This Just In: Six Distinctive Writers Join CFC’s 2022 Bell Media Prime Time TV Program

Toronto, June 1, 2022 – The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) and Bell Media are pleased to announce the 2022 summer cohort of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program, a professional, immersive story room experience and original series development intensive for Canadian TV writers. The program, renown for training TV series writers and developing new projects for the marketplace, returns after a two-year postponement due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Six talented writers with strong, unique voices have been invited to participate in the summer cohort, which gets underway on CFC’s campus in Toronto on July 5, 2022 and runs until mid-December. These writers will be joined by award-winning writer-producer and CFC alumnus Patrick Tarr as Executive Producer in Residence to lead the story room component of the program. Together, they will work as a team to develop Tarr’s original series, Think Tank, a serialized one-hour procedural / mystery. “Bell Media is delighted to continue our partnership with the CFC to provide new TV series writers with the opportunity for first-class training in a simulated writers’ room,” said Rachel Goldstein-Couto, Head of Development, Original Programming, Bell Media. “We are thrilled that the participating members will be led and inspired by Patrick Tarr, an incredibly dynamic and talented executive producer.” Tarr got his start in TV as a story consultant on the fourth season of Murdoch Mysteries. He wrote the exclusive 13-part original online series, Curse of the Lost Pharaohs, created as an extension of the fourth season of Murdoch Mysteries, which was nominated for an International Emmy and won the WGC Award for Best Writing in Shorts and Webseries. He worked on the Showcase series King, as a writer and consulting producer on seasons one and two of CBC’s Cracked, and as a writer/co-executive producer for three seasons of CTV’s popular medical drama, Saving Hope. Tarr was the head writer and executive producer on the third and fourth seasons of the international hit series Cardinal, which earned him Canadian Screen Awards for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series and Best Dramatic Series in 2020. “It’s been a long wait for these six amazing writers, and a long time without the thrill of an in-person writers’ room for me,” added Tarr. “I’m excited to return to the CFC this summer, and hope to create a fast-paced and dynamic learning experience through the challenging process of series development. I have no doubt that in our time together, this team of writers is going to teach me as much as I’ll teach them.”   The writers joining the 2022 summer cohort of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program are: REBECCA GRENIER, a Toronto-based screenwriter who most recently worked as a story editor in an upcoming series created by Anthony Q. Farrell. She is a recipient of the Corus Writer’s Apprentice Program and Magee TV Diverse Screenwriters Award, and was a Reelworld e20 participant. SVJETLANA JAKLENEC, an alumna of CFC’s Directors’ Lab and the Sundance Collab TV Writing Course. Her shorts have screened at festivals worldwide and garnered multiple awards, and she has received development grants for her feature screenplays from Telefilm Canada, Corus Entertainment and the Harold Greenberg Fund. ABDUL MALIK, a South Asian Muslim screenwriter and multimedia journalist. He co-wrote the feature Peace by Chocolate (2021 Tribeca Film Festival), and has written on series such as Transplant (CTV), and the upcoming series Streams Flow From a River. EMMA MALM, a Toronto-based writer from Vancouver. She began her career as an assistant director on productions like Downsizing, Man Seeking Woman and The Romanoffs. Her additional credits include the short Pippa Eats, digital series Running with Violet, seasons 2 and 3 of True Dating Stories, and The Kids in the Hall as a writers’ assistant. CLINT MURPHY, an award-winning screenwriter whose original sci-fi pilot, The Road Home, won the 2021 Teleplay Grand Jury Prize at the Richmond International Film Festival and was a semi-finalist in the 2020 Austin Film Festival’s one-hour TV competition. Clint won the prestigious Al Magee Diverse Screenwriters Award in 2020. HELMANN WILHELM, a Taiwanese Canadian screenwriter and co-founder of Canted Pictures. His one-hour drama series, Creemore Village, was one of 25 projects selected for the Netflix-Banff Fellowship and Pitch Program. His additional work has screened at Austin Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival and Nashville Film Festival, among others.   The Bell Media Prime Time TV Program is recognized industry-wide for training emerging and mid-level TV writers and has played a vital role in the development of new and diverse television series. The program has attracted some of Canada’s most prolific and successful showrunners to lead the story room as Executive Producer in Residence, including Bruce Smith, Michael MacLennan, Brad Wright, Dennis Heaton and Shelley Eriksen. Learn more about the program here. Applications are now open for the first-ever ½ hour comedy series cohort of the Bell Media Prime Time TV Program, which will run from October 2022 until the end of March 2023. The fall 2022 comedy cohort is for Black, Indigenous and/or racialized writers with some professional writing experience and a growing body of onscreen work who are looking to engage in a collaborative comedy series story room. Applications close June 20, 2022 at 4 p.m. ET. Learn more and apply here.