Sameer Gardezi's 'East of La Brea' finds home at Powederkeg
Back in October, Sameer Gardezi along with MuslimARC and Pop Collab came together for their first writer's room initiative, "The Break Room: Writing for Color, Inclusion, and a Culture Shift."Cut to today- the initiative landed their project in the hands of Paul Feig's Production company, "Powderkeg." The Hollywood Reporter exclusively broke the news...
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER:
Sameer Gardezi along with MuslimARC and Pop Collab have come together for their first writer's room initiative, "The Break Room: Writing for Color, Inclusion, and a Culture Shift." Selected writers will collaborate with community leaders and organizers in Los Angeles for a five day writers room. Three selected writers will come together to pen a digital scripted series and you don't need to be a professional writer to apply. Applicants just need to have a passion for story telling and submit an example of some written work. Don't hesitate to apply. The deadline is next week, October 25th!
The show will follow two twentysomethings struggling to navigate the changing landscape of their native Los Angeles home and their own ethnic communities.
Paul Feig’s digital media production company, Powderkeg, has greenlighted the digital shortform show East of La Brea.
The project, which is the company's first original series, follows Aisha Hassan, a Black Muslim, and her Bangladeshi-American roommate, Farha Munshi, both twentysomethings struggling to navigate the changing landscape of their native Los Angeles home and their own ethnic communities.
Sameer Gardezi, who has writing credits on Modern Family and Outsourced, created the show using a grant from the philanthropic fund Pop Culture Collaborative and working with MuslimARC to develop a project that is authentic to the Muslim-American experience.
Gardezi will executive produce along with Powderkeg’s Feig and Laura Fischer, who are privately funding the series through a partnership with Lyft Entertainment and Muslim American funding intiative Pillars Fund.
"The inception of this show is a story unto itself, but the stories told through this series are beautifully authentic, and we’re so excited to partner on telling such a magnetic and diverse story," Feig and Fischer said in a statement.
Added Gardezi: "I'm beyond excited to be a part of this process and hope we can continue to build a pipeline for underrepresented voices both in front and behind the camera. I'm interested in growing diversity, not injecting it."
2016 C3 Conference: Writing for Diverse Voices in TV and Film (WGA Panel)
