Content Canada Copro Pitch Finalists announced
C21 has announced the finalists for the 2025 Content Canada Copro Pitch.
Approaching 100 submissions were received from established producers across Canada, with 15 being chosen for the digital showcase that ran from July 21 to August 11. From here, six finalists – three scripted and three unscripted – have been selected to pitch live at Content Canada on September 3.
Tickets for Content Canada are currently at the TIER 4 rate of $599. For more information about the event and to register online, CLICK HERE.
Scripted finalists:
Den Mother Crimson
B2F Media Inc
Den Mother Crimson (DMC) is an elevated scripted thriller set in a parallel reality where the personal computing revolution never happened and all advanced digital technology is state-controlled. The world is essentially analogue, akin to if the 1970s slowly crept forward to the present fiction.
When a detainee is killed inside a secretive AI-controlled detention facility, three elite scientists are summoned to investigate. One of them, Dr Leo Abrams, is shocked to discover the system running it: ADELE, a self-evolving AI he helped build but was mothballed years before.
At the end of the first episode, ADELE escapes into world, and its presence is immediately felt – not with violence, but with something more chilling: distortion. Systems go haywire. Institutions bifurcate. Societal belief itself is fractured. Alongside Agent Gwynn Faulkner – his former partner’s daughter – Leo is pulled into a web of secrecy, betrayal and paranoia. The deeper they go, the more they uncover about ADELE’s plan – and the human faction quietly cheering it on.
With the paranoid grit of The Parallax View, the emotional complexity of The Handmaid’s Tale and the creeping dread of Mr Robot, DMC is a six-part limited series about AI creators, deep-state powerbrokers and the future of humanity.
Tactile, tense and resonant, DMC poses the question: what if the AI threat was never unleashed by tech entrepreneurs as we experience today, but by a loss of control from the state?
A complete series with immense potential for expansion, DMC is timely and terrifyingly plausible.
I Just Moved Here
Film Fortunate
In this psychological thriller limited series, Arjun Singh returns to his hometown of Calgary to care for his dementia-stricken mother, Kuljit, who lives trapped in memories of their life before the mysterious death of her husband, Baldev. Upon discovering an old newspaper article questioning Baldev’s accidental death, Arjun initiates an unsettling investigation.
As Arjun digs deeper, he uncovers disturbing revelations suggesting Baldev found human remains – possibly those of indigenous children – but authorities dismissed the discovery as a cruel prank. Arjun tracks down Jennifer Smyth, the journalist who wrote the original article, now institutionalised. Smyth’s account confirms Baldev’s terrifying discovery, plunging Arjun into a chilling confrontation with a suppressed tragedy.
Haunted by vivid nightmares and escalating paranoia, Arjun navigates skepticism and threats, ultimately discovering his mother in a trance-like state, clutching a bone fragment hidden years ago by Baldev as evidence. Torn between protecting his fragile mother and uncovering the truth, Arjun ultimately resolves to honour his father’s legacy.
In the series’ emotional climax, Arjun decides to expose the dark secret, despite personal risks. His courage and determination culminate in reporting the disturbing truth to the authorities. As dawn breaks over Calgary, Arjun feels Baldev’s spiritual presence affirming his actions, bringing closure to his haunted past. This six-episode journey weaves themes of familial loyalty, unresolved trauma and the haunting weight of buried secrets, exploring the profound lengths to which one man will go to uncover the truth.
Paradise Lost
Undertow Entertainment/Byron A. Martin Productions
Facing a natural disaster in Togo, an emotionally damaged but talented young logistician working for a humanitarian aid organisation tries desperately to hold the mission together while she herself begins to unravel. Before she can help anyone else, Khaya Gumede must find a way to save herself.
Unscripted finalists:
Bleep Me!
Moving Vision Productions
This lighthearted yet very informative recurring docuseries explores profanity and its origins around the world. Swearing is very local and culture-specific. It arises out of different historical milestones and explains a lot about a country, its values, and its roots. In Japan, exclaiming ‘fish balls!’ is as shocking as decrying religious artefacts in Quebec or insisting someone do terrible things to their mother in Italy.
