Yaga to premiere at TIFF ahead of October debut on Crave
The first two half-hour episodes of Yaga premiere in TIFF's Primetime programme this week, ahead of the full eight-part series launching globally in October.
The series is a horror mystery for Canadian streamer Crave from writer and showrunner Kat Sandler, the writer-producer in charge of the show. Baba Yaga lore haunts the search for a missing local in a small coastal town, according to Variety.
Hudson Williams leads the cast alongside Carrie-Anne Moss, Noah Reid and Clark Backo. Reid plays a private investigator who teams up with a local detective played by Backo. Together they investigate the disappearance of the heir to a major fishery, played by Williams.
Moss plays an enigmatic university professor. She is one of the local suspects. Moss was the first actor to sign on to the show.
Yaga was greenlit, meaning approved for production, in spring 2025. It was shot earlier this year over 32 days on location on Vancouver Island. The series adapts Sandler's 2019 stage play Yaga, inspired by Baba Yaga from Slavic folklore.
The show is produced by Blink49 Studios and Front Street Pictures. It already has homes outside Canada. Sky has acquired it for the UK and Ireland, and AMC Global Media has acquired it for the US market, according to Bell Media.
At TIFF, Yaga is billed as a Canada World Premiere in the 2026 Primetime line-up, the festival's strand for television, according to TIFF. The listing also names Rachel Talalay and David Frazee alongside Sandler.
Sandler spoke to Variety in Toronto a few days before the premiere. She presented a first-look clip featuring Williams at San Diego Comic-Con this summer. She is also serving as a mentor for TIFF: The Market's new Series Creators' Lab, a four-day programme for eight Canadian creator teams from under-represented communities.
