What Canadian film and television MADE you?

Stories That Made Us is a 60 minute CBC documentary hosted by broadcasting legend George Stroumboulopoulos. Over three summer months, George travelled from coast to coast (to coast) across Canada, meeting people in communities big and small – to ask one simple but powerful question: What Canadian film and television made the biggest impact on you?

The project began as a MADE | NOUS web series, the Canada Media Fund’s celebration of Canadian screen storytelling. What started as a web series grew into something bigger. The CBC series brings together the best of what we captured on the road, and the conversations that dove the deepest, into a national portrait of who we are and the stories that shaped us.

What We Discovered

What we discovered was extraordinary. Across 14 cities, we conducted more than 50 in-depth conversations and over 100 street interviews in English and French. We sat down with everyday Canadians and national icons alike, including Jay Baruchel, Tantoo Cardinal, Cody Lightning, Mark Carney, Ryan Reynolds, Emily Hampshire, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, and dozens more.
Everywhere we went, people opened up about the films and TV shows that shaped their identities, strengthened their communities and deepened their sense of belonging, both at home and abroad.

But the journey uncovered something deeper: the connecting threads that give us our identity as a country. In conversation after conversation, we found shared values that set us apart: compassion, resilience, humour in the face of hardship, and a quiet but fierce pride in who we are. The series explores how those qualities have shown up in our film and television, and the result is a portrait of Canada that’s both surprising and deeply moving.

TELEFILM Canada Opens in a new window. National Film Board of Canada Opens in a new window.

Our cameras rolled through Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Saint John, Moncton, Prince Edward Island, Nunavut and many communities in between. This is one of those rare projects that reminds you why you do this work in the first place.

None of it would have been possible without our production and post-production teams. Starting with George, our crews were the face of the project on the road, building bridges in every community and making people comfortable sharing their stories.

We watched people light up talking about the stories that shaped them, and sharing in that changed us too. The Stories That Made Us premieres on CBC on October 30th 2026, and we can’t wait to share it with audiences across the country. These aren’t just stories about film and television. They’re stories about who we are, where we come from and what connects us.

Watch the MADE | NOUS Web Series

Client

Canada Media Fund / CBC

Strategic Agency

TORQUE Strategies

Host

George Stroumboulopoulos

Direction

Alex Craig

Producers

Martin Glegg & Matt Lawrence Dix

Line Producers

Angelica Stirpe & Alice Best

Writing

Bob Mackowycz

Director of Photography

Liam Mitchell

Editing

Andrew Huculiak

Score

Cayne Mackenzie

Services Provided

Full service: Conception, Production, Post-Production