11 Canadian producers will pitch six digital short form or web series at the 2026 Series Mania Forum’s Canada’s Producers to Watch. The showcase of emerging talent says much about Canadian TV at large, underscoring the energetic drive for diversity in multifaceted forms, the energies informing Canadian TV – seven of the producers, notably, are women – as well as concerns shaping a significant part of upscale series being made in and indeed outside Canada.
The selection takes in at least three Indigenous production companies. “Nish,” one of the Showcase presented projects, for intstance, is “an act of narrative sovereignty, created by an Indigenous production company. It brings our voices to the screen on our own terms, telling our stories in our own ways, grounded in our values,” says producer Julie O’Bomsawin.
The producers are part of one of the biggest national delegations at Series Mania from any part of the world. That is hardly surprising. The TV festival and Forum take place in France, while many of the producers at Lille make series n French, being based out of Quebec. Also, the industry essence of the French TV festival is co-production and Canadian producers are inveterate co-producers. “Co-production is central to my approach, because storytelling naturally crosses borders. Someone very poetic and smart said: ‘Alone we go fast; together we go far,’” Ania Jamila notes for Variety.
Screening in Series Mania’s 2026 Short Form Competition,
Neegan Sioui Trudel “Saturnids” delivers, wrapped in a sci-fi tale of mass insomnia, a haunting sense of dislocation.
Not for nothing four other pitched series at least are tales of relocation, to Canada (“Hotel Beirut”) or small city or rural Canada. That can make for fish-out-of-water comedy (“Citiots,” “Cows Come Home”) or romance (“Malgré Moi”). It also affords, however, if synopses or trailers are anything to go by, for a heartwarming, second chance embrace of a new belonging.
A closer look at Canada’s Producers to Watch, their companies and their projects:
Nish
Julie O’Bomsawin, Kassiwi Média, “Nish”
An Indigenous media production company, producing in both communities and urban settings to reflect the diversity of Indigenous peoples, O’Bomsawin says. Quebec-based Kassiwi Media is behind 2025 feature “Captain” and docuseries “From the Front Line,” now running to three seasons. It is also now in post on “Nish,” a youth fiction series shot in French and Innu tracking two teen twins’ life in a remote Northern Quebec community, informed by a large sense of family. “Nish “will first air on Canada’s Ice Tou.TV in fall 2026, then in winter 2027 on Radio-Canada and on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.
Annie Bourdeau and Alexandre Gauthier, Urbania Media, “Be Pretty” (“Sois Belle”)
One of the latest productions from celebrated media platform Urbania, here created by Gauthier and written by Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, best known as a comedian. It is inspired by the true story of supermodel Eve Salvail and described as a bold, emotionally charged miniseries – a modern cautionary tale about the perils of chasing instant fame. “The series shines a light on the struggles facing women today, offering a lens through which to reflect on our own era. Long before influencers and filters, the runway was already the original feed,” Bourdeau tells Variety.
Rebecca and Natalie Davey, Ceres Productions, “Citiots”
Described as “badass and tender” by poet Canisia Lubrin, the Davey sisters say with pride, and based out of Ceres which is behind an intriguing six-part prestige limited series adapting a short story by Oscar-nominated novelist Emma Donoghue (“Room”) starring Supinder Wraich (“Allegiance”). It is also producing a disability-forward kids show “The Nothing Club” (Shaw Rocket Fund/CMF) to roll next month. Set to present at Series Mania “Citiots,” with Brandon Ash-Mohammed, weighs in as a digital fish-out-of-water short format about a yoga-trained wannabe pastor and his reality television producing husband forced to lead a dwindling country congregation and start an independent candle business and brewery in their barn.
Ania Jamila, Kavalo Productions, “Hotel Beirut” Season 2
Rooted in Canada’s Francophone landscape and internationally oriented, the company focuses on intimate stories with global resonance, Jamila says of Kavalo. One case in point: “Hotel Beirut.” Co-written, directed and produced by Jamila, Season 1 is set in late-1980s Canada, centring on two siblings struggling to adapt to a new life after fleeing Lebanon. Jamila will be in Lille to present Season 2 where, three years after exile, a teenage photographer chronicles his family’s life in Canada as the pull of returning home disrupts the fragile balance they’ve built between two worlds. “As a polyglot who lived on three continents, I work across languages and cultures and I’m drawn to stories where the personal reflects something larger,” Jamila explains.
Neegan Sioui Trudel, Oraquan Media, “Shamanic Nightmare”
A producer and director of “Saturnids,” screening in Series Mania’s 2026 Short Form Competition, a glossy horror thriller charting, however, mental collapse as Montreal in plunged into mass insomnia. He is set to pitch “Shamanic Nightmare,” again produced with Julie Prieur and a psychological folk horror, set at a shamanic retreat. “While many of my projects are rooted in Indigenous realities, what truly interests me is the visceral core of the human experience, I want to create emotions that act as a kind of cement for communication, allowing the message to connect more deeply and stay with people,” says Trudel.
Cows Come Home
Katie Uhlman, David Carruthers, Katie Chats Inc, “Cows Come Home,”
Based out of Toronto’s Katie Chats Inc. and producer of multi-prized web series “My Roommate’s an Escort,” co-written and starring Uhlman, and most recently female dramedy “Cows Come Home,” co-written with scribe-actor Lindsey Middleton.
“Cows” turns on Tabby Acres who moves back to her small town and tries to put her life back together with the help of her best friend and the world of competitive cow showing. Also directed by Uhlman and currently performing in the top 2% of programming on its domestic broadcaster, Bell Fibe TV1, she reports.
Janelle & Jérémie Wookey, Wookey Films, “Malgré Moi,” (“Despite Myself”)
‘Malgré Moi’
Canadian Screen Award and Banff Rockie Award winning docuseries producers, the Winnipeg-based siblings have delivered 30 productions totalling over 190 episodes since launching Wookey Films in 2013. But “Malgré moi” is special, Wookey Films’ first scripted production. Starring Schelby Jean-Baptiste (“Wipe Me Away”) and directed by Maxime Beauchamp (“Brown Enough”), “Malgré Moi” “flips the classic big-city-girl-meets-small-town premise on its head,” delivering a “fun, cozy, self-aware anthology that both skewers and celebrates small-city life through sharp, romantic storylines and bold, distinctive characters we rarely see driving the narrative,” says Janelle Wookey.
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