EXCLUSIVE: “To be or not to be an actor. That is the question,” states an overly-dramatic Mark in the first trailer for the final run of Son of a Critch.

Unfortunately, life isn’t going to make it easy, and he’s soon working as a giant hot dog mascot and, in his own words, “having a midlife crisis at 17.”

Son of a Critch comes to an end after its fifth season, as show creator Mark Critch revealed on social media earlier this year. The CBC series, which has played on The CW, follows Benjamin Evan Ainsworth (The Legend of Zelda) as a young Mark making his way through school on the Atlantic Canadian coastnin Newfoundland, Canada, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Critch plays his own father, Mike Sr., and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) plays grandfather Pop. Claire Rankin (Stargate Atlantis) plays his mother Mary; Colton Gobbo (Ginny & Georgia) is older brother Mike Jr.; Mark Ezekiel Rivera is Mark’s best friend Ritche; and Sophia Powers (Murder in a Small Town) is Fox, Mark’s girlfriend.

The trailer sees Mark trying to make sense of his future, only for life to keep getting in the way. In a classroom, he muses that, “Maybe it’s not about settling for the way things are, but making your own way.” His teacher considers the sentiment for the briefest moment before snapping back, “No, it’s about jobs.”

The season will also introduce the devastating real-life cod moratorium crisis, which cost around 30,000 jobs and threw many Canadian families into poverty in 1992. As his dad and friends fear the worst, Mike turns to his supportive grandfather, who tells him, “Don’t give up on your dreams.”

In reality, Critch went on to become a successful writer, comedian and actor. He performed in comedy This Hour Has 22 Minutes before creating the semi-autobiographical Son of a Critch for CBC in 2022.

Critch co-created the show alongside co-showrunner Tim McAuliffe, with Project 10 Productions and Hawco Productions the makers in association with CBC and Lionsgate Television.

The American Film Market will have an expanded footprint for its upcoming edition with a new space, AFM House, dedicated to programming for its second annual Innovation Hub.

AFM House will be located at The Pavilion at Century Park, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, across from the Fairmont Century Plaza where the market will unspool Nov. 10-15. It adds 15,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor space to the campus, said the event’s producer Independent Film & Television Alliance.

The Innovation Hub, launched in 2025 in collaboration with Cannes Next, the Marché du Film‘s Innovation Program, will feature AI startups, tech companies and forward-looking programming, IFTA said.

AFM House will also host the Cinemas Club, co-created by Marché du Film and Cine Group, with an exhibition and speaker series focused on the future of theatrical cinema. The Club was introduced at this year’s Marché du Film in Cannes bringing together theater owners, distributors, producers and industry experts for curated discussions on the future of exhibition, audience engagement and the evolving cinema experience.

“Filmmaking has always been rooted in collaboration and innovation, and that spirit is more important today than ever. As our business continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, The AFM House provides a place where the global entertainment community can come together to exchange ideas, forge partnerships, explore emerging business models and discover opportunities,” said IFTA’s new president and CEO Jackie Brenneman. “Our collaboration with Cannes Next and the Cinemas Club expand that vision by creating a dedicated home for innovation, technology, and the future of theatrical exhibition.”

AFM’s 2026 theme is The New Global Screen Economy.

Guillaume Esmiol, executive director of the Marché du Film called AFM House “an ambitious new platform’ and said he’s delighted to see the Cannes market’s growing portfolio of programs designed to address major shifts in the industry extend beyond the Croisette.

“Theatrical exhibition has rarely needed more of what this market stands for: a broader and more diverse slate of films reaching screens, and the same appetite for innovation in the experience we offer audiences and in the way we connect with them,” said Cine Group President Julien Marcel.