Award-Profitable Canadian Drama LITTLE BIRD Involves PBS
Created by Jennifer Podemski and Hannah Moscovitch
The Six-part Restricted Sequence Starring Darla Contois and Lisa Edelstein
Premieres October 12 on all PBS Platforms
ARLINGTON, VA, August 28, 2023 – PBS introduced in the present day that celebrated Canadian drama LITTLE BIRD will premiere October twelfth at 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS and throughout all PBS platforms within the US (check local listings). From Rezolution Photos and OP Little Chicken, and Canadian broadcasters Crave and APTN, in partnership with Fremantle, the six-part, one-hour restricted collection explores common themes of resilience within the face of trauma and loss. It follows Bezhig Little Chicken (Darla Contois) as she embarks on a path to seek out her delivery household and uncover the hidden fact of her household historical past.
PBS will even broadcast and stream COMING HOME, a 90-minute companion documentary offering historic context concerning the Sixties Scoop on October twelfth at 10:00 p.m. ET (check local listings). Directed by Erica Daniels (Run as One), COMING HOME explores the connections between the ground-breaking motion for Indigenous narrative sovereignty and the affect of the kid welfare system as skilled by way of the LITTLE BIRD collection’ Indigenous creatives, crew, and Sixties Scoop advisors. COMING HOME offers a structuring through-line, interwoven with interviews with solid, crew, and group members revealing private connections to the Sixties Scoop.
LITTLE BIRD and COMING HOME will stream on all station-branded PBS platforms together with PBS.org, and the PBS app, out there on iOS, Android, Roku streaming units, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Hearth TV, Samsung Sensible TV, Chromecast, and VIZIO. Each packages will even be out there to stream on PBS Passport and the PBS Masterpiece Prime Video Channel.
Faraway from her dwelling in Lengthy Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan, Bezhig Little Chicken is adopted right into a Montréal Jewish household at age 5, changing into Esther Rosenblum. Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the household she misplaced and is prepared to sacrifice all the things to seek out them. Her search lands her within the Canadian Prairies, worlds aside from all the things she is aware of. As she begins to trace down her siblings, she unravels the thriller behind her adoption and discovers that her apprehension was linked to a racist authorities coverage, now often known as the Sixties Scoop. Bezhig’s sense of id shatters, and he or she is pressured to reckon with who she is and who she needs to turn out to be.
Led by Contois, the character-driven drama includes a proficient solid of Indigenous actors, together with: Ellyn Jade; Osawa Muskwa; Joshua Odjick; Imajyn Cardinal; Braeden Clarke; Eric Schweig; and Michelle Thrush. Rounding out the solid is Lisa Edelstein (Home, M.D., Girlfriends’ Information to Divorce) who performs Esther’s adoptive mom, Golda Rosenblum.
The current winner of the coveted Viewers Award on the 2023 SERIES MANIA Pageant in Lille, France, LITTLE BIRD was filmed in and round Winnipeg, in Brokenhead Ojibway Nation on Treaty 1 territory and in Sioux Valley Dakota Nation. LITTLE BIRD showrunner Jennifer Podemski was additionally just lately offered with an Academy Board Of Directors’ Tribute Award at the 2023 Canadian Screen Awards.
“PBS is proud to carry American viewers the premiere of LITTLE BIRD,” says Maria Bruno Ruiz, Vice President, Program Content material Technique and Scheduling at PBS. “We aspire to carry genuine packages wealthy in tradition and variety to our viewers and we’re thrilled so as to add the highly effective LITTLE BIRD story to our platforms.”
“It’s a highly effective narrative that not solely engages and pulls in your heartstrings, but additionally educates on a profoundly disturbing time in North American historical past that’s hardly ever portrayed.” mentioned Germaine Candy, Managing Director, Content material Acquisitions at PBS Distribution. “Along with the artistic brilliance of Jennifer Podemski and Hannah Moscovitch, this collection was delivered by a wealth of Indigenous expertise each in entrance of and behind the digital camera.”
“LITTLE BIRD is an important story that requires sensitivity and boldness to make clear a chunk of historical past that isn’t extensively identified. We’re proud to collaborate with PBS to make sure that this story reaches audiences in the USA and receives the popularity it deserves,” mentioned Lisa Honig, Senior EVP Distribution North America, Fremantle.
