Manitoba’s own Summer Howell takes on biggest role yet as Stephen King’s telekinetic teen Carrie

From the tender age of eight, actress Summer Howell has made her presence known in a series of horror films shot in her home province of Manitoba.

Her first film was Curse of Chucky (2013), director Don Mancini’s continuation of the venerable killer doll series he started (as a screenwriter) in 1988 with Child’s Play.

“Even then, it was obvious she was very talented, intelligent and delightful,” Mancini said of Howell.

Though she has worked in other genres, Howell gravitated to horror repeatedly, with credits in Shawn Linden’s harrowing Hunter Hunter (2020) and the 2023 possession thriller All Fun and Games. Earlier this year, she shot the horror film Sundown in Winnipeg with director Rebekah McKendry, which premièred last week at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles and is headed for a streaming berth on Shudder.

Canadian TV show ‘Mayday’ cited by passenger who thwarted Flydubai attack

TORONTO - A passenger who helped avert a catastrophe on a FlyDubai flight after the pilot was stabbed mid-air has said he credited a Canadian-made TV show for knowing how to seize control of the aircraft.

The long-running documentary series “Mayday” examines real-life air disasters, including crashes, near-crashes, hijackings and bombings.

The show’s executive producer Alex Bystram said it was rewarding to know the series has been associated with a story that has a happy ending for the more than 170 passengers.

"Whether it gave him the knowledge to do what he did or gave him courage to try to do something, or even just ensure that he didn't do the wrong thing. It would be easy for him to go into that cockpit and then make things worse," Bystram said. "It's nice to get that kind of publicity, and it's nice to be associated with a story with a happy ending like that."

How ‘North of North’ turned Inuit joy into its own kind of Canadian TV revolution

TORONTO - It was supposed to be a table read for the Season 2 finale of “North of North.”

But it turned into one big group cry.

Inuk actress Zorga Qaunaq, who plays Millie on the hit Iqaluit-shot sitcom, began tearing up at the end of the script.

“She just started crying and being like, ‘It’s so nice to have something nice. We deserve nice things,’” recalled co-creator Alethea Arnaquq-Baril.

CBC’s ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ to return this season with PWHL games

TORONTO - The "Hockey Night in Canada" tradition will live on this season with a fresh look and a new league. 

A Saturday mainstay for generations of Canadians will continue as the CBC has partnered with the Professional Women's Hockey League for the upcoming season, the broadcaster and PWHL announced Monday.

The CBC previously aired NHL games on the program, but that ended last spring when a sublicensing agreement with Rogers Communications wasn't renewed.

A Dec. 5 matchup between the Montreal Victoire and expansion PWHL Hamilton side will be the first women's hockey game to be featured on Hockey Night. 

Puck drops on new-look NHL broadcasting scene after major off-season changes

TORONTO - An off-season of major changes on the NHL broadcasting scene in Canada may leave some hockey fans searching through their TV guides and others digging into their wallets.

To start, Saturday nights will feel a lot different in this country. After decades of NHL coverage, the CBC will no longer broadcast the league's games on "Hockey Night in Canada."

Sportsnet will continue to broadcast most NHL games after Rogers Communications extended its rights agreement with the league for 12 years at a cost of $11 billion. Bell Media's TSN/RDS will still broadcast some regional games and the Amazon Prime Monday Night package is shifting to Wednesdays.

"I think that we're being re-educated in how sports are going to be digested by the general population in that you can no longer just click on your old favourite channel and your game is there," said Michael McKinley, author of “Hockey Night in Canada: 60 Seasons.”

Don’t expect ‘naked stuff’ from Crave’s new queer TV show ‘Slo Pitch,’ cast says

TORONTO - If "Heated Rivalry" is about two men learning to be tender with each other, Crave's new Sapphic sitcom "Slo Pitch" is kind of the opposite.

So says star Jess Salgueiro, quoting one of the show's creators, Karen Knox. The mockumentary is about a group of friends — mostly queer and mostly women — goofing off while playing beer league softball.

"You got to see men be very intimate in a beautiful, vulnerable way in 'Heated Rivalry,'" Salgueiro said. "Now you get to see a bunch of mostly women be silly and kind of stupid." 

Salgueiro plays Joanne, who coaches the Brovaries: "the only mostly queer team in the Mississauga Slo-Pitch League," her character says in the pilot.

American Hostage stars recall warmth of Winnipeggers during brutal winter

TORONTO — When you stream the eight-part series American Hostage, a sense of familiarity may strike.

That’s because the show was shot in Winnipeg — especially in the Exchange District — from November of last year to the beginning of February, with Winnipeg portraying Indianapolis circa 1977.

The whole world seemed to be watching that midwest American city that year as a hostage crisis unfolded involving one Tony Kiritsis, an angry man who goes ballistic when a mortgage brokerage was poised to foreclose on property he had dreamed of developing into a shopping centre.

Kiritsis kidnapped his mortgage broker, Richard Hall, wiring a shotgun to the back of his head, and demanded a public airing of his grievances, with the reluctant help of popular radio broadcaster Fred Heckman.

