Centre for five sold-out performances of An Evening with Colin Mochrie (which are evenings of improv comedy and not anything else; get your minds out of the gutter). Colin’s extensive c...

Andrea Menard is one of the stars of Sullivan’s Crossing , the hit CTV show based on the bestselling books by Robyn Carr. The dramatic series follows young neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan as she flees the challenges of her life in the big city and returns to the idyllic Nova Scotia campground owned and operated by her estranged father Sully. In October 2023, when Sullivan’s Crossing was about to hit...

Actress Crystal Balint ( Midnight Mass ) returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about her work in The Fall of the House of Usher , how the actors, crew, and TPTB dealt with the highly publicized cast upheaval, what it means to her to be part of Mike Flanagan’s “Flanaverse,” and her delicious role on CBC’s new crime procedural Allegiance . Episode sponsor: UBCP/ACTRA

Earlier this month, four of the stars of Allegiance – Supinder Wraich, David Cubitt, Stephen Lobo, and Brian Markinson – joined Sabrina in the YVR Screen Scene studio to discuss the new character-driven crime procedural, which premiered on CBC and CBC Gem on February 7. Supinder stars as Sabrina Sohal ( Sort Of ), a star rookie police officer who must grapple with the limits of the justice sy...

Ukrainian filmmaker Khrystyna Syvolap returns to the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss her journey to find work in the Vancouver film and television industry after arriving in Canada with her young daughter in spring 2022, her February 10 screening of Viddana at North Vancouver’s Centennial Theatre (a fundraiser for the Adam Tactical Group), and why people outside of Ukraine should care about th...

Actress Jennifer Robertson is beloved ’round the world for her astounding work as Jocelyn Schitt for all six seasons of CBC’s iconic comedy series Schitt’s Creek , and, more recently, for playing Ellen Baker, Georgia’s regularly frazzled neighbour, on Netflix’s Ginny and Georgia . Canadians will soon see the Vancouver actress in a new role: as host of The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down . The ei...

Welcome to the first-ever #YVRScreenScenePodcast Christmas Special! Strap in as Sabrina and the star and voice director of Hope Street Pod’s A Classical Christmas Chord – Nhi “The Christmas Cracker” Do and Rhona “The Mistletoe” Rees – don their ugly Christmas sweaters, swig Baileys and bad eggnog, and talk Christmas rom-coms, traditions, tropes, Whamageddon, festive innuendo, and the best (and wor...

Kat Montagu has spent much of her career telling and shaping stories for screens large and small, and helping others do the same. A distinguished writer, producer, script analyst, story editor, and teacher, Kat’s impressive background includes writing for the television series Alienated and collaborating on a time travel novel-to-TV series adaptation with Sara B. Cooper. She holds a BFA and a...

Even if you don’t recognize the Cowichan sweater by its name, you will absolutely recognize it on sight: the thick yarn; the distinctive patterns; the warmth of the raw sheep’s wool. But a Cowichan sweater is more than just a sweater, especially for the Coast Salish people from the Cowichan Tribes who make them. It’s a provider of life, literally, as a way to put food on the table; it’s a way to b...

Filmmaker Dylan Maranda and actor Brendan Meyer swing by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to discuss Master of the House , a fast-paced genre short that seeks its inspiration from the thrilling world of fine dining. Master of the House , which was shot at the Michelin Star restaurant Kissa Tanto in Vancouver, follows Vincent, a young sommelier, played by Brendan (who starred in all eighty episodes of...