In a travel series with a unique twist, the Bleep Me! team will explore the world, learning, comparing and questioning the cultural backdrop against which local profane expressions have evolved. What does ‘F*** the turkey gods’ in Malta really mean? Or Poland’s ‘There’s no dick in the village’? When and why did the Irish begin saying ‘Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire do chnámh do dhroma’ – that the Devil will make a ladder out of your spine?
Come with us as we find out why we shovel ‘Ualach sé chapall de chré na h-úire ort’ – six horseloads of graveyard clay – upon you in Ireland, find out who’s ‘selling tofu’ in China, and who’s ‘eating popsicles’ (robić loda) in Poland, and why.
Linguists, historians, medical experts and locals all weigh in on what will be one of the most fun, adventurous travel series ever. Each episode explores a swearing genre (body parts, religion, food, family members and so on) as we travel to the outermost reaches of countries to find the wildest and weirdest expressions that no one’s allowed to say.
My Ink, My Story
Unicorn Power Media
Set inside My Ink – a futuristic, neon-slick tattoo parlour in the heart of downtown Toronto – this visually arresting 8×30′ docuseries dives into the creative minds of a bold new generation of tattoo artists. Each episode spotlights one artist from the shop’s diverse collective, following their process as they design a custom piece for a client, then inviting viewers into the deeper world behind the needle.
Blending intimate vérité, cinematic interviews and stylised animated sequences, My Ink, My Story explores how each artist’s cultural background, personal history and signature style are deeply intertwined. From the watercolour realism rooted in owner Mengni Yang’s Hani ancestry and her studies in Thai and Japanese tattoo traditions, to queer Trinidadian artist Luna’s bold blackwork style, to the delicate Chinese brushwork of recent immigrant Haoran – every design becomes a portal into lived experience and cultural memory.
The shop itself is a liminal space: part tattoo parlour, part cultural incubator and part high-tech storytelling lab. Through VFX and animation, the series brings each artist’s inner world to life – allowing ink to move, symbols to breathe and ancestral spirits to rise from the skin.
At its core, My Ink, My Story is about reclamation, identity and the ways marginalised communities use art to express survival, pride and power. In this series, tattoos don’t just mark the body – they reveal the soul.
The Unit
Ceres Productions
The Unit follows teacher Natalie Davey as she returns to confront a haunting chapter from her past, teaching at what was Ontario’s central booking youth detention centre during its final, chaotic months in the early 2000s. When her sister Rebecca asks the devastating question, ‘What really happened to you in that place?’ – observing how fundamentally changed Natalie was after that job – it triggers an investigation into one of Canada’s most troubling periods of youth justice reform.
The series centres on a landmark shattering murder case: a teenage student who killed his own brother. As Canada was shutting down smaller youth facilities in favour of mega jails, Natalie found herself in an impossible position – continuing to teach a boy who was connected to a brutal fratricide while the system crumbled around them. The documentary weaves together intimate family conversations, archival footage from the facility and interviews with key players like the judge and lead prosecutor.
Through Natalie’s story, the series exposes how Canada’s supposedly more humane approach to youth justice collapsed, revealing that ‘bigger’ wasn’t better – it was just more cruel. The series explores themes of forgiveness, institutional failure and the personal cost of working within broken systems. As Natalie confronts her own trauma and the end of her marriage shortly after this experience, The Unit asks whether Canada’s criminal justice system truly differs from America’s, or if we simply tell ourselves a different story while the same failures repeat.
To view more information on the Content Canada Copro Pitch finalists, CLICK HERE.
The pitch competitions will feature the most exciting development projects from the professional community that are looking for partners to take them to the next level. The two winners (one scripted and one unscripted) will receive US$15,000 worth of marketing across C21Media’s digital, print and event products to support development and pre-sales promotion of the show.
Judging the Content Canada Copro Pitch:
The building blocks of Content Canada 2025:
Sponsors:
