Jennifer Podemski

Jennifer Podemski is an award winning Film and Television Producer and Actor born and raised in Toronto, Canada. Of mixed First Nations and Israeli descent, Jennifer began her acting career as a teen. Her career blossomed when she was cast as Pique in CBC's The Diviners followed by a starring role in Bruce McDonald's Dance Me Outside. As her career in front of the camera exploded, Jennifer began to notice the inequity behind the lens. Although all of the roles she was awarded as actor were First Nations characters, she rarely, if ever, saw any First Nations writers, producers or directors. By 25, with a solid career under her belt, Jennifer opened her first production company, Big Soul Productions (BSP) with fellow burgeoning producer Laura Milliken. BSP became the first Aboriginal owned and operated, full service production company in Canada, producing hundreds of hours of television including three seasons of the award winning Dramatic Series Moccasin Flats for Showcase and APTN. In 2005, Jennifer branched out on her own and founded Redcloud Studios, Inc. Although Jennifer has maintained a successful career as an actor, with roles in Degrassi, Republic of Doyle, Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz and Jimmy P alongside Benicio Del Toro, she is most proud of her starring role in her own film Empire of Dirt for which she was nominated for two Canadian Screen Awards for Best Actress in a Supporting Role as well as Best Feature Film for her work as producer. Empire of Dirt premiered at TIFF 2014 and continued to a theatrical release in Canada and traveled the world on the film festival circuit. Jennifer is also the creator and producer of APTN's famed paranormal series The Other Side, currently shooting it's second season; in her 9th year as Co-Executive Producer and Creative Director of the Indspire Awards (Global, APTN) for which she was nominated for Best Lifestyle Television Show at the 2014 CSA's. More recently, Jennifer can be seen as Dr. Crowshoe on the award winning drama series Blackstone; HBO's Sensitive Skin with Kim Catrall and in FireSong, written and directed by Adam Garnett Jones. A storyteller behind and in front of the camera, Jennifer still makes time for training aboriginal youth in film and tv, mentoring and holding self esteem workshops across the US and Canada.

Works

Resident Alien

Crash-landed alien Harry takes on the identity of a small-town Colorado doctor. Arriving with a secret mission, he starts off living a simple life…but things get a bit rocky when he’s roped into solving a local murder and realizes he needs to assimilate into his new world. As he does, he begins to wrestle with the moral dilemma of his mission and asking the big life questions like: “Are human beings worth saving?” and “Why do they fold their pizza before eating it?”

Release Date2021-01-27

Charactersd Rachel

Episode Count2

Vote Count843

Departure

Follow the mystery of Flight 716 - a passenger plane that vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean. Following the mysterious crash, recently widowed, brilliant aviation investigator Kendra Malley is called in to investigate by her former boss and mentor Howard Lawson.

Release Date2019-07-10

Charactersd Gail

Episode Count5

Vote Count97

Private Eyes

Ex-pro hockey player Matt Shade irrevocably changes his life when he teams up with fierce P.I. Angie Everett to form an unlikely investigative powerhouse.

Release Date2016-05-26

Charactersd Colonel

Episode Count1

Vote Count137

Degrassi

The life of a group of adolescents going through the trials and tribulations of teendom at Degrassi Community School.

Release Date2001-10-14

Charactersd Ms. Chantel Sauvé

Episode Count5

Vote Count100

This Is Wonderland

Alice De Raey is a newly minted attorney who joins the chaotic world of criminal justice in Toronto. She's exposed to the seamier side of life, the backroom deals that make the system work accompanied by the usual eccentric characters.

Release Date2004-01-12

Charactersd Beth Taylor

Episode Count1

Vote Count1

Republic of Doyle

Jake Doyle and his ex-cop father, Malachy, run a Newfoundland detective agency. Their rugged seaside town never lacks for intriguing cases, and the Doyles don't always land on the right side of the law.

Release Date2010-01-06

Charactersd Maria House

Episode Count1

Vote Count36

The Rez

The Rez was a first nations, Canadian television series, which aired on CBC Television from 1996 to 1998. Most of the characters were based on W.P. Kinsella's short story collection Dance Me Outside, which had been made into a film by director Bruce McDonald. McDonald and Norman Jewison were executive producers of the series, which chronicled life in a First Nations community. The series was filmed in the Parry Sound region at Harrison's Landing in Carling Township. All episodes run around 23 Minutes.

Release Date1996-02-02

Charactersd Sadie Maracle

Episode Count19

Sue Thomas: F.B.Eye

Based on a true story, this family-friendly series follows the adventures of a young, hearing impaired woman who has a special gift and goes to work for the FBI in Washington, D.C. She's one hard-headed, soft-hearted woman whose talent for reading lips helps crack crimes and bag the bad guys in places listening devices can't penetrate. With her hearing-ear dog, Levi, Sue's a glutton for jeopardy – and there's (almost) nothing she won't do to bring notorious criminals to justice. This remarkable, edge-of-your-seat drama is an inspiring tribute to the ability of the human spirit to overcome adversity and achieve great things.

