Maya Annik Bedward
Directing
Biography
Maya Annik Bedward is a Jamaican-French Canadian director working in film and television. After living in Brazil and the UK, Maya returned to Toronto and co-founded Third Culture Media with her producing partner, Kate Fraser. Visually colourful and sonically rich, her work uses levity and nuance to explore themes of locality, ancestry and belonging. Her films have screened at Hot Docs, TIFF, Black Star and the New Orleans Film Festival. She has also directed episodes for FARM CRIME (CBC Gem), BLK: AN ORIGIN STORY (History Channel, Global TV) and the upcoming series, LIDO TV (CBC Gem). Maya is a fellow of the DOC Institute Breakthrough program and the EFM DocSalon Toolbox Programme. She has also produced two podcasts. Dedicated to fostering a more equitable and inclusive industry, Maya is a founding member of the Black Screen Office and a mentor for the Telus StoryHive Black Creators Edition. She is currently in production on her first feature documentary, BLACK ZOMBIE.
Known For
From the flickering screens of Hollywood horror, to the haunted cane fields of colonial Haiti, Black Zombie unearths the buried origins of the zombie, reclaiming it as a symbol of survival and spiritual resistance.
Black Zombie
Farm Crime is a true crime documentary series exploring the largely unseen dark side of Canada’s agriculture industry. Each episode examines a case that wouldn’t typically make the front page. Instead of kidnappings, cold cases and serial killers, the series examines the fascinating, lesser-known incidents that unfold in the margins – the fields, farms and unassuming small towns that dot the Canadian countryside. Rare sheep gone missing. Potatoes sabotaged with sewing needles. A multi-million-dollar pigeon breeding Ponzi scheme. These are farm crimes, and they exact a real toll on rural victims who don’t always get their due. Farm Crime approaches these stories with respectful curiosity, focusing on the people at the centre of the incidents, seeking answers, closure and justice.
Farm Crime
Look beyond the Underground Railroad to explore the untold stories of Black Canadians from the 1600s to the present.
BLK: An Origin Story
A variety show with a mission: to help people cope with life in a world that sometimes feels like it’s falling apart, filled with hilarious sketches, inspiring interviews, immersive documentaries, surreal animations, and... puppets! At the centre of it all is our host Lido Pimienta, the award-winning Colombian-Canadian musician, artist and mother whose hilarious, curious, and tender personality drives the action.
LIDO TV
Patty vs. Patty tells the story of Toronto’s bizarre 1985 “patty wars,” when Jamaican-Canadian bakers went head-to-head with the federal government over the name of their beloved beef patty.