Latest news with #JasmeetRaina
CTV News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CTV News
‘Universal Language' leads film contenders heading into Canadian Screen Awards
An absurdist Winnipeg-set fever dream and a millennial identity dramedy are among the leading contenders heading into tonight's Canadian Screen Awards. Matthew Rankin's 'Universal Language' picked up five awards in the film categories at a ceremony over the weekend and will compete for several more tonight, capping off a multi-day celebration of Canadian film, television and digital storytelling. It's vying for the best film trophy against 'The Apprentice,' 'Darkest Miriam,' 'Gamma Rays,' 'Village Keeper' and 'Who Do I Belong To.' Jasmeet Raina's Crave dramedy series 'Late Bloomer' won four awards at a gala for scripted television on Saturday, and is in contention tonight for best comedy series. It's up against CTV's 'Children Ruin Everything,' CBC's 'One More Time' and Crave's 'Don't Even' and 'Office Movers.' Edmonton-born comedian Lisa Gilroy says there's no better time to spotlight homegrown talent as she hosts tonight's Canadian Screen Awards, airing live from Toronto on CBC and CBC Gem. 'I know how hard it is to get TV shows and movies made (in Canada), and I'm so excited to celebrate the stuff that has been made,' she said in an interview earlier this month. 'It is so good and so funny. And we deserve to party.' 'Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent,' which led all nominees overall with 20, is up for several trophies tonight. It won two awards on Saturday for best writing in a drama series and best sound in fiction. It will square off for best drama series against CBC's 'Allegiance' and 'Bones of Crows,' Hollywood Suite's 'Potluck Ladies' and CTV's 'Sight Unseen.' 'Law & Order Toronto' actors Kathleen Munroe and Aden Young compete for best lead performer in a drama series against Grace Dove of Crave's 'Bones of Crows,' Mayko Nguyen of Citytv's 'Hudson & Rex' and CBC stars Supinder Wraich of 'Allegiance,' Hélène Joy of 'Murdoch Mysteries, Michelle Morgan of 'Heartland' and Vinessa Antoine of 'Plan B.' 'Universal Language' stars Rojina Esmaeili and Pirouz Nemati are nominated for best performance in a leading comedy film role. They're up against Maïla Valentir of 'Ababooned,' Paul Spence of 'Deaner '89,' Taylor Olson of 'Look at Me,' Emily Lê from 'Paying for It,' Cate Blanchett of 'Rumours' and Kaniehtiio Horn of 'Seeds.' Up for best performance in a leading drama film role are Sebastian Stan of 'The Apprentice,' Oshim Ottawa of 'Atikamekw Suns,' Britt Lower of 'Darkest Miriam,' Carrie-Anne Moss of ':Die Alone,' Chaïmaa Zineddine Elidrissi of 'Gamma Rays,' Sean Dalton of 'Skeet,' Christine Beaulieu of 'The Thawing of Ice,' and Olunike Adeliyi of 'Village Keeper.' In a last-minute programming shift on Thursday, the Canadian Screen Awards announced it would broadcast live on television — reversing earlier plans for a streaming-only show. Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television CEO Tammy Frick previously said going online-only allowed the show to be more 'flexible.' Some top nominees had expressed disappointment in March, telling The Canadian Press that a televised broadcast is key to spotlighting Canadian talent. The Academy said the decision to return to CBC TV came down to NHL scheduling — with no playoff game on Sunday, the two-hour show could air live. This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 1, 2025. Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
CBC
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How Late Bloomer represents the breadth of the South Asian experience in Canada
Social Sharing Late Bloomer just wrapped up its second season, and the verdict is in: people love it. The Crave dramedy follows an aspiring content creator named Jusmeet Dutta, who's based on the show's creator and star, Jasmeet Raina (a.k.a Jus Reign). The series loosely mirrors Raina's own experience as a YouTuber and Punjabi Sikh millennial in Canada. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with journalists Jeevan Sangha and Joyita Sengupta about the acclaim for Late Bloomer and their favourite moments from this season. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Season two of Late Bloomer is being called the best one yet. Joyita, how did you feel about it? Joyita: I really liked it. I loved the first season, as well. I think the second season is even more ambitious than the first. And like it really leans into the drama side of the dramedy equation, although there are some really funny moments. But I think probably one of my favourite things about Late Bloomer, and specifically Season 2, is that in the canon of North American shows about South Asians, there's often, in my opinion, a huge lack of class representation. I always feel like I keep seeing the same stories about an upper middle class brown person whose parents are a doctor or something, and they want to go to an Ivy League school and blah, blah, blah. And they're made by great trailblazing creators, for sure — and they sometimes centre whiteness in a way that I don't appreciate — but it does speak to some people's experiences. But when it comes to Late Bloomer, you get to see a community that truly doesn't need to centre anyone else but themselves. And in terms of the class part of that equation, you see the first season ended with him [Jasmeet] falling out with his parents, mainly his dad. And now it starts with him living in a basement apartment with a bunch of international students. And there is a bit of tension there because those students are looking at him like, "You could just go home if you wanted to. You keep rocking the boat because you don't know struggle like we do." But then on the other hand, he's hanging out with this girlfriend who comes from a far more privileged and wealthier family, and there is a lot of discomfort around that and how they move through the world as South Asians. And I just think seeing that breadth of our experience from a class perspective? So refreshing. Elamin: Last week, [Joyita] was on this very show, talking about anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments being aimed at Brampton, Ont. — specifically South Asian communities — being stoked by places like 6ixBuzz. Jeevan, what does a show like Late Bloomer offer to that conversation, do you think? Jeevan: I think this episode [Episode 6, which follows an international student who is also a food delivery person] of Late Bloomer, to me, is required reading for everyone in my life. I think that there are so many conversations about international students, about newcomers that are so vitriolic and so aggressive. One scene in that episode — it was very quick, but really important — is, after having the worst day ever, the protagonist of this episode opens his phone, and sees a video that he thinks is fun about folks that are just like him, and opens the comments, and it's just some of the most troubling and disgusting comments that you could ever see. And like any racialized person in Canada, but particularly South Asians in the last few years, know that feeling of seeing something on Instagram about someone in your community and just having to brace for impact. And I think the level of complexity that this episode brings to the international student experience, and presents to Canadians through the extensive research that was done, is so needed in this cultural moment in time. It is urgent to me, so if you haven't watched it please, please, please consider it.
