The YVR Screen Scene Podcast

Filmmaker Bruce Sweeney and actors Gabrielle Rose, Camille Sullivan, and Jeff Gladstone swing by the YVR Screen Scene Podcast to talk about She Talks To Strangers , their smart and crowd-pleasing black comedy currently screening up at the 2023 Whistler Film Festival. Camille is Leslie, a single woman who happily shares her life with her favourite being on the planet, an Australian Shepherd named J...

Beatrice King is an experienced actress who has appeared in an array of critically acclaimed and fan favourite projects ( X-Men Origins: Wolverine , Mortal Kombat Legacy , The 100 , and Loudermilk ) and a well-respected acting coach, working primarily with young people on projects for Universal, Disney, and Netflix. Beatrice recently added a new title to her already impressive filmography: directo...

Sort Of is sort of a big deal to a lot of people, but especially to Trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people who have long yearned for honest and entertaining representation on Canadian screens. Sort Of stars Bilal Baig as Sabi Mehboob, a gender expansive millennial in Toronto who also happens to be the first-ever non-binary lead character on Canadian television. Since it’s widely heralded premie...

Marÿke Hendrikse has the kind of filmography that shows the range of roles available to versatile voice actors who are willing to put in the work, and the kind of personality that has fun while they’re doing it. Marÿke’s lengthy and diverse list of credits includes Slugterra , Johnny Test , Beat Bugs , LEGO: Nexo Knights , Equestria Girls: Rainbow Rocks , Polly Pocket , multiple Barbie movies, Bla...

Filmmaker Tyler Funk delves into the dizzying world of content creation for his wildly entertaining and borderline-terrifying documentary, Anything For Fame . As the Internet upends traditional notions of celebrity,  Anything For Fame  journeys into the virtual Wild West to profile an ambitious and reckless breed of content creator. There’s Ava, who rose to worldwide fame for a video whe...

Asia Mattu is a dynamic voice actor with an eclectic mix of credits to her name, including Rocky in Super Monsters , Rugo in Gigantosaurus , Aurora in My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever , and Par-Nani in Deepa & Anoop , for which she was nominated for a Leo Award AND a UBCP/ACTRA Award. It’s a stunning filmography for a kid from Ladner who grew up loving Robin Williams’ performance in Disney’s Ala...

In July of 2013, Canadian law enforcement authorities announced that they’d thwarted a terrorist plot to blow up the British Columbia Legislature. A couple from Surrey – John Omar Nuttall and Amanda Ana Korody, who were recent converts to Islam – had been arrested for planting pressure cooker bombs at the Legislature in Victoria on Canada Day. It was a chilling story – but Canadians would soon lea...

Gary Jones is an actor, comedian, writer, and Paul McGillion’s drinking buddy. He is perhaps best known for his fan-favourite recurring role as Walter Harriman (AKA the Chevron Guy) in Stargate SG-1 , for his countless appearances on CBC’s hit radio show The Debaters , for his record nine times hosting the Leo Awards, and for his many years “Yes, and”-ing on improv stages across the continent. In...

Mareya Shot, Keetha Goal: Make the Shot is a film borne of the South Asian diaspora. This spirited documentary feature follows four junior hockey players of South Asian descent through the 2021-2022 season as they strive to be drafted into the NHL. The film also follows their families – the South Asian parents who made sacrifices in order to pay for their kids to be able to participate in this gam...

In honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation (September 30), we’re releasing this special interview with filmmaker Jules Koostachin about her family’s journey to heal from the intergenerational trauma caused by residential schools. It’s a journey she explores in her new documentary feature, WaaPaKe (Tomorrow) . For generations, the suffering of residential school Survivors has radiat...

For our fall season opener, we look back at the impact of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes on the Vancouver film and television industry through in-depth conversations with IATSE 891 Business Representative Crystal Braunwarth and UBCP/ACTRA President Ellie Harvie (who addresses the infamous July 14 open letter). We also hear from background performer and indie filmmaker Michelle Muldoon about the iss...

The Vancouver Queer Film Festival (VQFF) is the second-largest film festival in the city and the largest queer arts event in Western Canada. Its milestone 35th edition (which kicks off on August 10) is a full-throttle, 11-day ride through 92 short and feature-length films from 27 countries, and it comes at a pivotal moment in queer history. Charlie Hidalgo, artistic director VQFF’s producing...