Release Date2002-10-13

Charactersd Rosie

Episode Count1

Vote Count22

Take This Waltz

Twenty-eight-year-old Margot is happily married to Lou, a good-natured cookbook author. But when Margot meets Daniel, a handsome artist who lives across the street, their mutual attraction is undeniable.

Release Date2011-11-25

Charactersd Karen

Vote Count370

Riverdale

CBC’s first prime time soap opera follows the intertwined lives of four families in Toronto’s Riverdale community.

Release Date1997-09-22

Charactersd Michelle Martin

Episode Count1

Vote Count4

Jimmy P.

At the end of WWII, Jimmy Picard, a Native American Blackfoot who fought in France, suffers from unexplainable symptoms and is admitted to a military hospital. When doctors suspect schizophrenia, an eccentric psychoanalyst takes up the case and starts a conversation with the veteran.

Release Date2013-09-11

Charactersd Doll

Vote Count121

Fugitive Pieces

A child escapes from Poland during World War II and first heads to Greece before coming of age in Canada.

Release Date2008-05-09

Charactersd Grace

Vote Count32

Bogus

Recently orphaned, a young boy is taken in by his godmother who is shocked to realize that she can see the boy's imaginary friend: a flamboyant, French magician named Bogus.

Release Date1996-09-06

Charactersd Circus Character

Vote Count235

Dance Me Outside

Explores the sensitive, and tense, relationship between life on an First Nations reservation and life in the outside world. When Native Canadian Silas Crow is forced to write a personal essay in order to get a much-desired job, he tells the story of the rape and murder of an Indian girl by a drunken thug. When the killer received a lenient two-year sentence for manslaughter, the First Nations community felt shock and anger—and tried desperately to deal with the after-effects of this lack of justice.

Release Date1995-03-10

Charactersd Sadie Maracle

Vote Count21

Akilla's Escape

In a crime-noir about the urban child-soldier, Akilla Brown captures a fifteen-year-old Jamaican boy in the aftermath of an armed robbery. Over one gruelling night, Akilla confronts a cycle of generational violence he thought he escaped.

Release Date2021-06-11

Charactersd Mrs. Rosenthal

Vote Count7

Mouthpiece

Based on a stage play of the same name by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, the story follows Cassandra, who is portrayed by the two women, expressing the opposing voices that exist inside the modern woman's head, during a 48-hour period as she tries to organize the affairs for her mother's funeral.

Release Date2019-04-04

Charactersd Mrs. Cappo

Vote Count11

Aberdeen

An idyllic childhood with her mooshum and kookum, or grandparents, in her community of Peguis First Nation dissipates as Aberdeen’s hard-partying and absentee parents distances her from that haven. Now an adult, sleeping on public benches, Winnipeg-based Aberdeen is in survival mode. The last remaining stable parts of her life begin slipping away — her reliable brother Boyd is ill and gives up Aberdeen’s grandkids to the foster care system. Then she loses her ID.

Release Date2024-09-06

Charactersd Grace

Vote Count2

Moccasin Flats

This series has been aired on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and Showcase Television since 2004. It takes place in Moccasin Flats, Regina, Saskatchewan, an urban reserve where the inhabitants struggle to maintain their cultural identity while overcoming poverty, gangs, violence, and racism.

Release Date2003-11-03

DepartmentProduction

JobExecutive Producer

Charactersd Deb Johnson

Episode Count15

Reel Women Seen

Tells the story of the realities faced by women in the film and TV industry yet simultaneously depicts the necessary, possible and achievable ways to transform them. The story is set in common TV backdrops – from a police procedural to a sitcom (complete with laugh track), to a medical drama, to a webisode series.

Release Date2017-05-25

Charactersd Mom

Vote Count2

Empire of Dirt

Lena flees to her rural hometown after her 13-year-old daughter's overdose attracts the attention of child services. She reunites with her estranged mother, and is forced to face a past she has tried to ignore.

Release Date2013-11-22

DepartmentProduction

JobProducer

Charactersd Minnie Mahikan

Vote Count8

Bliss - Erotische Versuchungen

Release Date2002-10-16

Charactersd Kate

Vote Count3

Fire Song

Shane, a gay Anishnabe teenager in Northern Ontario, is struggling to support his family in the aftermath of his sister's suicide. If he fails, he will be forced to choose between his family's home and his own future.

Release Date2015-09-13

Charactersd Jackie

Vote Count11

The Robber Bride

Journalist Zenia Arden has disappeared. When her finger turns up on the shores of Lake Ontario next to her blood-soaked car, the police believe they've uncovered a homicide.

Release Date2007-03-03

Charactersd Juanita

Vote Count8

Rehab

A First Nations man takes a famous actor back to the reserve to help him cope with his drug addiction.

Charactersd Janet

Distant Drumming: A North of 60 Mystery

Teevee Tenia has a plan - he intends to persuade Lynx River to dump the RCMP and establish an all Dene Police Force. But Corporal Michelle Kenidi is concerned: will a Dene Police Force in Lynx River be answerable to Canadian law, or to Teevee? When an elderly tourist is found beaten to death, Michelle’s concerns deepen as her suspicions fall upon Teevee’s friend, Matthew Fowler. As Michelle pursues the investigation, painful events from the past come alive. For the community of Lynx River, the investigation holds the town’s very future at stake.