CBC
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Jasmeet Raina questions the meaning of success in Season 2 of Late Bloomer
While making the second season of his dramedy Late Bloomer, Jasmeet Raina found himself in an unfamiliar position: the director's chair. Having created, starred in, and co-written the series, Raina also directed some episodes this season, something that had been an ambition of his for several years. "It's always been a passion," he says. "I wanted to go to film school to direct, but it never panned out. Late Bloomer follows YouTuber Jasmeet Dutta, It's a story that's loosely based on Raina's own career as an early 2010s YouTube sensation. He says that while he was technically directing during his YouTube days, directing episodic television is a much different process "[On YouTube] it was five or 10 people, now it's like literally 150 people who need to know exactly what they're doing," he says, adding that the biggest challenge has been learning how to translate the vision that exists in his brain to the rest of the team. "I know what I want in my head, and then I have to relay that information to everybody else that's involved when it comes to like sound , where the camera being set up, where's the grip going? Lighting. All this stuff," he says. Season 2 sees the protagonist leave his parents' house, trading it in for a hovel-like basement apartment he shares with a seemingly ever-growing number of Indian international students. Raina says the storyline gave him a chance to explore what he sees as the tension between Canadian Punjabis like him and more recent arrivals. "I wanted to show that dynamic and the privilege my character has," he says. "At the beginning of the episode, I'm listing all these problems, and one of the students is like 'Why don't you go back home?' Because, like, they don't really have that option." It's a subject he explores further in a capsule episode later on in the season, which moves away from his character and focuses on one of the other residents of the basement apartment, a character he describes as "trying to do everything right, but everything keeps going wrong for him." Raina says he wanted to draw attention to a virulent strain of anti-South Asian racism he's seen pop up in the last few years, one that's particularly focused on international students and other recent arrivals who he says are often used as scapegoats for everything from the housing crisis to street crime. He adds that he spent the summer talking to international students and temporary foreign workers working in food delivery in order to better flesh out the character. "While I was writing this episode, I would pull over random Uber Eats drivers, or if there was any that recognized me, I'd just try to strike up a conversation with them… and be like, 'Yo, tell me about your experience. How was it… coming from Punjab or coming from India and now you're here? What's your family situation like? What's your dating situation like? How are you making things work?' And so I was able to hear a bunch of different stories." While Raina was a hit on YouTube, his onscreen alter-ego, Dutta, finds himself caught in an odd trap of online fame: he's too successful at this to feasibly work a real job, but not yet successful enough that online videos are a full-time living. It's a situation that leads him to question his choices. "He's kind of in this weird middle place where he doesn't really know where he's going, but he's just like 'I think I have to do this. I just think I have to keep pushing,'" says Raina. Raina says that one of his "personal philosophies" that's crept into the show is to question what it means to be successful. "Society in general places emphasis on success and just money and being successful at [any] cost, like, whatever you gotta do to get there," he says. "That's the most amount of value we place on a person." But having experienced some pretty impressive success as a YouTuber, and then having stepped back from it for five years prior to starting work on Late Bloomer, Raina says that success and acclaim aren't necessarily all they're cracked up to be. "I experienced this huge amounts of success, but there were like certain parts of me that I felt were still stuck in, like, my late teens and early 20s," he says."That's why I took that time away." He adds that ultimately, "making it" and material success are meaningless if it comes at the expense of being a good, empathetic person who knows themselves, and that the most important thing is "striving to help each other out, because we're all kind of in this together."
CBC
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Comedian Jasmeet Raina returns with Season 2 of Late Bloomer
Late Bloomer is a TV show about being a young Punjabi-Sikh Canadian growing up in the social media era. It's loosely based around the experiences of creator and star Jasmeet Raina, who used to be known as Jus Reign on his YouTube channel. Raina joined the CBC's Gloria Macarenko to talk about the second season of the show.
