From Realscreen MIP Shopper’s Guide Part One: Paradise Kitchen: Bali (10 x 22 min.), coproduced by Save Your Day Films, sees Kynd Food co-founder Lauren Camilleri exploring the titular region’s food, culture and people……..Other MIPCOM titles include the third season of skateboarding series A Simple Path (10 x 22 min.)….
Read Ariel’s article, “Unstoppable Voices: I’ve Run Every Day for 21 Years” by clicking here.
Canadian comic Cara Connors now lives in L.A. but the comedian is heading home this weekend as a part of her first North American tour which includes a show at Comedy Bar with Toronto’s own Natalie Norman opening. We got the chance to chat with Cara prior to the show to find out more about her. Click here for more.
Webby-award-winning digital-first media company Underknown announces today that they are once again expanding their brand portfolio by acquiring the popular science YouTube channel “Aperture”. Approaching 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, “Aperture” covers topics spanning across the STEM and psychology space. In addition to YouTube, the show will now also be published across Underknown’s network on Facebook and Snapchat. “Expanding our content themes into Philosophy, Science and Psychology is exciting to Underknown as we work towards our goal of educating the world about science and the humanities,” said Underknown CEO and Co-Founder Steve Hulford. Link here
Celebrating four years in operation, with two of those years being in the pandemic is strange. While business is booming, there are some folks in the struggle of the lasting effects of Covid – and in myriad ways. So, to keep it simple, I’d like to thank all the wonderful partners of my clients who made it a successful 2021 – 2022: 1895 Films, ADM Media, Blue Ant Media, Cineflix, Corus, Discovery, Fox, Great Pacific Media, HGTV, History, Hulu, Loose World, MacGillivray Freeman Films, Magical Elves, Magnolia, Netflix, North Maple Productions, Outside, Parabolic, Pond5, Rabbit’s Foot, RIVR, Sharp Entertainment, Shatner Universe, Short Street Media, Six West, Snap, Switchblade, and WETV. I look forward to seeing everyone again very soon.
From ChicagoNow by Teme Ring - Cara Connors describes herself as a “former Catholic high school/current queer, corn-fed comedian.” That’s just part of the story. She started out in the Chicago suburbs, then moved to New York, Toronto and Los Angeles, all the while picking up experiences, insights, and brilliant comedic steam.
Cara grew up in Niles and attended Regina Dominican High School in Wilmette. College in New York followed, then marriage. Together with her husband, she moved to Canada where she made key discoveries that would change life for the better, both for her and for comedy fans. Read more here
From the Tampa Bay Times - When Amina Stevens chose her career, the Tampa native decided to follow the footsteps of several family members and become a high school English teacher.
She loved helping her students, but early on she knew that job wasn’t quite right. As she thought more about the house hunting shows she grew up watching on HGTV, she thought: Why not try real estate?
Stevens, 28, found her stride as a broker associate with EXP Realty. She’s still a fan of HGTV — only now, she’s the one on the screen.
The new show First Timers Club stars Stevens as she helps Tampa Bay families navigate a fiercely competitive housing market to purchase their first homes. She uses her background as an educator to help clients understand the three main roadblocks to home ownership: financing, education and emotions.
By James Scott - In anticipation of her first Austin show this Saturday at Fallout Theater, Cara Connors bought a secondhand pair of Wranglers and, very crucially, a small cowboy hat.
She wears it in promotional pictures for her Straight for Pay tour, and the tiny 10-gallon hat completes her look, which she describes as “a tomboy degenerate mixed with a cowboy prince streetwear style.” Turns out, the hat doesn’t belong to Connors but to Kenny Kitchen, a stuffed owl doll she’s had since working at a summer camp in college. She bought him a western costume to match the ones she and her girlfriend wore to her camp friends’ weddings – though not because a costume was asked for. Connors just likes to have fun, to have hoot & holler energy, which is what those attending her show can expect.
Connors confesses she bloomed in her queerness a little later than most: in her mid-20s, she came out, divorced her straight husband, and started exploring her gay second adolescence. “It did kind of feel like I was a teenager … sort of a fake idealized version of what a teenager is, because I think I never actually experienced it the first time around.”
Her evolution with queer identity comingles with her journey in standup. Now reaching the seven-year mark in her comedic career, Connors says her onstage personality has caught up with her authentic self. “I use [the stage] kind of as a place to show all of my biggest flaws, and instead of hiding them, amplify them and lean into them.” While molding her storytelling style into something more vulnerable, Connors says she often uses self-deprecation as a way to keep from punching down. Her comedy is meant to bring the audience together by sharing in the absurdity of life, “like wow, being alive and a human is honestly so deeply mortifying in so many ways.”
She points out that being queer forces a person into being an outsider – which brings into sharp relief society’s absurdity. An aspect of queer life that strikes Connors as particularly funny is the parallel universes LGBTQIA folks and straight people live in. Her example is an Uber driver, who gave her and her girlfriend a ride from the airport and was effusively chatty while Connors pretended to sleep, “which is my survival mechanism of choice.” The driver spouted off multiple questions about the couple’s trip and relationship, and her girlfriend eventually admitted they were together and visiting family. “And the driver says, ‘Oh, first time meeting his family?’ … Like, he kept talking like, he just had no idea what was going on at all.” Connors points out that queer people frequently notice these moments of spirited but confused support as well as flat out confusion from seemingly straight people, but “there's not necessarily as many voices that are calling those things out.”
