News

The Roku Channel has picked up the Canadian streaming comedy Bria Mack Gets a Life for North America, the U.K. and Mexico.

The licensing deal is for the six-part series that follows Bria McFarlane, played by Malaika Hennie-Hamadi, as a 25-year-old black woman navigating adulthood in a predominantly white world. That’s made all the more difficult, yet more tolerable, by Black Attack (Hannan Younis) being her invisible hype girl.

As Bria balances being the most educated family member and her overdue credit card bill, Black Attack expresses her inner thoughts that reveal who Bria wants to be, but doesn’t believe she’s allowed to. And just as Bria moves back home and her mother looks to retire, she has to assemble her life — friends, dating, a place to live, and most importantly, a job to fund it all — before time runs out.

Malaika Hennie-Hamadi, Hannan Younis, Sasha Leigh Henry...

Coming off another year marked by uncertainty and conflict, ordinary, unlikely heroes take center stage in a slew of new shows. While crime especially the Nordic-inspired kind is not going anywhere, and there are quite a few spectacles waiting around the corner, including Mipcom world premiere “Concordia,” intimate stories about families and friends butting heads but ultimately trying to come together continue to dominate the market stage. There are also more portrayals of strong, complicated women who dare to dream big today or in the past. The following is a list of some of the buzziest titles at Mipcom.

“After the Party”

(ITV Studios)

Penny Wilding (played by Robyn Malcolm) likes to keep herself very busy: she is a science teacher, basketball coach, environmental activist, mother and grandmother. Famously outspoken and suffering no fools, she alienates many in her close-knit community. But Penny is perfectly fine with that.

She is harboring a painful memory,...

World premieres of Netflix’s All the Light We Cannot See, Amazon’s Expats starring Nicole Kidman, and Euphoria creator Ron Leshem’s Hebrew-language drama Bad Boy were unveiled as part of the Toronto Film Festival’s Primetime program on Monday.

TIFF, making a big step up this year for the sidebar of international prestige TV series, will show the first two episodes of All the Light We Cannot See, a limited series starring Mark Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie, written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) and directed by Shawn Levy (Stranger Things).

And The Farewell director Lulu Wang is returning to Toronto with Amazon’s Expats, with Kidman and Sarayu Blue in a drama about a group of close-knit women expatriates in Hong Kong. There’s also first looks for U.K. Channel Four’s Alice & Jack, a romantic comedy that stars Domhnall Gleeson and Andrea Riseborough.

Also bowing...

Click here to read the full article.

Malaika Hennie-Hamadi and Hannan Younis have grabbed the lead roles in the Canadian streaming TV comedy Bria Mack Gets A Life.

Hennie-Hamadi has TV credits with Age of the Living Dead, The Handmaid’s Tale and the Fear Thy Roomate crime drama. Younis’ small screen credits include Ruby and the Well, TallBoyz, Firestarter and The Boys.

The cameras will start rolling this week on the half-hour comedy from creator and showrunner Sasha Leigh Henry; New Metric Media, the producer of Letterkenny and Shoresy; and the Crave streaming TV service.

Hennie-Hamadi will play Bria “Mack” McFarlane, a 25-year-old Black woman and university graduate in a mainly white world, a journey made both difficult and tolerable by Black Attack, her invisible hype girl played by Younis who helps her navigate life’s frustrations and hurdles.

As Bria balances being the most educated family member and her overdue credit card bill,...

Firestarter Review — Firestarter (2022) Film Review, a movie directed by Keith Thomas, written by Scott Teems and starring Zac Efron, Ryan Kiera Armstrong, Sydney Lemmon, Michael Greyeyes, Gloria Reuben, Kurtwood Smith, John Beasley, Tina Jung, Hannan Younis, Jeremy Ferdman, Jamillah Ross, Sheila Boyd, Darrin Maharaj, Danny Waugh and Lanette Ware. 1984’s moderate success, Firestarter, [...]

Continue reading: Film Review: Firestarter (2022): New Remake of Stephen King’s Horror Story Crashes and Burns Despite Plot Changes...

Programmers at the Park City jamboree’s upcoming 23rd edition announced on Monday the 11 narrative and eight documentary selections that will play in January.

The 2017 showcase will also feature Dig (Digital, Interactive & Gaming), a platform of eight works by emerging artists working in cutting-edge digital media, while Polytechnic is a series of free workshops exploring disruptive perspectives on filmmaking from industry insiders.

“As filmmakers themselves, the Slamdance programmers and staff share the same creative spirit as the festival artists,” said Slamdance co-founder and president, Peter Baxter. “Our stories are different but our divergent attitude is the same.

“Together, we give a voice to Diy filmmaking. Empowering emerging artists is what we do, and you are about to see a great group at Slamdance 2017.”

The feature competition roster includes 16 premieres – 12 world, 3 North American and one Us. All competition films are feature directorial debuts with budgets of under $1m and without Us distribution.

Jury awards...