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Exclusive: Just across the East River from Manhattan, New York’s newest purpose-built film and TV production facility is slated to open this spring.

The venue, Borden Studios, will occupy the top floors of a complex on Borden Avenue in the Queens neighborhood of Long Island City.

The privately owned site was built by real estate investment and operating company Innovo Property Group, which is backed by Nan Fung Group. Innovo secured a $435 million refinancing agreement before beginning construction in 2022.

The facility will have four sound stages and 220,000 square feet of production space and is being touted for its location, which is within easy reach of many New York-based industryites. It will soon be joined by East End Studios in Sunnyside, Queens. When East End broke ground last November, Mayor Eric Adams described Western Queens (the section of the borough where East End and Borden sit) as “a worthy rival to Hollywood.

Toronto director Andrew Chung says the Canadian entertainment industry has failed Asian Canadians like himself for decades by mostly erasing their representation on domestic TV sets.

But the industry-realigning success and controversy around Kim’s Convenience on Netflix has led Canadian TV programmers to finally greenlight more stories by and about Asian Canadians. That’s unlike Hollywood where the box office success of Crazy Rich Asians already had Asian Americans breaking through the U.S. industry’s bamboo ceiling far earlier.

“The difference is in the U.S. it’s very in your face, the issues being confronted, while in Canada we’...

Toronto director Andrew Chung says the Canadian entertainment industry has failed Asian Canadians like himself for decades by mostly erasing their representation on domestic TV sets.

But the industry-realigning success and controversy around Kim’s Convenience on Netflix has led Canadian TV programmers to finally greenlight more stories by and about Asian Canadians. That’s unlike Hollywood where the box office success of Crazy Rich Asians already had Asian Americans breaking through the U.S. industry’s bamboo ceiling far earlier.

“The difference is in the U.S. it’s very in your face, the issues being confronted, while in Canada we’...

Playwright Katori Hall has won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for her comedy “The Hot Wing King.” The organization behind journalism’s most prestigious honor also bestowed a special citation on Darnella Frazier, the teenager who videotaped George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020.

Hall is also a showrunner and executive producer of the Starz drama “P-Valley.” “Hot Wing King” opened Feb. 11, 2020, at New York’s Signature Theater but was forced to close only weeks later by the pandemic. The Pulitzer board cited Hall’s work for its “funny, deeply felt consideration of Black masculinity and how it is perceived, filtered through the experiences of a loving gay couple and their extended family as they prepare for a culinary competition.”

Frazier’s special citation commended her “for courageously recording the murder of George Floyd, a video that spurred protests against police brutality around the world,...

The first feature film by Canadian director Andrew Chung has been presented in the program of this year’s CAAMFest. Andrew Chung alias Andrew C is responsible also for the screenplay and production of the film. “White Elephant” is on some formal aspects a bit unhandy. But on an emotional level, a genuine coming of age drama.

The protagonist of the film is the young high school student Pooja. She has been born in Canada, but has Indian roots. Set in 1996, the film depicts the insecurities of the teenager and her friends through some popular films of the time such as “Romeo + Juliet” by Baz Luhrmann. Pooja dreams to take the role of the heroine and her crash Trevor to be her Romeo. Unfortunately, Trevor is a white boy. He and his friends don’t even think of mingling with Pooja and her friends, all of Indian descent. In fact,...

Independent web series creators had a big year in 2014. Out of the hundreds of new series that hit the Internet this year, we managed to pick out about 50 shows that deserved a closer look. Now, as in 2013, we're narrowing down even further. Here, without further ado, are Tubefilter's top five favorite Indie Spotlight series of 2014:

Millions

On the whole, web series creators trend toward comedy over drama. It is much easier to convince general viewers to check out a fun, light romp than a deep, serious work, and so the dramas we do see often cater to a specific niche in order to appeal more directly to a specific audience.

Millions is, strictly speaking, one of those niche series. It follows a group of Asian-North Americans who are looking to live the dream and strike it big. At the same time, Millions goes far beyond its "Asian" classification. Viewers...

It is extremely difficult to create a worthwhile drama series on the web. Online audiences prefer short, snackable content that enhances moods and flies along at a brisk pace, a description that leans toward comedy. On Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, hundreds of TV dramas are available on demand, each one featuring the best actors, editors, and directors money can buy. How, then, can filmmakers create a series that commands viewer attention without sacrificing production quality or pacing? Millions provides a masterclass. The recently-launched web series about a group of Asian-North American friends hoping to strike it big is not just its creator's passion project; it's a drama web series of outstanding quality. Creator Andrew Chung has worked on Millions for four years. It began in 2010 as an $8,000 Kickstarter campaign, which funded the pilot. Three years later, that pilot arrived at the New York Television Festival, where we noted it as...