Led by an Indigenous artistic staff, LITTLE BIRD is developed by showrunner, Jennifer Podemski and Rezolution Photos, and created by Podemski and head author Hannah Moscovitch. The artistic staff contains administrators Zoe Hopkins and Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and was written by Hopkins and Moscovitch. The collection is govt produced by Christina Fon, Ernest Webb, Catherine Bainbridge, Linda Ludwick (Rezolution Photos), Kim Todd, Nicholas Hirst (Authentic Photos), Jennifer Podemski, Hannah Moscovitch, Zoe Hopkins, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers and Jeremy Podeswa, together with Christian Vesper and Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle). Producers are Tanya Brunel and Jessica Dunn (OP Little Chicken), Claire MacKinnon and Philippe Chabot Rezolution Photos) and Lori Lozinski and Ellen Rutter. Fremantle handles world gross sales.
For Bell Media, Alison Korogyi is Growth Government; Rachel Goldstein-Couto is Head of Growth, Authentic Programming; Mitch Geddes is Manufacturing Government; Sarah Fowlie is Head of Manufacturing, Authentic Programming; Carlyn Klebuc is Common Supervisor, Authentic Programming; Tory Jennings is Director of Content material, Crave; Justin Stockman is Vice-President, Content material Growth & Programming; and Karine Moses is Senior Vice-President, Content material Growth & Information, Bell Media and Vice Chair, Québec, Bell.
For APTN, Adam Garnet Jones is Director of TV Content material and Particular Occasions, Danelle Granger is Government answerable for Growth and Scripted Content material, and Lisa Ducharme is Director of On-line Content material and Deliverables.
LITTLE BIRD and COMING HOME be a part of the slate of Indigenous programming PBS will broadcast this fall honoring Native American Heritage, together with THE AMERICAN BUFFALO by Ken Burns premiering October 16, NEXT AT THE KENNEDY CENTER “Embracing Duality: Modern Indigenous Cultures” premiering October 20 and NATIVE AMERICA SEASON TWO premiering October 24 (check local listings). All packages will proceed to stream on PBS.org, and the PBS app all through Native American Heritage Month in November.
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About Fremantle
Fremantle is among the world’s largest and most profitable creators, producers and distributors of Leisure, Drama & Movie and Documentaries.
Working in 27 territories we’re a proudly unbiased group of content material creators. We produce and ship high-quality multi-genre IP together with a number of the greatest leisure codecs, most watched worldwide dramas, award profitable movies and hard-hitting documentaries, amplifying native tales on a world scale.
From Idols to The Mosquito Coast, The Worth is Proper to The Hand of God, The Farmer Needs A Spouse to Arctic Drift, Household Feud to My Sensible Buddy and Bones & All to Planet Intercourse our focus is straightforward – we create and ship irresistible leisure.
We’re additionally a world chief in digital and branded leisure with greater than 470 million followers throughout 2,000 social channels and over 34 billion views per yr throughout all Platforms.
Fremantle is a part of RTL Group, a world chief throughout broadcast, content material and digital, itself a division of the worldwide media big Bertelsmann.
For extra data, please go to www.fremantle.com, observe us on Twitter @FremantleHQ and Instagram @fremantle or go to our LinkedIn web page.
About Rezolution Photos
Rezolution Photos is an award-winning manufacturing firm that’s altering the narrative in terms of range and illustration within the leisure panorama. They’ve established authentic Indigenous content material inside mainstream media and bought programming world wide in main markets to broadcasters together with together with APTN, LUMI, Bell Media, Crave, CBC, GEM, TVO, SRC, RDI, OMNI, Showcase, Télé-Québec, PBS, Peacock +, ARTE, ZDF, Channel 5, Netflix, Apple TV, Discovery, Information, FNX, SBS, and extra.. The Emmy-nominated Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World has gained awards at Sundance, Scorching Docs and the CSAs and the Gemini- and Peabody-winning Reel Injun has been inducted into the Academy of Movement Photos Arts and Sciences Museum.
About OP Little Chicken
OP Little Chicken, is a Winnipeg-based firm, majority-owned by Manitoba unbiased producer Tanya Brunel, Métis from the Crimson River area and member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. The opposite shareholders are Authentic Photos Manitoba, an organization managed by producer Jessica Dunn and Authentic Photos Inc. a boutique manufacturing firm with workplaces in Winnipeg, Toronto and Calgary, based by its president Emmy-award winner Kim Todd (The Handmaid’s Story, Fargo, and Courageous New World).
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Media Contacts:
Caitlin Jaynes, Ali Smith, MPRM Communications
Becky Scullin, Meredith Tiger, PBS
Emma Harvey, Ron Del Rio, FremantleMedia North America
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