Brian Doe Chua is a versatile voice actor with a growing list of credits that includes videogames like Dragalia Lost, kid-friendly animated fare like Polly Pocket , Lego Friends , My Little Pony: Equestria Girls , Beyblade Burst , and Ninjago , and beloved anime like World Trigger , where he voiced the heroic Osamu Mikumo. Brian is also very active on social media, constantly tweeting his admirati...

Jason Simpson is an actor and voice actor who has built a diverse body of work, from sci-fi fare like The Magicians and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow , to games like League of Legends , Dragalia Lost , The Amazing Spider-Man , Dead Rising 2 , 3 & 4 , and Need For Speed ; and animated fare like Johnny Test , Polly Pocket , Sausage Party , Death Note , Black Lagoon , Lego Nexo Knights , Ninjago , and...

Actor Osric Chau is equally adept at comedy and drama, and at being a supportive member of an ensemble while still shining on his own. Osric played Kevin Tran, a high school student turned ghost turned prophet, on Supernatural , and Vogel, a member of the quartet known as the Rowdy Three, on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency . He won a Leo Award for Best Supporting Performance by a Male in a...

East by North West is a new global summit designed to highlight, elevate, and empower racialized creatives in and across film, TV, streaming, gaming, and animation. Produced by the Racial Equity Screen Office in association with Gold House, East by North West runs July 28-30 in Vancouver and connects screen professionals with world film markets so that they can network, establish contacts, an...

Gary Hawes has directed multiple episodes of the most-watched television drama series on the planet (ABC’s hit drama, The Good Doctor ). He’s also the director of some critically acclaimed indie projects, including the comedy Leap 4 Your Life , a feature-length mockumentary about a community dance competition starring some of our local industry’s finest, and The Charlie Da Clown Show , a trippy sh...

For months, voice actors on both sides of the border have been sounding the alarm about the ways that artificial intelligence (A.I.) can be manipulated, not only to fool audiences, but to exploit artists. It’s already happening. Like Ursula in The Little Mermaid , A.I. and the companies who wield it are stealing voices and pushing artists out of the equation altogether – something that an astoundi...

Donia Kash is an actor, performer, storyteller, and filmmaker whose growing list of credits includes Motherland: Fort Salem , So Help Me Todd , The 100 , Snowpiercer , A Million Little Things , Hearts in the Game , and a couple of impressive “firsts”: The Secrets of Bella Vista , which represented the very first time that a Hallmark Movie featured an openly non-binary actor, and The Holiday Sitter...

Aliza Vellani originally joined us in July 2021 to talk about her work in the first season of Netflix’s Sweet Tooth . Sweet Tooth draws its inspiration from Jeff Lemire’s comic book series about a boy who’s half-human and half deer navigating a world that has been devastated by a virus that has killed a lot of people and led to the mysterious emergence of human-animal hybrid babies. Aliza plays Ra...

It’s been three years since we last had the phenomenally talented Marci T. House in the YVR Screen Scene Podcast hot seat. Back then, we spoke about her then-upcoming role in Julie and The Phantoms , #covidlife, stage acting vs. screen acting vs. architecture, the many ways CBC’s Strange Empire was ahead of its time, and why she stays in Vancouver. Since then, Marci has been busy in an array of pr...

lori lozinski is an acclaimed producer who works closely with some of our industry’s leading directors to bring evocative stories to the screen (among them: Elle-Maija Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn). lori is also the director of A Motorcycle Saved My Life , a documentary short that ruminates on mental health, the often complicated relationship between parent and child, and how to negotiate a r...

Dhirendra is an accomplished actor whose career spans all manner of characters and genres and continents. To contemporary audiences, Dhirendra might be best known as Imran, Sabi’s father on the groundbreaking and big-hearted CBC and HBO Max comedy Sort Of . Sort Of is one of the few series in the history of television with a gender fluid protagonist: Sabi Mehboob, played with courage and convictio...

Actor Markian Tarasiuk has been busy: making rom-coms and thrillers; fielding acting nominations from leading industry organizations; working with Ukrainian Canadian organizations to preserve and promote Ukrainian culture during this war. In recent years, Markian has made a name for himself as a romantic lead in holiday rom-coms like Welcome to Valentine , A Homecoming for the Holidays , Wedding C...

What is Chinatown? That question and the myriad of emotions it invites sit at the heart of Big Fight in Little Chinatown , the stirring documentary film from Montreal-based filmmaker Karen Cho. The film explores the battles for survival currently being waged in four Chinatowns: in Montreal, Toronto, New York, and Vancouver. We meet the stewards of these Chinatowns, consider the role that Chinatown...