A new series shot on Vancouver Island is about to make waves, and it’s the first bilingual French-English drama ever produced in British Columbia.

*Surf Bay, côte Ouest* launches nationally on TV5+ April 24th, with a Crave release set for 2027. The 10-episode series follows Camille Felton as Margot Swann, a pro surfer whose Olympic dreams collide with environmental activism when she fights to protect her hometown’s old-growth forest from tourism development. The clash puts her at odds with her own community and family.

Producer Anthony Cauchy, originally from France, developed the project after falling for BC’s surf scene. “The surf beaches of Vancouver Island are truly unique,” he says. Director Dominic Desjardins (*Paris Paris*) adds that the show offers “active environmentalism that isn’t defeatist at all, which feels refreshing.”

Shot in Tofino, Ucluelet, and around Vancouver, the production brought together a bilingual cast and crew, with over 60% speaking French. The series even landed a David Suzuki cameo and support from surf brands like Billabong and Rip Curl.

The series had its world premiere at Montreal’s Festival Courts d’un Soir, with a public Vancouver screening set for April 17th at L’Alliance Française.

For a BC indie production pulling off a bilingual series with this scope, it’s proof that regional stories can punch above their weight, especially when they tap into something universal like the fight to protect what you love.

Lav Diaz has turned Ferdinand Magellan’s brutal voyage into something mesmerizing. His latest film, “Magellan,” just dropped exclusively on the Criterion Channel, and it’s getting serious attention from critics.

Gael García Bernal plays the Portuguese navigator who led the first European expedition across the Pacific and into the Philippines. Diaz reimagines that journey as something hypnotic, caught between beauty and violence. Variety calls it “mesmerizing,” In Review Online labels it “a masterpiece,” and Slant says it’s “one of the most beautiful movies of the year.”

The film doesn’t shy away from what colonization cost. As The New York Times notes, Diaz “shows what was lost when the ostensibly old world discovered everyone else.” It’s politically rigorous, visually stunning, and García Bernal reportedly delivers one of his finest performances.

The Criterion Channel has it streaming now, with Blu-ray and DVD releases coming soon. For filmmakers tackling historical epics with a critical eye, this one matters. Diaz continues proving that slow cinema can pack a serious punch.

The final season of *BLEACH: Thousand-Year Blood War* is getting a theatrical run before it hits streaming.

VIZ Media and Fathom Entertainment are bringing the first three episodes of *The Calamity* to U.S. theaters June 25–29, ahead of the broadcast and streaming premiere. Tickets go on sale May 29.

The theatrical event includes exclusive behind-the-scenes content featuring creator Tite Kubo and directors Tomohisa Taguchi and Hikaru Murata discussing the production. Both subtitled and dubbed versions will screen nationwide.

*BLEACH* returned in 2022 to adapt the manga’s climactic Thousand-Year Blood War arc after the original series wrapped in 2012. The comeback has been massive. It took home Anime Trending’s “Anime of the Year” in 2024 and earned multiple nominations at the Crunchyroll Anime Awards, including nods for Best Action, Best Continuing Series, and Best Score.

The series routinely pulls 9.4/10 ratings from fans and critics. It’s part of Shonen Jump’s original “Big 3” alongside *One Piece* and *NARUTO*, making it foundational viewing for a generation of anime fans.

*The Calamity* picks up as the Soul Reapers and Quincies face their final battle, with Yhwach and the Royal Guard transforming the Royal Palace into the Wahr Welt. The fate of three worlds hangs in the balance.

This gives fans a chance to experience the finale on the big screen before everyone else catches it at home.

More than one in seven Canadians live with some degree of hearing loss, but their experience is rarely represented on screen. Brian Ceci is changing that with his feature documentary debut, HEARD.

The film follows Ceci, a Hard of Hearing cinematographer, as he connects with others on the HoH spectrum to build community and visibility for an identity that exists in the space between hearing and Deafness. Using vérité footage, family archives and candid interviews, HEARD explores what it means to belong to a community defined by a shared spectrum rather than a single experience.