While she acknowledges that coming out in adulthood isn’t unique to her, Connors still brings her own voice to the experience in her standup and uses that queer perspective to inform her acting work as well. As her tour title implies, Connors isn’t above nabbing straight roles from straight actors. “I mean, they do it to us all the time. So I just feel like, you know, payback’s a bitch.” Having found her most authentic queer self, she’s also discovered the joy of being paid to play straightness for camp. “I enjoy being straight now more than I did when I was actually living it.”
Read the original story here
From today’s release here - “….On the east coast, Expedition Great White examines the dramatic rise of great white sharks spotted in Nova Scotia waters during the fall and summer months. The documentary is produced by Edward Peill, Tell Tale Productions (The Curse of Oak Island) and Ken MacDonald, former Vice President and General Manager for Discovery Channel in Canada. Overseen by Sam Linton, both development projects underpin Blue Ant Media’s commitment to work with regional producers across Canada and invest in high-quality, distinctive programming that resonate with audiences coast to coast.”
Planet Rewild, which will premiere in 2022, is focused on bringing Re:wild’s mission to “protect the wild that’s left and restore the rest” in-app, allowing Snapchatters to learn, explore and uncover some of the most pressing threats to nature and our own survival. The series depicts what the Earth will look like in the coming decades if we don’t learn to “rewild” our planet — and also offers a vision of the flourishing ecosystems that could emerge if we allow the wild to be restored. We don’t need to reinvent the planet; we need to rewild it.
FROM GREG HEMMINGS - We at Hemmings House Pictures are so excited to share with the world a little piece of where we live and play, here in New Brunswick, Canada. 'Take Me To Your Locals' follows hosts Sam and John as they explore the Gateway to the Fundy Experience; the adventure town of Sussex. We shot this at the end of the winter last year, and there was still enough ice to climb, and snow to ride! We hope you get inspired to get outside and play after watching this. Thanks to our friends at Tourism, Heritage and Culture for supporting this adventure!
Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/HkCfxHroKg4
Los Angeles-based comedian, Cara Connors, launches her first North American tour in 2022 based on her successful monthly queer comedy showcase, Straight for Pay. A fitting back-to-back kick off on January 29th in San Francisco at PianoFight, and Oakland’s historic White Horse Inn the following day, are the first two dates in a 15 city tour that includes Brooklyn’s Union Hall, Chicago’s The Hideout, and culminates at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles.
“The comedians are either straight, or willing for the right price, but most of them are gay for free.” says Connors, who founded Straight for Pay late Summer 2021. “I book my favorites, most of whom happen to be queer, and curate shows so audiences see diverse lineups offering radically different perspectives, versus the typical one-woman-buried-in the-20-guys-slinging-dick-jokes at an old school comedy club.” The philosophy resonated with audiences and developed a cult following among LA’s indie scene with the likes of Rory Scovel, Hannah Einbinder, and Moses Storm performing to sold out audiences with no formal advertising or press.
A “formerly kept woman and your current girlfriend’s favorite ex-girlfriend,” Connor’s appearances include Just for Laughs, as a series regular on E!’s Dating #NoFilter, and her own series Cara Takes Up Space on OUTtv, plus her pre-pandemic headlining show at the New York Comedy Festival was described as “extraordinarily self-aware, deeply anxious and very self-effacing with some guttural screams thrown in for good measure.” A perpetual late bloomer, the hour explores Connors’ second adolescence and sexual awakening, post divorce “rumspringa,” and occassionally feral existence as a queer, millenial comedian chasing her dreams in Los Angeles while trying to make up for lost time. It’s messy and vulnerable, and also very, very funny.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, November 17, 2021--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Great Pacific Media ("GPM"), a division of Thunderbird Entertainment Group Inc. (TSXV:TBRD, OTCQX:THBRF), has partnered with director, writer and producer Brad Peyton and visionary physicist Michio Kaku for its new series, If: Imagine the Impossible. The futuristic drama-doc series is based on Underknown’s social media sensation What If, the number one science program on social media, according to Tubular Labs, with 30+ million followers and over 10 billion views on YouTube. Full press release here.
Congratulations, Red Arrow Industries!
Underknown has won the RTDNA Award for Best News Live Event Special for their LIVEMEDAID project that raised funds and provided early education during the early stages of the covid19 pandemic.
From the My San Antonio - In case you're not familiar with the real estate husband and designer wife duo, they made their HGTV debut two years ago with "Going For Sold." The show follows the couple as they take on Houston's worst houses and embark on a home renovation project together. They pool their skills to transform run-down homes in upscale neighborhoods into "sleek and modern abodes that won't break the bank."
Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/Political Documentary Program
9/11 Kids
Documentary channel (CBC)
Saloon Media/Blue Ant Studios
Steve Gamester, Michael Kot, Betty Orr, Elizabeth St. Philip
Best Reality/Competition Program or Series
Canada’s Drag Race
Crave (Bell Media)
Saloon Media/Blue Ant Studios
Producers: Michael Kot, Laura Michalchyshyn, Betty Orr, Mike Bickerton, Pam McNair, RuPaul Charles, Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, Tom Campbell, Randy Lennox, Tracey Pearce, Jen Markowitz
From Underknown: Thank you! Over 33 million people follow "What If", which is available in ten languages around the world. Each month over 60m active viewers watch our "What If" show. We do it for you!
Our people, over 100 people around the world wake up each day and bring themselves to create hit series such as "What If". It is truly a team effort and we are grateful we get to do this.
Our social media platform partners: Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok - Thank you for your continued support.
Our mission is to educate new generations about science and the humanities by telling stories that entertain and engage.
