When broadcaster George Stroumboulopoulos took the stage at the recent Canadian Screen Awards, he had a message for a nationwide TV audience. “When our identities are under attack, [our culture] matters more than ever,” the veteran host and podcaster declared. “Because a country that doesn’t tell its own stories in its own way is just a market for someone else, and we’re better than that.”
The stakes behind that sentiment — cultural sovereignty in the age of Donald Trump’s annexation threats — will be very much in the air at the Banff World Media Festival when it convenes June 14 to 17 in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains. And one homegrown success story likely will draw the loudest applause: Heated Rivalry, the Canadian gay hockey drama that became an unlikely global hit on HBO Max.
“Heated Rivalry has skyrocketed Canada and Canadian entertainment into the highest echelons of audiences and fandom worldwide, and that’s a great thing,” says Jenn Kuzmyk, Banff’s executive director. But the festival’s broader conversation will push past any single title toward the question animating the entire global content industry right now: How do you tell stories rooted in local culture while building the kind of international audience that Heated Rivalry found?