Hudson Williams struggled to recapture Shane Hollander in “Heated Rivalry” Season 2

TORONTO - Hudson Williams said finding his way back to embodying Shane Hollander, the "Heated Rivalry" character that launched him to global stardom, was anything but straightforward.

The Kelowna, B.C.-born actor talked about filming the highly anticipated second season of the hockey romance series in a wide-ranging Q-and-A at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he also touched on his acting approach and set the record straight on his thoughts about Victoria, B.C.

The followup season of "Heated Rivalry" began filming in the Toronto area last month, after its breakout first season launched thousands of think pieces on hockey culture and fan edits of Williams' on-screen chemistry with co-star Connor Storrie.

Williams said he and Storrie felt "possibly overconfident" returning to their roles as hockey players grappling with love, expectations and sexual orientation, but left their first days of filming feeling shaken. 

Rap moguls, rock legends amid slate of fall shows

Even in this advanced age of streaming dominance, September still marks a welcome but also overwhelming arrival of new and returning programming.

Northern style: WAG-Qaumajuq, CBC series partner for runway show

Award-winning TV series North of North by Inuit filmmakers Stacey Aglok MacDonald (Qanurli, The Grizzlies) and Alethea Arnaquq-Baril (Angry Inuk, The Grizzlies) made a return to the small screen last week on APTN, CBC Gem and CBC TV with its second season première.

North of North is partnering with the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to celebrate the way it has propelled authentic northern fashion into the global spotlight at the gallery’s special edition of Crafted on the Catwalk Tuesday night, featuring fashion and design from Manitoba, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik.

Arnaquq-Baril and series stars Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq spoke to the Free Press ahead of Tuesday’s catwalk show.

Free Press: The fashion in Season 1 set the bar so high. We’re barely into Season 2 and have already seen so many covetable, stunning looks. What story do the clothes tell the viewers?

Matthew Rankin’s Brian Mulroney doc shows politician ‘charming the whole country into oblivion’

TORONTO - In 1990, Brian Mulroney's upturned face was sculpted onto the languorous body of a swine, like one of Odysseus's men transforming under Circe's spell. The figurine's gaping maw was carved into a coin slot, ready to gobble up Canadians' hard-earned loonies.

So, director Matthew Rankin says, the former prime minister's family has certainly seen worse than his new documentary, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney," which premieres Tuesday at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The piggy banks, attributed to Vancouver artist A.O. Pavlenko, still pop up for sale in online auctions every now and then. Someone sent a photo of one to Rankin recently.

"It's totally vulgar. It's completely awful and disturbing," Rankin said on a recent video call from his Montreal home.

Josh Hartnett would welcome more film production in Los Angeles

TORONTO - Josh Hartnett says he'd welcome more film production returning to Los Angeles but stopped short of endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's push to bring the industry home. 

"It would be nice to get more production back into Los Angeles to support those crews," the actor said during an interview ahead of Thursday night's Toronto International Film Festival premiere of the Netflix miniseries "Below," which he stars in alongside Vancouver actress Mackenzie Davis.

On Monday, Trump called on Congress to approve federal tax incentives intended to encourage film and television production in the United States, arguing that productions have increasingly moved to Canada and other countries.

Trump first floated a 100 per cent tariff on movies produced outside the U.S. in May 2025, writing on Truth Social that the industry had been "stolen" by other countries and calling it a "national security threat." He echoed a similar tariff threat last fall, though a formal policy has not been enacted.

Netflix series ‘Below’ blends Newfoundland heart and Atlantic noir at TIFF

TORONTO - In “Below,” an upcoming Newfoundland-set Netflix miniseries, the horrors under the sea are just the tip of the iceberg.

Jesse McKeown is the creator of the show, which falls into the North Atlantic noir sub-genre but also explores current-day issues such as communities losing their livelihoods, climate change and family displacement. It premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday. 

"Below" is set in Snook’s Arm, a close-knit town whose few remaining residents are debating whether to leave for good. 

Newfoundland is special to McKeown. His wife is a Newfoundlander; they live there on and off, and he has felt a pull to write about it for 18 years.

Hope and laughter: Comedy’s role after 9/11 terrorist attacks

Jasmeet Raina leaned on comedy days after the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when students at school began circulating rumours that his uncle was Osama bin Laden.

"They were like, 'Oh yeah, we saw Osama drop him off at school,'" he said.

The driver was his father, who is Sikh, wears a turban and took Raina to his middle school in Guelph, Ont., not the al-Qaida leader who plotted the deadly attacks on the United States.

"It was a pretty traumatic part of my life, as I'm sure it was for a lot of people," recalled the 36-year-old.

From ‘Musk’ to ‘Bucking Fastard,’ here’s a primer on 10 buzzy titles coming to TIFF

TORONTO - The Toronto International Film Festival may be shifting more of its focus to the business side of things with the launch of TIFF: The Market, but at its heart, it's still a place for people to see great cinema.

From Oscar bait to social media stars breaking into film, The Canadian Press has picked out some of the buzziest titles this year.

BABIES

An increasingly common question for modern couples is whether to have kids and director Lauren Miller Rogen is no exception.