Release Date2005-01-01

Charactersd Marjorie Sebastian

Redlights

An evening outing takes a dangerous turn for two Indigenous women.

Release Date2023-09-20

Charactersd Tina's Mom

The Light Before the Sun

A famous self-help guru returns from a book tour to a house suddenly filled with an estranged friend. The two friends then spiral into a drug-induced contemplation of the human condition.

Release Date2024-10-26

DepartmentProduction

JobConsulting Producer

Charactersd Syd

Pavane

Phil and Jay share more than a family bond - failed careers, failed relationships, bottomless drinks, and a debilitating memory of a shocking encounter in a ravine one childhood day. The pretext of being strangers, the darkly comic ritual that the broken, non-functioning brothers perform in an attempt to get at their pain, can't cover the palpable connection between them, nor their deeply felt desire to find redemption. An accomplished pianist, Jay is working as a piano player in a lounge. Mike, one of the bar's patrons, makes a request for Jay to play Maurice Ravel's "Pavane pour une infant defunte", which Jay refuses. This act masks an underlying secret both men share about their childhood.

Release Date2008-09-28

Charactersd Kim

Heritage Minutes: Tommy Prince

A eulogy is given for Tommy Prince, Canada’s most-decorated Indigenous war veteran.

Release Date2005-01-01

Charactersd Beryl Prince

Little Bird

As part of a racist government policy now known as the Sixties Scoop, Bezhig Little Bird is removed from her home in Long Pine Reserve in Saskatchewan and adopted into a Montréal Jewish family at the age of five, becoming Esther Rosenblum. Now in her 20s, Bezhig longs for the family she lost and is willing to sacrifice everything to find them.

Release Date2023-05-26

DepartmentProduction

JobExecutive Producer

Episode Count6

Vote Count5

Unsettled

Urban, Indigenous adoptee Rayna Keetch grew up with no connection to her Indigenous roots. Recently reunited with her birth family, Rayna is about to return to her First Nation for a traditional homecoming ceremony when her husband Darryl announces that he's been a victim of a scam and has lost their fortune.

Release Date2021-09-10

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count10

Future Nation

Against the terrifying backdrop of a biological apocalypse, a Native teenager, Brian, comes out to his older sister, Faith, and homophobic brother, Charles. Conflict erupts among them as desperate survivors from the city seek refuge on the rez from the horrors of a 'megapox' epidemic that is quickly devastating urban populations across North America. Through a perilous journey to the city for food, where they rescue Brian's 'friend' in the process (an outrageous drag queen named Tonya), the hungry and frightened youth reach acceptance by facing down their fears.

Release Date2005-01-01

DepartmentProduction

JobProducer

Indspire Awards 2023

The Indspire Awards reach a significant milestone as 2023 marks 30 years of honouring dedicated and community-focused First Nations, Inuit and Métis.

Release Date2023-06-18

DepartmentDirecting

JobDirector

ONE NINE

During the COVID-19 pandemic, nine filmmakers isolating in different parts of the world join to make a film. A 9-chapter anthology, this collection created by women filmmakers from South Africa, Germany, Spain, China, United States, and across Canada. ONE(NINE) is a timeless multiversal experience of what it means to find connection in a time of isolation, orchestrated by one of Canada's most fierce and prolific indie filmmakers, Ingrid Veniger.

Release Date2021-11-14

DepartmentDirecting

JobDirector

Don't Even

Follow two best friends in late '90s Winnipeg as they face uncertain futures after high school.

Release Date2024-08-23

Episode Count6

Vote Count1

Moose TV

Moose TV is a Canadian television sitcom, airing on Showcase in the 2007-08 television season. The show stars Adam Beach as George Keeshig, a Cree from the fictional community of Moose in northern Quebec, who returns home after a decade living in Toronto to become manager of the local community television station. The cast also includes Gary Farmer, Jennifer Podemski, Nathaniel Arcand, Michelle Latimer, Diane Flacks and Billy Merasty. The show's head writer is Paul Quarrington. The series was directed by Tim Southam. Produced by Rezolution Pictures for the Showcase network in Canada, the series received the Indie Award for Best Comedy Series from the Canadian Film and Television Producers Association in 2008.

Release Date2007-07-05

Episode Count8

The Diviners

Morag Gunn, a writer who is having trouble with her teenage daughter, examines her own relationship history, which includes a period of turbulence with Jules. While she and Jules have known each other since childhood, he is no rock of stability. In addition, he is white, while she is part Native American, so the teenage Morag experienced racism he can only imagine. Even after they have a daughter, she struggles against the emptiness within her.

Release Date1993-01-03

Don't Think Twice

A black comedy, Don't Think Twice is a disturbing and profound examination of the morals of a man forced to choose between lover and family.

Release Date1999-09-17

Vote Count1