Newish, a comedy series about Ukrainian immigration, premieres through Onofrey Studio

Ana Onofrey had over a decade of filmmaking experience in Ukraine before the war forced her to leave everything behind three and a half years ago. When she arrived in Ottawa, she found herself looking for films that reflected the immigrant experience — but what she found disappointed her.

"It was all about the tragedy of immigration," Onofrey said. "I am an immigrant, I have to face that every single day. I don't want to watch more about how hard that is."

So she created one herself. NEWISH, a new six-episode comedy series, follows Natasha, a Ukrainian actress who moved to Ottawa months earlier and now works a survival job while pursuing her acting career. The show explores universal immigrant experiences — struggles with cultural differences, accents, and the gap between ambition and circumstance — but it does so with humour and optimism.

"When you have this really dramatic and not funny story, but you tell it with an absolute positive style and point of view, that's when it works," Onofrey said.

Actress Anastasiia Ziurkalova, who plays Natasha, embodies the show's authenticity. Ziurkalova began acting for film at age 10 and moved to Canada when Ukraine was fully invaded in 2022. Like her character, she struggled with starting over as an actress and finding work that accounted for her Ukrainian accent. But she has now built a life here. "I have my life here now, and I actually started to have friends, new jobs," Ziurkalova said. "I would never guess that I would end up in Canada, meet my love here, get married. But life is so unexpected, and that's the beauty of it."

Co-producer Heidi Lasi did not immigrate to Canada, but her parents arrived from Yugoslavia at the end of the Second World War. She felt a heartfelt connection to Onofrey's pitch. "Canada is a country of immigrants and refugees," Lasi said. "Even though it's many decades later, it seemed really important to me to be able to share with audiences a modern take on the stories that I grew up with."

Ziurkalova emphasized what sets the show apart: "A lot of people, when they think of immigrants, they think of drama, people facing hardship. My character also faces the troubles that every immigrant faces, but she still tries to be in high spirits."