Samantha Kaine

Samantha Kaine
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Portrays:	Off-duty Crew Person
Date of Birth:	January 25, 1973
Date of Death:	Missing required parameter 1=month!
Age:	53
Nationality:	CAN
Related Media
		@ BW Media
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IMDb profile

Samantha Kaine (born Samantha Banton) is a Jamaican-Canadian actor, producer, and activist who portrayed an off-duty crew person in the Re-imagined Series episode "Someone to Watch Over Me". Born on 25 January 1973 in Runaway Bay, St. Ann's Parish, Jamaica, she grew up in Ottawa and Toronto, Ontario before establishing a career in both acting and producing in the Canadian film and television industry.

Career

Acting

Kaine began her professional career on stage before transitioning to on-screen work in the early 2000s. She made her television debut in the MTV series Undressed (2002), playing a character named Libby, and appeared the same year in George Clooney's directorial debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), billed under her birth name Samantha Banton. She subsequently appeared in the drama series Soul Food (2003) and guest-starred in Smallville (2004) as a nurse treating Chloe Sullivan.

In 2005, she appeared in Stargate SG-1 as a Goa'uld Lieutenant in the eighth-season episode "Reckoning: Part 1", and as Vanessa in the The L Word episode "Loneliest Number". Further television work in the mid-2000s included the television film Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story (2004), the crime drama Black Widower (2006), and Proof of Lies (2006).

In 2008, she played Esmeline, a disgraced Omadrian healer, in the Flash Gordon episode "Blame", and appeared as Lara Steeves in the television film The Perfect Assistant (2008). In 2009, she appeared in "Someone to Watch Over Me", the seventeenth episode of the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica.

In the 2010s, Kaine's credits included guest appearances in Degrassi (2014), Saving Hope (2015) as cardiac patient Leila Patterson across two episodes, and Rookie Blue (2015) as Frances Swain in the episode "Breaking Up the Band". She also appeared in the Crackle drama The Art of More (2015) as Kelly Watkins, and as Donnette across two episodes of the CBC drama Shoot the Messenger (2016).

In 2020, she appeared in the Netflix miniseries Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker. She appeared as Detective Petra Weintrager in The Baker (2023), a feature film directed by Jonathan Sobol opposite Ron Perlman. She also appeared as Helen in the action-comedy film The Retirement Plan (2023), directed by Tim Brown and starring Nicolas Cage, Ashley Greene, Ron Perlman, Jackie Earle Haley, and Ernie Hudson.

Theatre

Kaine founded her own Toronto-based theatre company, Veritas Theatre, around 2016. In 2017, Veritas produced an Equity revival of playwright Salvatore Antonio's S H E E T S, in which Kaine both produced and performed. The production included an all-nude audience night on 1 April 2017, an event that drew coverage from national entertainment press.

Producing career

As founder of Red11 Productions Inc., Kaine's producer credits include the short films Willing to Lie (2018), in which she also appeared as Detective Lehan, and The Women of Alpine Road (2019), a short drama about two estranged women confronting a shared past. She also served as production manager on Subjects of Desire (2021), Jennifer Holness's documentary about Black women and beauty standards, which premiered at SXSW.

She developed, co-wrote, and produced the six-part TV documentary series Offbeat Roads – The Danakil Diaries (2013), which followed sixteen cyclists through the Danakil region of Ethiopia and was sold to broadcast territories including France, Brazil, Hungary, and Israel. The production required leading a crew of 32 people in Ethiopia.

Kaine was named a 2018 resident of the Cineplex Entertainment Producers' Lab at the Canadian Film Centre in Toronto, part of that year's cohort — the centre's 30th-anniversary class and its first predominantly female intake.

Industry advocacy

Kaine is the founder and executive director of the Independent Media Producers Association of Creative Talent (IMPACT), a national non-profit incorporated in September 2020 to combat systemic anti-Black racism and open pathways for Black, Afro-Indigenous, and other marginalized producers in the Canadian film, television, digital media, and music industries. She launched IMPACT in conjunction with the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2020, telling The Hollywood Reporter: "I've been working in this industry for over ten years and the doors have been closed to me. There were opportunities I felt I should have had, when it came to funding and pitching broadcasters on shows, and they weren't open to me."

IMPACT launched a Producers Pledge in 2020, a coalition effort that grew from a CA$160,000 fundraising total to raise more than CA$300,000 to support traditionally under-represented filmmakers, with over 175 production companies signing on. Institutional partners and sponsors have included BMO as Legacy Sponsor, Canada Media Fund, Telefilm Canada, SODEC, Bell Media, and Netflix.

IMPACT's flagship initiative is the Producer Career Catalyst Accelerator Platform (PCCAP), a three-year accelerator for mid-career Black producers covering business infrastructure, capital fluency, and global market access. Kaine has also represented IMPACT internationally, moderating and panelling at Durban FilmMart 2025 and participating in Content London 2024. In April 2026, IMPACT published an open letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney calling for the inclusion of Black creators and racialized communities in Canada's cultural sovereignty and national AI strategy.

Beyond IMPACT, Kaine serves as Program Director of the OYA Emerging Filmmakers Producer Incubator Program. She has also served on the boards of the Canadian Independent Screen Fund for Black Creators, the Coalition for the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (CDCE), and the English Language Arts Network (ELAN), and has participated in Telefilm Canada's Diversity and Inclusion Working Group.

References