Rukiya Bernard (Doc in 28 Episodes) wrote and directed THE BLACTOR, a short film about a young black actor (Kadidja Watson played by Keeya King) who is mistaken for a gangster by a local cop (Mark Hildreth) as she’s leaving an audition. Bernard told Sabrina Furminger of YVR Screen Scene: “I wanted to make a dark comedy…so in the script I had a stereotypical gangsta bitch dialogue that the protagonist would have with the cop. And I thought how awful and oddly funny it would be if she had to do her lines to prove she’s actually an actor and not the character that she’s auditioning for.” THE BLACTOR, which had its premier at the 2021 Vancouver International Film Festival, received eight Leo Awards nominations: Best Short Drama, Best Director, Best Screenwriter, Best Picture Editing, Best Musical Score, Best Costume Design, Best Performance Male (Mark Hildreth), and Best Performance Female (Keeya King). (King was Violet in 19 Van Helsing episodes).

Julius (Aleks Paunovic) and Axel (Jonathan Scarfe) first catch sight of Nina in Carpe Noctis
VAN HELSING is nominated for Best Dramatic Series
Aleks Paunovic (Julius in 35 episodes) is nominated for Best Lead Performance Dramatic Series (Male) for “Graveyard Smash” (Episode 5.7).
Beverly Huynh, Nikola Stojisavljevic, Karley Schroyen, Evan Couillaud, and Stephanie Shanklin are nominated for Best Costume Design – Dramatic Series for their work on “Lumina Intunecata” (Episode 5.3). Continue reading →