Press Releases

– Little Bird stars Darla Contois, Ellyn Jade, Joshua Odjick, Michelle Thrush, Eric Schweig, and Lisa Edelstein –

– The series’ creative team includes Jennifer Podemski, Hannah Moscovitch, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers, Zoe Hopkins, and Jeremy Podeswa –

– Fremantle are handling global distribution for the series –

– Little Bird is hailed by The Globe and Mail as one of “the most exciting television series coming in 2023” –

TREATY 1 TERRITORY, WINNIPEG, Man. — Following a first look at the Canadian Media Producers Association Prime Time conference in Ottawa, Crave has released the trailer and key art for upcoming Crave and APTN original drama series, Little Bird.

Click here for the trailer.

From Crave, APTN, Rezolution Pictures, and OP Little Bird, and in partnership with global producer and distributor Fremantle, this six-part, one-hour limited series follows an Indigenous woman on a journey to find her birth family, and uncover the hidden truth of her past. The series is set to debut soon on Crave and APTN lumi.

Last December, The Globe and Mail included Little Bird on its list of “five of the most exciting, intriguing new series coming to small screens this year,” and predicts it “could be the breakout hit that Canadian television’s drama sector desperately needs.”

Little Bird explores universal themes of resilience in the face of trauma and loss. Removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan, Bezhig Little Bird is adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at the age of five, becoming Esther Rosenblum (Contois). Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them. Her search lands her in the Canadian prairies, worlds apart from everything she knows. As she begins to track down her siblings, she unravels the mystery behind her adoption, and discovers that her apprehension was connected to a racist government policy now known as the Sixties Scoop. Bezhig’s sense of identity shatters and she is forced to reckon with who she is and who she wants to become.

Little Bird is a co-production from Bell Media’s Crave and APTN, produced by Rezolution Pictures and OP Little Bird with the participation of the Canada Media Fund (CMF), Manitoba Film and Music, the Rogers Cable Network Fund, the Bell Fund, and the COGECO Independent Production Fund. Additional training funding provided by Bell Media, the Indigenous Screen Office, REEL Canada and the Director’s Guild of Canada. Fremantle International is the distributor for the series. Led by an Indigenous creative team, Little Bird is developed by showrunner Jennifer Podemski as well as Rezolution Pictures and OP Little Bird, and created by Podemski and head writer Hannah Moscovitch. The series is executive produced by Christina Fon, Ernest Webb, Catherine Bainbridge, Linda Ludwick (Rezolution Pictures), Kim Todd, Nicholas Hirst (Original Pictures), Jeremy Podeswa, Jennifer Podemski, and Hannah Moscovitch, along with Christian Vesper and Dante Di Loreto (Fremantle). Producers are Tanya Brunel and Jessica Dunn (OP Little Bird), Claire MacKinnon and Philippe Chabot (Rezolution Pictures) and Lori Lozinski and Ellen Rutter.

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About Crave
Crave is Canada’s prestige entertainment offering, delivering more Oscar-nominated and Emmy Award-winning programming than any other service, with HBO, HBO Max Originals, SHOWTIME, STARZ, Hollywood-hit movies, and boasts a robust slate of English and French original series. It is a bilingual TV and streaming service, with thousands of hours of exclusive French-language content. Crave is available directly to all Canadians with access to the Internet at Crave.ca, via iOS and Android, and other platforms such as Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, select LG Smart TVs, PlayStation, Roku, select Samsung Smart TVs, and Xbox One, and through participating service providers across ten, 24-hour High Definition linear and on demand channels.

About Bell Media Original Programming
Bell Media has commissioned some of Canada’s most-watched and most-acclaimed original programming, working with the best Canadian independent producers in the country. Hit series commissioned by CTV include #1 Canadian drama Transplant; record-breaking Canadian format The Amazing Race Canada; comedy series Children Ruin Everything from the producers of Letterkenny, and the upcoming drama Sullivan’s Crossing. Among the original series on Bell Media specialty and streaming platforms are CTV Life Channel’s culinary series Mary Makes It Easy with Mary Berg; CTV Comedy Channel’s Roast Battle Canada, and the all-new comedy series Acting Good. Crave Originals include hit series Letterkenny and its official spinoff series Shoresy, Canada’s Drag Race, and We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel), and the upcoming Little Bird; docuseries Dark Side of the Ring; and acclaimed documentaries Fanny: The Right to Rock and A.rtificial I.mmortality. Discovery is home to Bell Media’s hit factual series and franchises Highway Thru Hell, Heavy Rescue: 401, and Mud Mountain Haulers, and others. Bell Media is part of BCE Inc. (TSX, NYSE: BCE), Canada’s largest communications company. Learn more at www.BellMedia.ca.

About APTN and APTN lumi
APTN launched in 1999 as the first national Indigenous broadcaster in the world. A respected non-profit and charitable broadcaster, APTN shares authentic stories in English, French and a variety of Indigenous languages with nearly 10 million Canadian households. In 2019, the network launched APTN lumi, the first Indigenous-focused streaming service in Canada. Available on a monthly subscription basis, the platform offers an extensive catalogue of original programming, documentaries, kids’ shows and much more—all told from Indigenous perspectives. 

About Rezolution Pictures
Rezolution Pictures is an award-winning production company that’s changing the narrative when it comes to diversity and representation in the entertainment landscape. They have established original Indigenous content within mainstream media and sold programming around the world in major markets to broadcasters including GEM, APTN, Superchannel, OMNI, TVO, CBC, RDI, ARTV, Télé-Québec, FNX, Vision Maker and internationally with PBS, Peacock +, ARTE. The Emmy-nominated Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World has won awards at Sundance, Hot Docs and the CSAs and the Gemini- and Peabody-winning Reel Injun has been inducted into the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences Museum.

About OP Little Bird
OP Little Bird is a Winnipeg-based company, majority-owned by Manitoba independent producer Tanya Brunel, a Red River Métis. The other shareholders are Original Pictures Manitoba, a company controlled by producer Jessica Dunn and Original Pictures Inc., a boutique production company with offices in Winnipeg, Toronto and Calgary, founded by its president Emmy-award winner Kim Todd (The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, Falcon Beach).

About Fremantle
Fremantle is one of the world’s largest and most successful creators, producers and distributors of Entertainment, Drama & Film and Documentaries. Operating in 26 territories, we are a proudly independent group of content creators. We produce and deliver high-quality multi-genre IP including some of the biggest entertainment formats, most watched international dramas, award-winning films and hard-hitting documentaries, amplifying local stories on a global scale. From Too Hot To Handle to The Mosquito Coast, Game of Talents to The Hand of God, Farmer Wants A Wife to Got Talent, Family Feud to My Brilliant Friend and The Investigation to Arctic Drift, our focus is simple – we create and deliver irresistible entertainment. We are also a world leader in digital and branded entertainment with more than 480 million fans across 1,600 social channels and over 40 billion views per year across all platforms. Fremantle is part of RTL Group, a global leader across broadcast, content and digital, itself a division of the international media giant Bertelsmann. For more information, please visit Fremantle.com, follow us @FremantleHQ or visit our LinkedIn and Facebook pages.

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