LITTLE BIRD is Both a Specific Story of the Sixties Scoop, and a Journey That Everyone Can Relate To, Says Jennifer Podemski

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede One of the many unique aspects of the Crave Original drama LITTLE BIRD is that it’s a double period piece, and yet it tells a story that is of vital importance to Canadians right now, in 2023. “Thank you for acknowledging that, because that was definitely top of mind in the creation of this, with the interweaving, time-splitting narrative that also felt immediate and urgent,” said showrunner and co-creator Jennifer Podemski, whose six-part series debuts Friday, May 26 on Crave. “I hope that translates, because even though it’s set in 1985 and 1968, we feel this is something that we’re listening to on the news today.” Darla Contois plays Bezhig Little Bird, who was removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan in 1968 as part of the policy now known as the Sixties Scoop. Having been adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at age five, becoming Esther Rosenblum, Bezhig is in her 20s in 1985, when she embarks on an emotionally painful quest to find her birth family. For all Canadians, this is a difficult subject. So Podemski and the entire creative team behind LITTLE BIRD must have had endless discussions about tone and approach. “I do feel that we achieved the tone we wanted,” Podemski said. “This is a delicate balance between psychological and social. It’s social commentary, but it’s also a psychological, internalized history. And that’s a very strange mix of tones. I think what we were trying to do was really find what it means to have an Indigenous perspective. And what I could filter it, or distill it, down to was, there’s always a lingering feeling of colonialism mixed with your own internalized sort of intergenerational or lived trauma. Those things intertwine in a way that makes everything feel a little bit uneasy.” Podemski acknowledged that in telling such a delicate story, the casting of the lead character was crucial. “As you can imagine, working on a show that is the first drama series for Crave, a premium level execution, the lead character has to be a very specific kind of person,” Podemski said. “I can say that from the first second I saw Darla (Contois), I knew it was her, but that’s not really how it works. It’s a very long process. I think it might have been three months between her auditioning, and then us calling her back, and then us calling her back again, and then giving her the role. It was very extensive. But there’s a quality that Darla has. She’s so tall, she looks like a supermodel, and she’s naturally just a very confident, outspoken person. But as Esther, she was able to bring an internalized discomfort to the character, a natural kind of discomfort, which is the texture that you want for a character who doesn’t really fit into their family.” It’s an admirably subtle performance by Contois, whose eyes express the mixed emotions and confusion that her character is feeling. “That’s great, because that was so intentional,” Podemski said. “This was a really internalized journey, a little bit of a poetic journey, where it’s so fractured, and doesn’t make sense to her. The audience knows more than she does. She’s learning things as we go.” So what kind of conversations does Podemski hope that LITTLE BIRD prompts? What does she want the takeaway to be for Canadians? “Based on what I’ve witnessed with the creation of this project, and all the non-Indigenous people who came on board, just to see their reactions of how surprised they were, and in shock that they never knew anything about this, I anticipate it will be much the same for our non-Indigenous audience watching it,” Podemski said. “And when you’re introduced to something new, that you were unaware of, I hope that people maybe change even a little bit for the better, towards making things better together. I also really kept the Indigenous audience in mind, for sure. The journey that Esther is on is very specific to a survivor of the Sixties Scoop, but it also relates to everybody in the world who struggles with who they are, and where they come from, and what it means to be a family.” billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv