PRODUCING TEAM

---

Tamara Podemski is an Anishinaabe (First Nations) and Ashkenazi (Jewish) multi-disciplinary performer whose work has spanned over three decades on stage and screen. She is best known for her acting roles in Dance Me Outside, The Rez (CBC), Ready or Not (Global), Reservation Dogs (FX) and the Broadway company of RENT. In 2007, Tamara won the Special Jury Prize for Acting at the Sundance Film Festival for her role in Sterlin Harjo's Four Sheets to the Wind, which also garnered her a Film Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Tamara stepped behind the camera in 2018, writing two seasons of the Indigenous documentary series Future History (APTN), earning her a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Factual Writing. The following year, she joined the Indspire Awards (CBC) as writer and researcher for this nationally-televised variety program, which was nominated for a Canadian Screen Award for Best Biography Series. 

In 2020, Tamara was tasked with bringing the quirky character of Alison Trent to life on Coroner (CBC), a role that won her a Canadian Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress (2021), an ACTRA Award for Outstanding Performance (2021), as well as another Canadian Screen Award for Best Guest Star (2022). She then went on to star opposite Phoebe Waller-Bridge in Run (HBO) and then opposite Josh Brolin for two seasons as Sheriff Joy in Outer Range (Amazon).

After years of experience in both Canadian and US markets, Tamara claimed her space as a producer in 2023, launching Blackbird Productions with her husband Jamie Thomas King. From its passion for provocative and diverse storytelling to its engagement of healthy workplace processes and practices, Blackbird is committed to amplifying the conversation of mental health and trauma recovery, while providing safe spaces for dialogue and discourse through all levels of production. 

As an Indigenous storyteller, Tamara continues to advocate for authentic representation, inclusion in-front and behind the camera, as well as challenge the colonial narrative pervasive in the entertainment industry.  

Photo credit: Lori Dorn 

Jamie Thomas King is a English-American actor born and raised in London, England, where he began his training with the National Youth Theatre and later received a scholarship to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). His big break came when he starred in the Royal National Theatre's production of Sir Alan Bennett’s The History Boys, directed by Sir Nicholas Hytner, followed by a UK tour and a transfer to the West End's Wyndham Theatre.

For the next twenty years, Jamie moved between film and television, with characters like Guy Mackendrick in the multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning series Mad Men (AMC), and Sir Thomas Wyatt in two seasons of the historical drama The Tudors (Showtime). From popular network shows like Private Practice (ABC), Elementary (CBS), Call the Midwife (BBC) and Murdoch Mysteries (CBC) to Oscar and BAFTA-winning films like Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner and Tomas Alfredson's Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy, Jamie established himself as an international screen actor, but never forgot his theatre roots. In 2015, Jamie returned to the stage to join the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, starring in John Ford's Love's Sacrifice. 

In 2016, following the death of his son Benjamin due to medical error, Jamie took a hiatus from his career to focus on the Coroner’s Inquest. Calling upon everything he learned during the five-year lawsuit, Jamie joined forces with patient safety advocates around the world in their mission to improve global healthcare practices, eventually teaching workshops, offering keynote addresses and creating a Foundation in memory of his son.

Returning to the industry, and following in the path of his late mother, acclaimed screenwriter Laura Lamson, Jamie wrote his first screenplay. After reading OBE Recipient James Titcombe's memoir Joshua’s Story: Uncovering the Morecambe Bay Maternity Scandal. He secured the rights to the book and adapted it for the screen. 

In 2023, Jamie partnered with his wife Tamara Podemski to create Blackbird Productions, subsequently acting as EP and star of their first project, The Light Before the Sun, which premieres at the Hamilton Film Festival in October 2024.  

Photo credit: Lori Dorn