With three critically acclaimed series for cbc behind him, Ken Finkleman has every reason to be a huge fan of the public broadcaster. Working on The Newsroom, More Tears, and most recently, on Foolish Heart, Finkleman has had the kind of creative control that most directors can only dream about.

‘The cbc allowed me to write, produce and direct stuff that was not produced for the abstract market – that is, to sell to the largest possible audience,’ says Finkleman. ‘And if you’re not a slave to the market, you can follow the integrity of the idea from the very beginning through to the very end. Everything I’ve done for the cbc has been like that.’

Foolish Heart stands out for Finkleman because the dramatic change in tone from his satirical work represented a particular kind of challenge. ‘Foolish Heart was interesting because I had to tell stories that had some complexity to them in half an hour, and that is more challenging than satirical shows where the individual scenes are not absolutely essential,’ he points out.

(Foolish Heart garnered five Gemini nominations, including two craft nominations for Finkleman – best direction in a dramatic series and best writing in a dramatic series.)

Finkleman is adamant about the importance of directing his own material, and believes he would find it difficult to direct actors speaking lines written by someone else. In his experience, an integral part of the directorial process lies in being able to imagine how his own script will sound before the actors come to speak their lines. ‘I might not know what I want at every moment,’ asserts Finkleman, ‘but I know what I don’t want.’

Finkleman is currently working on a limited comedy series called Ice Cold, about a once-celebrated writer/director whose career has taken a nosedive. His plans also include a script about the 1976 assassination of Chilean diplomat Orlando Letelier by members of Augusto Pinochet’s secret service.