“Growing up wearing hearing aids, I never saw films featuring character depictions of hearing loss outside of Deaf themes,” says Ceci. “While Deafness is certainly an important marginalized group, there is a gap between hearing and Deafness that is essentially voiceless, even in 2026. I know people like me want to feel seen, and of course heard.”

HEARD makes its theatrical debut at Vancouver’s Rio Theatre on April 14th and 19th, with accessibility features including open captions, ASL interpretation and Auracast audio for hearing aid users. Additional screenings in Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto are set to be announced.

The TELUS original film will stream free on TELUS Optik TV and TELUS Stream+ starting April 21st. It’s produced by Ruckus Machine Pictures, a company founded specifically to tell impact-driven stories from underrepresented communities.

Agatha Bock doesn’t need your help. The 90-year-old tends her massive garden, bakes and cans everything she eats, and hasn’t had running water in a decade. She’s doing just fine, thank you.

Her niece, filmmaker Amalie Atkins, spent six years filming Agatha’s daily routines on her rural Manitoba farm, and the result is stunning. AGATHA’S ALMANAC opens May 15 at New York’s Film Forum for its U.S. theatrical premiere.

Shot on 16mm by an all-female crew led by cinematographer Rhayne Vermette, the doc captures Agatha’s fierce independence with visual poetry. Watch her harvest a 15-pound watermelon by kicking it along with her rubber boot. See her preserve heirloom seeds and maintain her ancestral farm without a car, cell phone, or functioning landline.

The film already won Best Canadian Feature Documentary at Hot Docs and made TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten list for 2025. Critics are calling it “tender and melancholy but so full of life” and praising its “wondrously luminous” cinematography that makes Agatha’s strawberries look impossibly red and her watermelons eye-poppingly pink.

This is what indie documentary filmmaking looks like when it’s done right. No agenda, no manufactured drama. Just a niece learning from her aunt that a handmade, independent life can be its own kind of art.

The post-apocalyptic thriller Snowpiercer is pulling into new territory. Radial Entertainment just dropped the series on Roku, Pluto TV, Tubi, and Plex, with a CW premiere set for mid-April.

It’s a smart play. Free, ad-supported streaming is where the eyeballs are moving, and Snowpiercer has the goods to capitalize. Set seven years after Earth becomes a frozen wasteland, the series follows humanity’s remnants aboard a perpetually moving 1,001-car train. Class warfare, survival politics, and power struggles fuel the drama across every carriage.

The pedigree is there. Executive producers include Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone), Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), and Park Chan-wook (Oldboy). The cast brings serious heat too: Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Sean Bean, and Alison Wright lead a roster stacked with award winners.

Seasons 1-3 are streaming now. Season 4 drops this summer.

The move puts quality serialized drama in front of cord-cutters and free streamers who might have missed it the first time around. For creators watching how legacy content finds new life, this is the model: take something with built-in fans, strong production value, and a bingeable hook, then put it where people actually watch. No paywall, just ads and accessibility.

The film formerly known as The Shitheads just got a rebrand. Independent Film Company is now calling it IDIOTS, and it hits theaters August 28.

Director Macon Blair’s road comedy stars Dave Franco and O’Shea Jackson Jr. as two completely unqualified guys hired to drive a rich kid (Mason Thames) to rehab. Naturally, things go sideways fast. The cast also includes Kiernan Shipka, Nicholas Braun, and Peter Dinklage.

The film is produced by Alex Orr, Brandon James, Nathan Klingher, Ford Corbett, Joshua Harris, Mark Fasano, Macon Blair, and Dave Franco. O’Shea Jackson Jr. executive produces alongside Jatin Desai, Greg Freidman, Danny McBride, Jody Hill, David Gordon Green, Jeremy Saulnier, David Gendron, Ali Jazayeri, and Thomas Mann.

Blair, best known for directing I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore and acting in Blue Ruin and Green Room, has built a reputation for dark, offbeat storytelling. IDIOTS sounds like more of that energy, just aimed at multiplex crowds this time.

Independent Film Company clearly sees commercial potential here, slotting it into the late summer release window when comedies can still break through. Whether audiences will show up for a gonzo road trip about incompetent kidnappers remains to be seen, but the cast alone makes it worth watching.