Christina Jennings to Receive The Hollywood Reporter’s Women in Entertainment Canada Honor

Christina Jennings, founder, chair and president of top Canadian producer Shaftesbury, will be honored by The Hollywood Reporter at its Women in Entertainment Canada event on May 29 in Toronto.

Jennings, whose TV credits include the period police procedural Murdoch Mysteries and the dog-and-cop family series Hudson & Rex, will receive the Glass Ceiling Award to recognize her Canadian entertainment industry leadership to help women set the agenda and drive the industry forward. She also struck pay dirt in February 2008 when NBC picked up 13 hours of her Canadian drama The Listener at the height of the Writers Guild of America strike that year.

That acquisition helped pave the way for American TV networks to work with production companies outside the U.S. Shaftesbury’s other popular TV series include Slasher, Departure, SisterS, Frankie Drake Mysteries and Ruby & The Well, and more recently debuted the crime drama Underbelly, starring Stephen Amell, Hamza Hak and Minnie Driver, and the drama Irish Blood, led by Alicia Silverstone.

A dedicated mentor, Jennings, who founded Shaftesbury in 1987, also led the Canadian Film Centre as chair of the board for over a decade.

WIE Canada earlier announced that celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood will receive the Icon Award, Tantoo Cardinal will receive the Equity in Entertainment Award, lifestyle journalist Jeanne Beker will be given the IMPACT Award; and The Sex Lives of College Girls star Amrit Kaur will receive the Breakthrough Award at this year’s event.

The upcoming second annual WIE Canada summit will again bring together the Canadian industry across TV, film and music to celebrate and recognize the achievements of women leading the industry forward.

The event’s return follows a successful first-ever WIE Canada summit on May 30, 2024 that was attended by iconic Canadian entertainers in the TV, film and music fields like Lilly Singh, Nia Vardalos, Devery Jacobs, Kim Cattrall, Catherine Reitman and Jully Black.